That is always a good fix. But it is a stopgap. Heating the rest of the electronic chips to that temperature for the time needed to reflow the solder can cause the chips to break down faster. I knew people who did that, and never had an issue again. Conversely, I know quite a few that the box gave up the ghost after…

Does it have navigation? If it does, I can tell you a really neat trick to see if it is toast.

The HVAC fan loves to burn up the harness where it plugs in. That’s always fun. They came up with a repair kit where you replace just the affected wires instead of the dash harness.

I know the “Malaise Era” denotes the mid 70's kill horsepower with kill smog equipment, but the 80's were not much better. All American cars with the 85 MPH speedometers, aerodynamics of a cardboard box, and my personal favorite, “There’s a hill coming up. I have to turn off the AC so we can get over it.”

They hammer me all the time. The mail ones are useful, though. They serve as fuel for my charcoal chimney.

Yep. I owned a same generation TL for 8 years.

No. On the cooling mod.

Where do you live? In what region of the country?

Done.

Arming. You have about 30 seconds or so between the doors locking and the system going full armed. The bright red light by the driver’s lock nub starts blinking, the system is fully set.

I was thinking of something completely different, obviously.

If you got a satnav that’s factory, I can tell you about the advanced screens. The ones to help diag nav, HFL, XM, etc. Not that hard to get into. Fun stuff.

Acura tech here. All that stuff is surprisingly commonplace. The o-ring, HFL, gas cap, Brembo pads? All par for the course. The dead giveaway for the HFL unit hanging up is to put your hand just in front of the map lamps in the overhead console. If it is warm or hot whilst the car is off, boo-yah.

Winter mode. Acura cars have a detent in their wiper transmission. It keeps the wipers closer to the defrost vents to prevent freezups. The older ones actually had an electric switch.

Okay, that's pretty godsdamned funny.

Wait until you need to get the crank pulley bolt out of that Honda. I have an Ingersoll-Rand 1/2 impact that was the most powerful one the tool truck sold. 1100 ft/lbs of axle-shearing twist. [insert Tim Allen grunt here] For the longest time, it was the strongest impact in my shops. Timing belt time comes and you…

Yeah, but wasn't the western world in the dark about it for a while? If I remember correctly, radiation detectors in Finland picked up the fallout. Then Mother Russia had to disclose what happened?

Same here. I was in kindergarten. I went every other day. So I was home when it happened. My mother was out of the room when it exploded. So I called her back in to ask her what I saw on the screen. She wouldn't answer me and turned the channel. I never figured it out until some time later.

Limited slip differential.

Good. Like most gingers, he was sucking the soul out through the nose.