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So lucky my father's a mechanic rant

bigmike23

bigmike23

Well-Known Member
SH Member
Joined
Jan 29, 2020
Messages
2,569
Location
NE PA
I live by the Dave Ramsey rule of having no car payments. Paying off my car years ago was one of the best days of my life. I get zero enjoyment from cars. Hate putting any money into them.

My father's been a bit busy lately and didn't want to bother him with a suspected coolant leak. Had a local mechanic pressure test everything just to identify where the leaks were. Wanted 400$ in hoses and 900$ in labor. My jaw nearly dropped. It's like an hour job.

My father finally got the free time and he showed me how to replace the hoses, flush and refill the coolant. The hoses off Rockauto were a little over 100$, job took 2 hours, mainly because of him explaining things to me, and he only wanted a case of beer in return.

My front control arm bushings were also shot. The control arms were 100 a pop, and I installed those myself. They wanted 1600 for that job.

I dont mean to disparage mechanics. They have very expensive rent, 20k plus of tools, multiple techs to pay, it goes on and on.

I'm getting at being able to work on your own stuff is a critical skill this day and age. So lucky my pop showed me all this stuff. Without a little DIY knowledge that'd be over 4k after taxes flushed down the drain that could be spent this coming October on a certain beverage...
 
Working on your own vehicles is a major advantage if you have some DIY inclinations and especially so if you have an experienced mentor with tools. There are also a ton of good how to videos out there on Youtube. I've done a bunch of those $100 jobs the dealership wanted $800 for.

Second to that is to find a good local mechanic who will shoot straight with you.

The dealerships are the worst. They have huge overhead, are constantly trying to upcharge you for add ons, and/ or trying to get you to trade in for something new while they have you in house.
 
Horn said:
So should whoever sets book time at 2-4x what it takes to do the job
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This so much. The mechanic was a good, friendly guy, and told me the hoses would be out and finished in two hours tops. I can wait at the place if I wanted he told me. Then he texts me the quote and the labor time was for 7.5 hours. Like WHAT!
 
A few years ago my wife bought a brand new little Nissan car, so I think the warranty was something like 3 years/36k bumper to bumper and 100k powertrain, around 50k the transmission starting acting funny, my advice was take it back to the dealer, she did and they said it needed a new trans, and gave her some ridiculous estimate and said it wouldn’t be covered under warranty, so I went back down there and started the process over, with the car, they told me to sit in the waiting room, a few minutes go by and some service guy comes in and tells me the same thing, I told him it was going to be covered under warranty, this is in front of a packed waiting room, he started babbling on about why they wouldn’t cover it and I unloaded on him, he left and came back with a service manager and that dude got the same treatment, the other waiting patrons were cheering me on like a football game, apparently they weren’t happy with their service either, eventually they asked me to leave and I refused and said they were putting a new transmission in that car under warranty or else I was staying, this went on for about 5-10 heated minutes and finally they agreed to my terms but I had to leave the property immediately :tearsofjoy:, so I had to go stand out by the shoulder of the road and wait for my ride :tearsofjoy:, and the only person I knew who wasn’t working that day and could give me a ride home was my niece on break from college, when I told her what happened she thought it was hilarious her uncle got thrown out of a car dealership and still reminds at most family parties of that day, the Nissan got a new trans and yes it was covered under warranty. Since when is a transmission not part of the powertrain, my advice for anyone is to not take crap from a dealer.
 
Dealers have a big overhead to cover. And most dealerships pay mechanics flatrate. So if the job says it takes 10 hours to complete and the tech does it in 5 he still gets 10 hrs pay. I was a motorcycle mechanic most of my life, moved to heavy trucks and equipment for a couple years.
I told my son he needs to learn basic mechanics, plumbing, electrical, heating, ac and carpentry. Just taught him how to weld at age 12, need new bed supports on my superduty. Guess who will be doing that? I own all old junk, I hate new stuff.
 
