‘Do you need a hand?’
A mechanic who built a massive social media following helping folks with their vehicle woes documented his attempt to help Ford Escape driver who ran out of gasoline.
Matt (@matthemechanic43) may have thought he was just putting gas in her tank, but it turned out that the Escape had more issues than he realized.
“Hey do you need a hand?” Matt, who drives a Cybertruck, asks the Escape driver who’s stranded on the side of the road. “I ran out of gas,” she says.
Luckily, he always keeps spare gasoline in his vehicle. Matt introduces himself and she tells him her name is Iris.
He adds gas to the tank then she attempts to start the car. So Matt gets in the driver’s seat to have a look. There he sees a slew of warning lights on her dashboard.
Iris informs Matt her car’s ignition has been giving her trouble. In order to get it to start, she’s been having to firmly hold the key inside, she says.
Matt pops the hood and attempts to manually crank it. As he does this, one of Iris’ friends shows up and tries to help. After assessing the engine, the two decide a flathead screwdriver will fix the issue.
Matt crawls beneath the car with the screwdriver and tries to start it from there. No luck.
Then he offers to give her car a closer look at no charge. However, since it was getting late, he wouldn’t be able to do so until the next day. He and some others then use a tow strap to pull it into a nearby QuikTrip gas station.
The next day, Matt learns that the man who showed up to help start the Escape was trying to sell it to Iris for $3,000. Iris tells him that he shouldn’t be wasting a “good deed”by fixing the car for the seller.
Nevertheless, Matt keeps looking the Ford over. He sees that it has over 303,000 miles and discovers that the battery is only producing nine volts. This prompts him to change a fuse and try to jump start it.
Following this, Matt performs another reading and finds that the car is registering a suitable voltage amount. However, he runs into another problem: the car isn’t registering that there’s a key in its ignition.
After some fiddling, the car finally comes to life, and Matt and his partner resolve to drive it to the seller’s house to return it.
Upon getting gas, they encounter additional issues. First off, the fuel gauge isn’t working. It also shakes and has a rough idle.
When Matt gets the Escape on the highway, he concludes that the “struts are shot” and it either needs new sway bars or a lower ball joint, if not both.
“It needs brakes, lower control arm, bushings and ball joint, gone,” he says. “Tire rod: gone. Sway bars: shot. Basically needs a whole new front end.” He couldn’t believe that the Ford Escape managed to make it to 303,000 miles.
Then Matt notices strange sounds from underneath the vehicle.
By this point, he’s seemingly done with the Ford Escape. They try unsuccessfully to find the seller’s house and ultimately return the car to Iris.
After meeting up with Iris, he explains to her how to start the car and shows her the starter switch fuse he installed under the fuse box. Additionally, he goes over all of the problems with the vehicle and offers to help her get a different car. He says he wouldn’t even pay $500 for the Ford Escape, let alone $3,000.
Motor1 has reached out to Ford via email and Matt via TikTok direct message for further information. We’ll update this if either responds.
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