I worked at a Napa as a parts runner for a few years when I was young. Best job I ever had except for the shitty pay. Anyway, I saw how places like Tires Plus would mark up the price of parts when I dropped them off telling the customer right in front me a part was 2-2.5x the price we were charging them. I still can get employee discounts on parts when the right people are working but even without the employee discount, if you can find a mechanic willing to let you bring the parts in you will save a lot on the part alone. Most places want the markup along with the labor though.
Low oil is unlikely to set a check engine code. If the lack of compression is so bad that the engine is regularly misfiring then that will eventually set a code. Poor sealing/combustion is going to be noticeable at higher RPMs and loads.
Part markup is how most garages make their money, not much you are going to do about it. Replacing the compressor requires you to first purge out all the refrigerant with a recovery system. Every shop has one, but itās not something I would recommend using without some training. I doubt you can even rent them anywhere.
I donāt recommend a beginner work on AC. You can do it though. The refrigerant you can get a shop to recover for you. Most of the equipment\tools you need arenāt that expensive even if you have to buy them. But youāll need to do quite a bit of research. Itās a pain and easy to screw up. If youāre opening the system, you have to replace the receiver/drier. The system should be flushed so the oil can be replaced, which is messy. And on and on.
Since I had some experience with vacuum systems, I thought I could do the AC work on my 20 yo car so I replaced my compressor with a remanufactured one a couple of years ago. It was a little noisy and only lasted one summer before the clutch coil failed.
Since Iām in SLC now and not driving much I havenāt bothered with it again. Given my experience and that of others, I would go with a new compressor if I could do it again. They are expensive though.
I did the job for ~$400 including buying a small air compressor and other tools. Since my car is now worth ~$500, Iām not doing this, but I think $1-$2k for most systems for parts and labor that come with a warranty is fair.
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Thatās a bargain, for sure.
Derail and spending your money for you, but the Noco chargers are the stone cold nutz for ease of charging. Charge it, throw it in the back of the car, give tutorials to family members as needed on how to use. Easy to use, holds battery charge for a reasonable amount of time and gives me a bit of peace that my wife and daughter can easily get a battery recharged in most adverse situations.
How do people not get ripped off constantly in auto repair? I ran auto parts for a few years and grew up on a farm helping work on tractors and plows and shit but still only do certain things. I brought in a early 2000s Dodge to a place today because the window fell of the tracks and into the door. Last time I tried it on another Dodge with same issue i broke all the stupid clips and shit for the door panel and then the window was jammed in the door and I couldnāt lift it or move it. Since it was about 7 degrees today I brought it somewhere. They charged me $65 to take off the panel and call me and tell me it needed a whole new window assembly and would be $400-$450. Told them to fuck off and leave the panel off and fixed it in 5 minutes when I got home. Still have to retighten the window track tabs that hold it together but it works fine. I suspect my employee tried to crank it down while it was frozen shut and lifted it out of tracks.
ETA: I brought same truck to another place for a brake line fix last summer and they told both brake cylinders were fucked and I can do them myself so told them to fix the brake line and when I replaced the cylinders, one of the cylinders was in perfect condition. Hasnāt caused an issue at all yet. They are straight con artists mostly imo.
I think they donāt. I think for big and/or common things (new brakes/transmission rebuild/even just oil change) thereās enough of a market and they know what to do and what to charge, but if you have to take off a door panel, mess around with something assembly and maybe it works or not, but you might have someone coming back to complain, youāre like - Iām just gonna replace everything or forget it. And thatās probably the kind of thing that helps them not go out of business. I just couldnāt imagine making money if I had to deal with people for jobs that might be like <$100.
The shop was empty and $112 hourly rate lol. Fuck them. They could have placed it in the tracks and Iād be a return customer. It took me 5 minutes.
Also, they told me the tabs on the assembly were too old and ruined to work. Works perfectly fine. Just straight up lying to me.
Did you find them on Yelp?