Topdog said:
A few years ago my wife bought a brand new little Nissan car, so I think the warranty was something like 3 years/36k bumper to bumper and 100k powertrain, around 50k the transmission starting acting funny, my advice was take it back to the dealer, she did and they said it needed a new trans, and gave her some ridiculous estimate and said it wouldn’t be covered under warranty, so I went back down there and started the process over, with the car, they told me to sit in the waiting room, a few minutes go by and some service guy comes in and tells me the same thing, I told him it was going to be covered under warranty, this is in front of a packed waiting room, he started babbling on about why they wouldn’t cover it and I unloaded on him, he left and came back with a service manager and that dude got the same treatment, the other waiting patrons were cheering me on like a football game, apparently they weren’t happy with their service either, eventually they asked me to leave and I refused and said they were putting a new transmission in that car under warranty or else I was staying, this went on for about 5-10 heated minutes and finally they agreed to my terms but I had to leave the property immediately :tearsofjoy:, so I had to go stand out by the shoulder of the road and wait for my ride :tearsofjoy:, and the only person I knew who wasn’t working that day and could give me a ride home was my niece on break from college, when I told her what happened she thought it was hilarious her uncle got thrown out of a car dealership and still reminds at most family parties of that day, the Nissan got a new trans and yes it was covered under warranty. Since when is a transmission not part of the powertrain, my advice for anyone is to not take crap from a dealer.
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I had a similar deal with a Ram pickup many years back. I think the power train warranty was 70k miles. About 55k I started experiencing a slip and sudden grab/clunk from the transmission when I let off the accelerator and then reapplied it. To make a long story a bit shorter I had the truck in the dealership at least 6 times over the next year and a half. They'd work on it but whatever they did never fixed it. It became obvious to me that they were stalling me to get me past the warranty period and at about 65k I finally unloaded on the service guy and told him I was going to write a nastygram to detailing the dealership's service failures and history to the corporate headquarters. Luckily for me that timing coincided with a point in time when Chrysler was actively reducing its dealership numbers. When I got back to work that day there was already a message on my machine from the dealership manager telling me they were going to honor a warranty trans replacement, which they did. I drove that truck for another 70k before I sold it.
 
My girlfriend just got quoted minimum 5 hours to get a catalytic converter replaced. That's like 6 bolts on two exhaust flanges, should be a hour tops, but I don't have a lift and impact wrench to do it for her...
 
thedutchtouch said:
My girlfriend just got quoted minimum 5 hours to get a catalytic converter replaced. That's like 6 bolts on two exhaust flanges, should be a hour tops, but I don't have a lift and impact wrench to do it for her...
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Call around… I have a local Midas shop that is flat out awesome… those guys that work at that shop are great, I started going there years ago not expecting such great service at a chain owned shop like that but I was wrong, zero complaints, my guess everyone will be different, but yea call around!
 
A diverter for the outside air vent in my 2014 Silverado went up....$1600, got to pull whole dash, yadda, yadda.

Youtube to the rescue.
$60 part from dealer out of state (half as much from local)
About 2-3 hours, some cussing, only removed glovebox.....DONE.

I do like to tinker om my toy and I'm an Industrial Maintenance Tech (Millwright w/o papers)
 

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Skunkworkx said:
A diverter for the outside air vent in my 2014 Silverado went up....$1600, got to pull whole dash, yadda, yadda.

Youtube to the rescue.
$60 part from dealer out of state (half as much from local)
About 2-3 hours, some cussing, only removed glovebox.....DONE.

I do like to tinker om my toy and I'm an Industrial Maintenance Tech (Millwright w/o papers)
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Same profession.
 
This is how these places keep people in debt……. they try to scare you in to thinking you need to buy a new or different vehicle.

Just last week I was at a busy intersection and my engine block fan just turned on. Its
Never done that before. Temp. guage flat bottomed out.

I got to my destination, turned the truck off and the fan kept running. Popped the hood, coolant level perfect, nothing steaming or smoking, it eventually turned off. Did my business got in to leave and the minute the truck started the fan came on again. I was 30 minutes from home. I debated going to a dealership but something said everything looks fine, nothing was leaking, I’m gonna drive home and hope for the best. I did the ole’ turn on your heater and open your windows to try to keep the block as cool as possible all the way home. People were looking at me weird with my windows wide open in 30 degree temps on the interstate.

About halfway home my engine light turned on, but still no visual sign of anything really going haywire. Got home, temp gauge still bottomed out at 160, fan ran for like five
Minutes then Turned off again. I checked everything again coolant level still good,
Nothing in the ground, nothing around the radiator etc.

Did a little research, went down to Napa picked up temp sensor guage, a new thermostat with housing and a gallon of the appropriate coolant. $114. Let the truck sit for about a half hour then I changed both.
Made a mess with the old coolant in the hose to the radiator dumping out to change the thermostat. A little was coming out when I changed the sensor too but overall it took about a half hour at the most. Filled up the coolant level a couple of times as it worked its way through the system after everything was changed out.

