# 151 boondock below Cedar city exit 42 on I -15 south

We left antimony Utah and we're heading towards the Sand Creek State Park. The throttle position sensor problem comes and goes and we never really know when it's going to fail or when it's going to be good, we just never know what's going to happen.

When it does fail the first thing you get is a check engine light and then the pressing on the gas pedal doesn't do anything. It doesn't respond to what your foot is telling it to do. This was quite a chore when we were going up the hill towards Antimony and Capitol Reef because first the truck would overheat and then we would somehow muddle through that and then the dang throttle position sensor would act up.

Sometimes I could pull over and pull the battery cable off and it would reset the computer. Sometimes I could reset the code with the monitor machine I have. Sometimes it would just be awful and sometimes it would get better but it was just so inconsistent. I feel like I've told this story and several different blogs but just to kind of review.

We first had the problem in Florida at Crooked River State Park. I had no idea what was going on and I luckily was able to reset it was just luck and blessings. On the way to our next stop which is Bartow California, it completely failed me and I was going about 3 miles an hour on a highway, which means my max speed available.

Through luck, I found that if I push the emergency brake and padded accelerator, he would kind of go forward and if I could get it up to about 30 or 40 miles an hour they probably go away but as soon as I stopped accelerating it would fail again so I replace the throttle position sensor out of a $250 in Bartow Florida.

It worked for about an hour and then I had to go to a garage and have the computer reset and it worked great for a while. I know I've got it written down somewhere but I replaced the throttle position sensor under warranty a total of 5 times. The ones I remember right now are Bartow fl, Bakersfield California, just east of the Petrified Forest in New Mexico. For the purposes of this story let's just say it was quite a lot. I think this was my 5th time it happened. Instead of going to Bryce or Zion, we made a b line to Las Vegas. So, we left out of Antimony and went towards Sand Creek and a but halfway there we were on the interstate and the throttle position sensor failed. I pulled over at an exit and decided to drop the camper and go directly to Advance and try to get a throttle position sensor still under warranty. Keep in mind when it failed, I'm on the interstate going about 10 miles an hour so and that's the max speed I can go so I'm in the shoulder trying very hard to get it to that 40 mile-an-hour Breaking Point and luckily at some point I did. and I got it up to about 55 miles an hour and took the exit and pulled into the only vacant looking parking lot I could find. Surprisingly the owner of the business kind of looked at me like you can't just park here but it was after 5 p.m. I let him know that I was only going to get a part and I'll be right back. He said just know that you can't park here overnight.

As usual with me, I had this long-winded conversation with him about everything and he mentioned it he had a certain amount of diesel mechanic experience. We talked a little bit about this and that and he was fine with what I was doing. I went to the Advance auto parts which had been actually purchased by Carquest at this point. They still warrantied anything that had been bought at advance auto. I assume that I had been lucky to have been helped so many times by Advance auto workers who just looked at my situation and said well it does have a lifetime warranty so we see no problem with that. I would take the part off-take inside they would give me another one. I would sign a piece of paper and keep ongoing.

This particular time when I told the guy my story, he just happened to be the store manager, and he kind of noticed that there was a history that I had already done this about 4 to 5 times. At first, you said there's no way I'm going to warranty this, you must have some sort of wiring problem in your truck because it can’t be our part causing this failure. I told him that I was beginning to feel like he was exactly right and what would he suggest. After talking and trying to create an instant relationship he said he would sell me the part and I would then give him my old part because I was in a bind. This was conditional as long as I promised to have the work done by a local shop. Things just got a little better and he said here's what I'm going to do. I am going to do this warranty exchange but I have to put some notes in the system that says this is the last time Advance can do this. I was grateful and we did our exchanges. I contacted the people that he referred me to look at the truck wiring. They were very busy for days and days and so they referred me to a guy in Utah.

I made an appointment with them as it was in St George Utah.

The exit I took when the throttle failed was a town called Cedar City Utah. We had not intended to stay there but after I finished with Advance we pulled into a gas station. A very eager beaver-type fellow came out and wanting to be so extremely helpful pointed out that our suspension system looked weird to him. He was kind of a highway robbery fast-talking kind of guy. He convinced me that the structural member that lives between the two sets of leaf springs was completely cheap pot metal made in China bad for everybody. He had the most amazing replacement right here in his shop in stock today only. He said something like he could probably do it for as low as $2,000 and I said dude that ain't going to happen. I looked online and the parts could be had for as much or as little as about 150 each which remember is 300 total. That means the for about a hundred and fifty labor we should have or $500 job. It is something that I probably needed to do and I realized it just because you can get something cheap online doesn't mean everything.

I rejected his offer and came back for something like with a boss who said he would do it for a thousand. I felt like they were still charging about 300 too much under any circumstances but that it made me feel safer to get it done I went for it and they let us sort of sleep at a Boondock beside them in a gravel driveway and they allowed us to fill up with water. It was a good kind of uncomfortable thing but we did it. The next day a guy pulled up and mentioned there were some worker bees and said you need to be gone fairly soon. This was around noon we went ahead and moved on out.

The positive part of our stop at Cedar City was there were some incredible sunsets. I must point out that is weird when you're at the highway robbery gas station and they say that'll be $1,800 and then it goes back to the boss this okay will do it for a thousand that's just weird. Even though I went ahead and went along with it also, still should have been about 600.