As far as lying, yeah that sucks, but certainly not surprising. āI donāt want to do that job because I have to charge you too much to make any moneyā is not an easy thing to say to a customer. I know because I say it. Like if someone says they have a problem with one electrical outletā¦fuck that. I donāt want that job at any price. If I do that for someone, I just do it for free, so Iām free to bail if itās more than it appeared.
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No, when I ran parts they had a good reputation and are just a few blocks from my house.
I hear you but if I call them and say the window is off the tracks and fell into the door can you put it on the tracks again and they say they can if thatās all that is what needs to be done and then upsell a bunch of shit I donāt need itās not ethical.
Sure. Car places mostly suck. Iāve been going to a place for years because I told them to replace the brakes on a truck and they said it didnāt need it. They arenāt even that great and their prices arenāt that great, but I trust them not to intentionally screw me.
I told the guy I had the ability to probably do it myself but didnāt want to deal with it and he still went there trying to upsell for stuff I didnāt need. Iām just saying the normal rube probably makes so much extra money for these places, itās crazy.
On another note, I have a Ford Ranger and one of the torx bolts broke off the shifter assembly up under the dash near the steering column. Iāve never extracted a bolt really ever and bought a 90 degree drill for it but still couldnāt get it out. I only tried for 5-10 minutes. I traded that same place vehicles today and they wanted multiple hundreds again to tear out the steering column to get it out.
If anyone has tips or ideas lmk.
Hereās a video of the bolt Iām talking about but theirs were just loose and most I see online fall out. One of mine broke off and needs to be extracted.
I go to my local auto dealer to get things looked at and they are honest enough to tell me when I would be better off going to some shop for an after-market replacement or other work instead of having the dealer do the job.
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It was so much better when I ran parts to people who ran out little shops out of their garage and Iād walk in on them getting high when delivering parts and share a bowl or beer with them. Donāt know any of them any more.
Also, from my experience, the only thing Iād have the dealer do are repairs on new vehicles, warranty work, or timing belts on like the VTEC Honda engines or similar where if the belt goes out your engine is fucked. Maybe I should factor in the chance of getting ripped off.
I might be the king of getting ripped off for auto repair. Itās just something that I really have no interest in trying to figure out how to do. And I guess I pay the price for that. Unfortunately, I have a car that seems to need a lot of minor repairs. Once I drive this one into the ground, Iām gonna pay more attention stuff like that when I get the next one.
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Yeah, thatās what Iām saying. Most people donāt know or have the ability to know so just go with whatever they get told.
This lady probably need the part actually but when I ran auto parts I remember running an alternator to Tires Plus and the invoices they had to sign show their cost. It cost $110 and Tires Plus salesman told the lady $325 or some shit over $300. She tried to read the receipt and he swiped it away.
I actually had a similar experience once. One of the parking distance monitor sensors on my car got misaligned when someone backed into my front bumper. Barely grazed it. There was minor cosmetic damage, which I didnāt care much about, I just really someone to replace the sensor. So I take it down to this autobody place for an estimate. I think they probably do a lot of work for insurance so theyāre used to inflating their costs. He tells me the sensor itself costs $1000 dollars and comes up with some ridiculous estimate of 4K to fix cosmetic damage and sensor.
Since this isnāt that much of a problem and the car is driveable, Iāve got time. I look it up and the specific part costs $50. I actually thought that was low, so I called up my mechanic that I usually go to and he confirmed that I had the right part and that it was $50. He doesnāt do any body work at all, so he said he couldnāt do it.
Eventually I drive to this place that is very far away, but has some good reviews. The dude says that everything is structurally fine and he can make it look as good as new for <$500. I tell him I donāt care about the appearance, I really want the sensor fixed. He says heās not even sure there is a problem with it, itās just that itās misaligned. So he says that he can basically reposition it and affix it somehow for ~$50 but if the sensor is really busted then heāll have to put in a new one in and it will be more.
Anyway, $50 and under hour later problem is completely solved.
This is probably one of the very few times I managed to not ripped off on a car repair.
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Our current place is similar. I trust them due to several things over the years. And when they donāt get something right, they always take ownership and fix it. Iām not afraid to pay a fair price, I just donāt want to get screwed.
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