Piece of

Shit car. After getting jerked around by the morons at Home Depot for the better part of the weekend on an aerator that Poot and I were splitting for our yards, they now get to stare at my car in their lot until sometime Monday morning. The jerking around came as the idiots that rented Poot the piece of equipment gave him no instruction on the 4 different switches on this thing nor the levers. No operation manual or "quick start" sheet was provided either. Within about 5 minutes we had the machine cranked and within another 5 we had it working properly, and figured out how to control it. Finished his yard and took it to my place, figuring I would knock my yard out in about an hour. Poot hauled it up there, thinking he could bring it back, to the local HD where he rented it, and we would be done without any trips today.
Engine turned over initially then sputtered out in about 10 seconds. That was the end of any hope. Poot called the knuckleheads we rented it from and all they could say was "you probably flooded the engine, let it sit." They mentioned something about not knowing our mechanical inclination and messing with the spark plug but that was it and gave no detail. We had already "let it sit," which I did for another hour, then again overnight, getting no crank at any time.
At this point I gave up hope on getting my yard done this weekend. Returned it about 9:30 this morning to find out they were going to give us another machine for an additional 4 hours (not to be billed) which also meant I was going to have to bring it back to the south side of town today, not tomorrow. Fine, just get this over with, as little confrontation as possible, please.
Got my yard done, came south to drop it off, had a few other errands to run on this side of town everything is good. Jackass as the rental counter wanted me to back to the rental door because he couldn't come out into the lot. I was in the first spot in the aisle directly outside this door and wanted to do some other shopping after returning the equipment. With a crappy attitude and disbelieved look I finally back over unloaded and jumped in to re-park and get on with life as HD had pretty much wasted a solid 6 hours of my weekend already. Oh, and they have the nerve to tell us that we got ahold of some bad gas with the first machine as it was running fine after they drained the tank. It just so happens we never had to refill it as we were running on the tank they provided us in the beginning
Time to get moving on. Car won't crank.
I've had some power issues indicating the alternator was going bad, or at least had a bad spot. Occasionally it would clock and not fire the car but nothing too bad. I was always able to get it started, much like a contrary starter. Granted I had been putting off having it looked at, I really didn't think I was engaging in very risky behavior. Poot came up to HD, gave me push and I guided it into an easily accessible spot in their lot. In the morning, I will see what the dealership can do about towing it down. They will be fixing it either way as I am only a couple miles up the road. Should make for an interesting way to start the week.
Either way I am in an extremely pissy mood at this point, have an evening of office work ahead of me I had hoped to nickle and dime my way through over the past two afternoons and evenings when I thought all this other stuff would be done. Fortunately Poot is running me to meet Skippy who is riding with the fiance to work in the morning and letting me bum his car during the day while, hopefully, mine gets fixed.
We'll see how it all shakes out, the story could get even more ridiculous with a car dealership and their service department involved.


Update: It's not the alternator. Apparently my battery is shot and won't hold any charge. This will make the second battery in 18 months after the original lasted a good 3-3.5 years. While at the shop they recommend a transmission flush (at nearly 100K miles, I'll go with it) and a new water pump as mine is leaking. I wanna call BS on this but know better. I have noticed what I thought was a bit of an excessive condensate trail. I've had no overheating issues but better safe than sorry. It's gonna sting when I pull that credit card out. At the same time, I'm that much closer to a free flight outta here to somewhere relaxing.