I now have confirmation that there is someone out there in the ether looking over my life and laughing maniacally when I allow myself a moment of contentment and satisfaction before blowing up everything in my face.

The moron at O’Reilley’s auto parts sold me the wrong solenoid. I told him three times I did not want a starter solenoid but a continuous duty one for a motorhome. Guess what he sold me? Yes, the kind that keeps the connection open between both batteries and which sucks dry the higher performing one.

I woke up this morning to flat dead house batteries. 10.5V. We all know what happens when batteries get discharged that badly. My $15.14 part just cost me a $200 set of house batteries. I seriously doubt they can recover from this kind of abuse.

I ran the engine for a full hour and I’m now seeing 12.8V. The sun is barely up, so I know that’s not from the solar array. I can’t trust the battery monitor because it was registering that I was full up when I woke up… Since it was decalibrated, I removed the fuses and then reconnected them and now it’s registering voltage correctly. So my morning wasn’t a total waste.

I’ll talk to the guys when they’re up and about and see what it would take to get some warranty work on my solenoid repair. I suspect the warranty job will be more costly.

I’m glad the manager at O’Reilley’s witnessed the exchange yesterday so I’ll have that on my side when I go marching back in there.

It sucks that the stupid thing is so hard to get to because I know I could pull and reinstall it if I could just get to it.

Today’s mood: crushed.