Saturday, I replaced the thermostat and temperature sensor on my Colorado. The code said that one or the other was bad, and since they are located about 2" from each other, I did them both. Parts were around $100 and a tool I had to buy was an extra $50 plus money for antifreeze and a gasket, for a total of about $190 and 3 hours of my time. The dealer wanted a smidge over $800. As always when I do things on the truck, I look around for possible future issues.
The "tool" that I bought was a cooling system vacuum. Simply adding coolant to today's systems is not recommended because air pocket can form and get trapped, causing hot spots in the engine. The kit involved several different caps to fit all makes and models and a contraption that attaches to the cap. You must have an air compressor, which I do. Hooking the compressor to the "contraption" and letting the compressor run, creates a suction in the system, sucking out all the air. The contraption has a gauge and when the indicator is in the yellow, you put a hose into the antifreeze bottle, throw a couple valves and the vacuum sucks the antifreeze back into the system. Really sounds Rube-Goldberg, but it worked pretty slick. 2 and a half gallons later and everything was done. The kit also included a hand pump to pressurize the system to check for leaks. I did and none were found. Cool beans!
Sunday, I replaced the HVAC control in the dash. It was working fine, but some of the LED's had stopped working so you didn't know for sure if a button was pressed or not. I read on line the LED's are surface mount and allegedly non-replaceable. The whole unit was a bit over $80 and it took a shade under an hour to replace. Now everything is lit up again - and the old unit is sitting on my electronic bench awaiting verification of whether or not it can be fixed. No idea what the dealer would have charged, but would guess around $300. So between the two jobs, I saved nearly enough to buy a new gun!
I have literally been working on cars since I was 15, ergo 60 years. For all the new things, I don't find them much harder to work on, other than the amount of stuff that has to get moved out of the way sometimes. Generally speaking, the system will tell you which part needs to be replaced, and unlike some parts of old, you replace the parts, you can't rebuild them. The ability to continue to do this stuff myself, is nearing an end and I do not look forward to it happening. Doing it yourself is not only satisfying but it's money saving as well, and you often get better parts. If you go to the dealer, they usually use genuine parts, but aftermarket garages rarely do. My dealer wants $125 to change my oil. I do it for around $50 but I use straight synthetic oil and premium filters. And again, while I'm under there, I look for other issues like leaking shocks, uneven tire wear, etc. I don't have to worry about some parts-changer trying to sell me a new air filter or cabin filter, or some other money grab.