Drove it around for a couple of miles no fan coming in and the engine temp gauge stayed at 210 the whole time. Got back home checked the coolant after about 15 minutes and it needed a bit more and it’s been staying at the correct level now for over a week.

That probably would have been a $500+ job at a dealership and having no vehicle for a whole day. It took most of the dextrose I bought. My driveway was a bit of an orange mess so I filled three five gallon buckets of water and dumped it around to dissolve and dissapate the coolant. I haven’t hooked my yard hose back up yet too early around here. Anyway. It pays to not panic.
 
That is half the fun of driving an almost 40 year old vehicle everyday .....u never know if u really gonna make it.....Makes for some excitement sometimes hahahahaha

My most recent example of the topic we are discussing was about a year ago I was driving to meet my hunting partner to go scout for Turkey and the truck made a pop sound and died on the interstate. After some side of the road diagnosing I had determined the timing gear had failed. 400 bucks and 3 days later she's fixed up. Luckily it happened on 4th of July weekend so I had a 3 day weekend. The book, the internet, and some elbow grease.....of course it helps that my BFF has a car lift but it could have been accomplished straight off the ground. In my case the troubleshooting/diagnosing is usually more difficult than the actual repair.
 
Labor cost and overhead really drive the prices up. I had a shop I used to go to for years when I didn’t have time to work on my vehicles, covid happened and they were a victim of that labor shortage. Now it’s a revolving door of techs, never know who you’re gonna get. Oil pan gasket was leaking on my wife’s suburban, gotta drop the front differential to pull it(that’s real world exp and by the book), it’s like an 8 hour job and I didn’t have time so I had the shop do it and while they were in there had them put a new seal kn the drivers axle shaft as it was wet. Halfway to obx I notice drips of oil on the pavement under the suburban in a Walmart parking lot. Climb under and notice the diff is wet and the rear of the oil pan is soaked. Go to a local shop, they throw it on a lift and confirm the oil pan is leaking. Call my shop that did it and have words, they apologized and tell me to bring it back asap when we get back so we nurse it during our vacation and I drop it off first thing when we return. Takes them two days to get to it then they call and tell me the drivers side axle stub shaft is worn and that’s why the seal is leaking. So I ask them what did you do the first time when I told you to fix it? They just threw a new seal on the worn shaft, so had to buy a new shaft. Then 6 months later the drivers side motor mount they replace a year before goes out again for the third time, the same mount they’ve replace twice under warranty. Come to find out the tech hadn’t been torquing the bolt correctly AND left the heat shield off so the manifold has been cooking the mount. They replaced it again CORRECTLY this time as the owner of the shop did it. Welp, 25 months after they replaced the oil pan gasket and diff seal I’m seeing leaking oil again. Call the shop again and they say sorry we only warranty our work for 24 months. BS I say, we argue a bit and they say bring it again. So they look and say yup the seal is leaking and now it’s the rear main seal and it’ll be full price. I had just changed the oil and had pulled the inspection cover to check the rear main seal so I knew it wasn’t leaking. Told the shop thanks but no thanks and took the burb to another small local shop nearby that my neighbor goes to. He looked at it and confirmed nope not rear main seal, it’s the oil pan gasket and confirmed the tech who did the job at the other shop didn’t properly rtv it, the new guy showed me with his bore scope and you could see where rtv was missing. So likely the old shop lied and wanted to cover their tracks and repair it without telling me. New shop did confirm the axle stub seal was leaking but that was likely due to the tech not lubing the seal first. New shop says yeah it’s just wet i’d let it eat for a bit if you can. Here’s the kicker he didn’t even charge me to look at my burb, says I hate dealing with another shops crappy work. He also wouldn’t do the oil pan as he’s an older fella and it’d take him too long with dodgy shoulders but sent me to another shop that did excellent work at a reasonable rate. I can respect a shop that knows their limitations. I did take my wife’s Volvo back to him for a different issue and he did excellent work at a reasonable rate so I found a new mechanic.
The axle half stub seal I did myself saving some bux. Working on your own stuff is definitely a money saver if you have the time. Unfortunately newer vehicles are getting harder and harder to diy.
 
When i.lives in Tennessee 15 or so years ago I worked a 2nd job at a small mom.and pop gas station/garage changing oil and tire repair....a new Ford Taurus was in the there for brake repair. The rotors were turned and new pads installed and time to bleed the system......lo and behold there are no accomodations to bleed the brakes. We did all the mechanical aspects of the repair and then the lady had to go to the dealership just to get the hydraulic system bled
 
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