Spent 4 hours tracking down a bad ground on a 2012 Ford Focus

Thought it was the alternator, swapped it out, still dead. Turned out to be a ground strap corroded under the battery tray, hidden by a plastic cover. Anyone else had one that took way longer than it should have?

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elliotr393mo ago

Man, that's the stuff that makes you want to set the car on fire. It's always the stupid, simple thing hidden by a plastic cover that eats your whole day. Feels like life in general does that, you think you got a big problem but it's just some tiny hidden detail messing everything up.

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leo_carr133mo ago

Exactly what I've been noticing too. It's like when you can't find your keys for twenty minutes and they're just right there in your hoodie pocket. Our brains always want to look for the big dramatic explanation when it's usually the boring little thing hiding in plain sight. The older I get the more I realize most of life's headaches follow this same pattern. You'll stress for days about something at work or with family, then it turns out you just missed one tiny email or forgot to ask a simple question. Makes you wonder how much time we waste looking for monsters under the bed when there's just a sock on the floor.

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