The Pit And The Peak Of Your Day

I've had a problem on & off with my pickup for about 10 years. During the winter my battery would go dead overnight, and during the summer it would go dead after a few days. I started pulling a couple of fuses (radio and Body Control Module) when I'd get home, then plug them back in when I wanted to drive. After a few years of doing that, I finally took it in to the dealer (that was about 7 years ago.) There was a short in the window/door switch assembly in the driver's arm rest. They replaced it, and things were fine.

Fast-forward a few years and the dying battery problem came back. Since it was no longer my daily driver (only use it for Lowes errands and taking my trash out once a month), I lived with it. Then the security system started acting up. If the truck is running and the computer does not recognize the factory key in the ignition, it assumes the truck has been hot wired and it shuts off the gas...while you're going down the road. I would put it in neutral and coast, and the thing would always start right back up. Not wanting to put money into it, I began hooking my utility trailer up to my car and using that to haul trash and just let the truck sit.

Now that winter is approaching, I need my truck for moving firewood around my property and for pulling small stumps, so I had it towed to the dealer a couple of weeks ago. By then, the problem got worse. All of the idiot lights and the dash gauges (like Fuel Level) stopped working. I looked at Carmax to see if I could replace the truck before dumping money into it, but used trucks with 120,000 miles on them go for over $25,000.

The dealer told me that their diagnostic reader could not even talk to the computer because the body control module (BCM) was dead, and they would have to replace that (and the bad battery) before they could even tell me what was wrong. Not wanting to spend $25,000 to get a truck with the same high mileage (even if I had the money), I told them to replace it. The dealer had to order the BCM from EBay. I was hoping beyond hope that maybe the BCM was the only issue. Well, they called yesterday and it seems that the BCM fixed it. I was all set for them to tell me that the computer and the radio (where the security system resides) were bad, and that I'd have to scour junk yards.

There are some odds & ends it needs in order to pass inspection (wiper blades, backup light bulb, license plate bulb socket), and I could do them myself, but I told them to just take care of it. I also asked them to double-check the parasitic draw on the battery, because I don't want lingering issues and I'm not convinced that the BCM was causing that problem.

It's not a cheap fix, but it's nowhere near what I thought it was gonna be. This time last year I dumped money into having brakes/calipers replaced and front end work done so it could pass inspection. It's running OK and not burning oil, and I'm less than 1/5th the way to buying a high mileage replacement, so hopefully it will last a long time as a seldom used second vehicle having less than 1,000/year put on it. And I've not put any money into it the 18 years I've had it. It's still better than making a payment and paying high insurance & personal property taxes. It just better not take another poop while I'm driving to the trash recycling center.