$12 part, $2k labor
Into every boater's life a little rain must fall. Often the rain is in the form of needed maintenance and repair downtime. Ah downtime.
The engine instruments on my cruising boat stopped working a couple weeks ago. The engine ran fine but I had no information: RPM, oil pressure and water temp, etc. A trip to New England is in the offing and you can't go on a long trip without knowing what the engine is doing.
The season is on and the boat mechanics are hard to get. One I called could not get to me for eight weeks!
I did some troubleshooting myself and called the instrument manufacturer (Mercury Marine) or tech help, which was no help.
Desperate to get it fixed I took the boat to a local marina specializing in Mercury Marine. As back-up, I scheduled the very expensive Cummins folks to come take a look (boat engine is Cummins). $500 and a day later the Mercury Marine folks could not find the problem. $1500 and one $12 inline fuse holder later Cummins had it fixed.