fully synthetic (snake?) oil

earlier today, 7:30am saw me around the alabang town center area. hmm. the day before, i got the name of a local auto shop that an officemate recommended for their tune-up services.

threading my way through the parking around the church beside the town center, i drove slowly from one end of the auto shops that lined the edge of the parking lot until i saw the name of the shop under the awnings. "mac-r," though the banner above the awning read "mc clain" something or other.

strangely, they were open at this early hour. well, am here, might as well go for the long-delayed tune up and change oil (the last time i did that was january 13 of this year).

add to that the fact that the car had been idling poorly ever since a late night visit to someone called gorgeous lady to pick up some "contraband" for distribution to interested parties... this lady happens to live in a place called, aptly enough, moonwalk. after that trip, something happened to the carburetor's state of being such that the idle with the aircon on was about 500rpm, a far cry from the previous 1K rpm or such. rough, to say the least.

as a matter of fact, the saturday of the photo trek ii, after the fuel visit to the gas station (that had no mechanics present that day), i took screwdriver in hand and fiddled with a, well, screw on the assembly - and got the car to idle at about 700rpm with the aircon on (but 1200rpm without - oh well).

so, time to hand the car over to the professionals. i opted for replacing the air filter, fuel filter, oil filter, sparkplugs... ...and went for the fully synthetic mobil 1 oil.

needless to say, this spiked the estimate considerably, but the pitch was too good to let pass: 10,000km or one year before the next change, whichever comes first.

hmm.

indeed we shall see. the car runs so much better now, with a considerable increase in response to the gas pedal's prodding.

let's see if this is all just psychosomatic... tune in for further details.