So true! 3 or 4 weeks ago I saw people going around a mini van at a stop light ahead as I pulled off the freeway riding home from work. My first thought was "why the hell are they just going around?", so I pulled up on the shoulder next to her and asked if she needed help pushing it out of the way. She reacted as if the thought had never crossed her mind, like she was just intending to stay there till aaa came, then said we could try. At the end of a long hard day of working, pushing that van 40 feet backward was the easiest thing I'd done all day, despite me being in a helmet, jacket and long pants in the hot sun.
I was on my way home from the bank after work a few weeks before that and noticed a 4runner with the hood up in a parking lot across the street. It was raining pretty good and I saw the dude had 2 younger boys with him, so I headed over and asked if he needed help. He said he'd had his alternator out twice and had it bench tested, but said each time they told him it was charging. The symptoms sounded identical to when my alt went in my 91, charge light would go on and off, depending on if the brushes could catch contact for long enough. We checked over a bunch of connectors and stuff and found no other issues, so he said he might as well just bite the bullet and buy a kragen alternator. Since he was looking at staying the night anyway, I told him where toyota was, described how to swap out the brushes himself, and told him he'd be miles ahead to hit up toyota first thing in the morning and replace the brushes and have a toyota alternator for under $20, which he decided to do.
