WTF? This is progress?

[mom45]

Our newest vehicle (other than one of the motorcycles) is a 1989. Hubby loves working on the older vehicles and they all run great. My every day vehicle is a 1988 Silverado. I have 195k on it and we've done very little to it. Needs tires and a tune up and hubby plans to do a little rust repair on her next summer. He's too busy playing with his 1983 pickup right now. Parts are cheap and the junkyard has a lot of what we need just a few miles down the road.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

I'm starting to think the 1996 Saturn I bought for my son was a screaming good deal- 30 mpg in mixed driving. I did a muffler for $45.00 and new front disks and pads for about $100. It runs and drives like new (73,000 miles).

Got my daughter a 94 Saturn to go to IU some years back and when she was done with it, I sold it and I've been sorry ever since. It was a good dependable car and very easy to work on.

 

[Sybaris]

If they run the code machine on it and they tell you there is a "massive leak in the evaporation system" tell them to put your gas cap back on.

A friend of mine used to be an auto mechanic at a local dealer garage. He told me the service managers were always telling them to pull stuff like that to drum up service money. He was fired for refusing to preform false repairs.

Another one they'll pull is if you get your brakes done they'll tape a nut to the inside of your hubcap. after a while the tape will come off due to the centrifical force from the nut spinning and the nut will rattle around. It might happen that day or the following week but they're banking on you to bring it back for "repair".

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

I've had several older cars that I've done a lot of work on. I always get a good Chilton's or Haines Manual for reference. I've never included the manuals when I sold those vehicles for two reasons.

1. You never know if you may get another vehicle of the same model and you'll want the manual.
2. Just something about giving the person who just bought the car an obviously well-used repair manual with greasy fingerprints on the pages showing them exactly what things you've worked on.

 

[1861navy]

About 6 years ago I purchased an 2000 acura tl, up until a year ago I didn't have to replace anything except for fluids, spark plugs, etc. I had a tailight go out and it cost me $150 just for the bulb, took 15 min. to replace. The stealership quoted $300, just to replace a bulb. When I needed to change Tranny fluid the first time, they quoted me $500, doing it myself I spent $140. Yet I still gripe when I do it because the bright minded designer put a steel drain bolt onto aluminum, needless to say it was PITA to take off the first time, broke the gears of two (crappy) ratchets. Stealership quoted me $240 to change oil and spark plugs, cost me around $85 and an hour or so worth of work. Had the stock Bose system malfunction, they wanted me to pay $450 plus the price of shipping the deck, equalizer, and sub to bose to fix. They even told me the issue might arise again. Instead I ordered a new deck from crutchfield, and only spent $120. Haven't had an issue since. Though I thought it ridiculous to have to completely disassemble the entire console, and front dash, just to switch decks, then bypassing the factory EQ, just to get the stock sub to work, so I just replaced it all. Lesson, don't go to the Stealership, unless absolutely needed.

 

[HoughMade]

Another one they'll pull is if you get your brakes done they'll tape a nut to the inside of your hubcap. after a while the tape will come off due to the centrifical force from the nut spinning and the nut will rattle around. It might happen that day or the following week but they're banking on you to bring it back for "repair".

I can see that working....in 1952.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

I can see that working....in 1952.

LOL, I thought Wally put a stop to those kinds of shenanigans.

 

[Bowman78]

I find it humorous of some members opinions of those in the service industry... They think all dealerships and hvac techs and electricians and plumbers are out to take their $$$$ with little to no regard for ethics or repercussions from social media and the Internet.. Hard for any company to operate on the take this day and age... For those who think that car dealers are out to rape all who visit them, how much is your,time worth?? It takes years to learn and affectively repair modern autos but some on here think it can be learned in mere seconds and with no training... You wanna find out come spend a week with me working on company fleets for a week!! The days of people getting taken as suckers are almost extinct.. Modern autos and the technology they use escape all but the most educated and dedicated enthusiasts..

 

[kludge]

I sold used cars from 1992-1995. At that time, we had a very few vehicles that were over 200,000 miles, and those were always horrible (with the exception of a couple of diesels). At 100,000 miles, the vehicles needed quite a bit of looking after and very few people, even bargain hunters, would buy them.

Today, 100,000 miles isn't a big deal to many people and cars at 200,000 are not nearly as horrible as they were 20 years ago.

Step back 10 years before that to the carburetor era, and a 120,000 mile nice car was a rare commodity, indeed.

My luck has been a little different... My cars...

1977 Chevy Impala -- 235,000 miles; cause of death, tranny broke
1988 Pontiac Bonneville -- 245,000 miles; cause of death, slipping tranny
2001 Ford Econoline E150 -- sold at 186,000 miles, got sick of replacing coils on plugs... I liked it but now I'm sour on Ford
1999 Chevy Cavalier -- 205,000 miles - current daily driver. Got a weird brake problem I haven't figured out. Price $250 w/ blown engine. Been running great for 50k miles on the junkyard engine my BIL put in for me. My soon to be teenage drivers will be the death of it for sure.