The cost to get a vehicle serviced nowadays, Wow!

[pharmer]

"I gotta guy...." Seriously, a friend works as a diesel mechanic for a local heavy equipment outfit. Service truck with everything on it. I buy the oil and filters for my wife's car and my truck. He rolls up on his day off, does all the work, we shoot the **** while he works, doesn't make a mess in my garage and cleans up afterward. Costs $30/vehicle for oil changes. Another friend has a new Tacoma he took to the dealership for the 1st "free" oil change. Went back 5000 miles later and was informed it would be $200 to replace 3 skidplate bolts with heads sheared off. He says "Who sheared them off!?!" Crickets. $200 later he decided the dealership is not the place for oil changes. Joe

 

[TX-Dennis]

I don't like to change my own oil any more. I can do it, but it's too much of a pain - take off the skid plate, find the drain pan, change the oil, reattach the skid plate, clean up the inevitable oil spill from the driveway, haul the old oil to the recycling place. etc. It's just way easier to let some one else do it for me. Plus the city just closed down our recycling center, so there's no easy way to dispose of the old oil now. When I was a kid my Grandad taught me to bury the used oil in the alley. Of course now we know that doing so pollutes the environment, so that's a no-no.

Brake pads and rotors - those are easy. Battery no problemo. Rotate the tires - no sweat. Install various add on bits and baubles - sure will. I just don't like to do oil changes these days.

 

[Tom S.]

I don't like to change my own oil any more. I can do it, but it's too much of a pain - take off the skid plate, find the drain pan, change the oil, reattach the skid plate, clean up the inevitable oil spill from the driveway, haul the old oil to the recycling place. etc. It's just way easier to let some one else do it for me. Plus the city just closed down our recycling center, so there's no easy way to dispose of the old oil now. When I was a kid my Grandad taught me to bury the used oil in the alley. Of course now we know that doing so pollutes the environment, so that's a no-no.

Brake pads and rotors - those are easy. Battery no problemo. Rotate the tires - no sweat. Install various add on bits and baubles - sure will. I just don't like to do oil changes these days.

Around here, several auto parts sellers take used motor oil at no charge. For the past 10 years, I have used a Fumoto valve in place of a drain plug. It points down and 1/4 twist of the lever opens the valve and drains the oil directly into my drain pan. As for the skid plate, I'm surprised it needs to be removed. Most are either cut out for access to the drain or have a access door - so I can't help you with that one.

 

[Farmer17]

My daughters Honda Accord was recently leaking oil and took it in and they said it had an oversized oil pan drain plug because some one had cross threaded the plug and stripped the threads on the drain pan. Talked to the Quickie Oil change place were she goes but they said the plug was already there when they changed the oil. The pan was too stripped out to use a larger plug so the dealer had to install a new oil pan for $1,000. Oh well, I'll just keep working harder trying to make more money, if I'm lucky I won't have to work the day of my funeral.

 

[venomballistics]

My daughters Honda Accord was recently leaking oil and took it in and they said it had an oversized oil pan drain plug because some one had cross threaded the plug and stripped the threads on the drain pan. Talked to the Quickie Oil change place were she goes but they said the plug was already there when they changed the oil. The pan was too stripped out to use a larger plug so the dealer had to install a new oil pan for $1,000. Oh well, I'll just keep working harder trying to make more money, if I'm lucky I won't have to work the day of my funeral.

This is why people should learn to fix their own cars, ladies included.
It's not so much an expectation of automotive mastery, but a voyage as far into this wilderness as that particular individual can handle. That might begin and end at an oil change. and that's okay.
Even among this forums masters of the craft, few if any could address even a classic car in it's entirety, alone. almost no one can deal with an automatic transmission despite having a spouse that complains about you reciting torque specs and firing orders in your sleep. Im sure someone knows what Coralar is, or was. That's part of a specialized skillset that's a good bit more common than auto trans rebuilds.
Even the best among us absolutely will have to outsource some part of the job.
The point is. no one cares about your car but you. When you cannot handle it, you can at least understand it enough to know when to pass the job along, and where to pass it off.

Side note ... I was investigating CAN bus stuff for my electronics hobby some years ago. Might be handy for some advanced projects. It amounts to a network of tiny, specialized computers networked together. A server farm in miniature if you will ...
It's engulfed the modern automobile .......
I understand it well enough that I might get lucky. Statistical probability says I'll pass that problem along with a rough diagnosis

 

[pharmer]

This is why people should learn to fix their own cars......Even among this forums masters of the craft, few if any could address even a classic car in it's entirety, alone....

Don't get me started on "Getting my nuts rounded on a tire rotation" story. No happy ending there. Joe

 

[Golddollar]

Plus the city just closed down our recycling center, so there's no easy way to dispose of the old oil now. When I was a kid my Grandad taught me to bury the used oil in the alley. Of course now we know that doing so pollutes the environment, so that's a no-no.

I thought oil came out of the ground. Wouldn't that just be sending it back home?

 

[venomballistics]

Don't get me started on "Getting my nuts rounded on a tire rotation" story. No happy ending there. Joe

That's a good example of one of those outsourced elements of automotive disciplines. Easy enough to understand, but a hell of a lot harder than it needs to be in the context of the typical home garage. No shame in outsourcing it. Just need to leverage the knowledge of it to determine who out there is qualified to do it.

 

[venomballistics]

I thought oil came out of the ground. Wouldn't that just be sending it back home?

SHHhhhhhhhh

 

[LVSteve]

Don't get me started on "Getting my nuts rounded on a tire rotation" story. No happy ending there. Joe

There's a certain Ford dealer you don't visit in this city because they cannot set up their tools properly.

 

[Farmer17]

Man, I hate getting my nuts rounded. Crescent wrenches or adjustable Wrenches should never be used on a car. Especially by a professional mechanic.

 

[SS336]

A friend of mine is visiting relatives in Twin Falls Idaho and when driving around town his car's transmission starts acting up. So after limping over to the Ford dealership and dropping it off, he found out the transmission control module went out.
Ok, he says put in a new one, they say the part will not be here for 4 to six months!!!
They have another car that has been there since October.
I can't imagine how mad I would be. Sounds like a story but our supply chain for such parts seems to be broken.
Dealerships are not winning very many repeat customers between the prices and parts issues.
I guess the question is are we becoming too reliant on electronics and especially electronics that we don't make here.
He solved his problem by purchasing a 2021 Subaru.

 

[venomballistics]

Man, I hate getting my nuts rounded. Crescent wrenches or adjustable Wrenches should never be used on a car. Especially by a professional mechanic.

A few exceptions...
A crescent wrench is perfectly acceptable for changing the oil filter on the GM 2.4L ecotec crime scene I4

 

[venomballistics]

He solved his problem by purchasing a 2021 Subaru.

I solved a few problems that exact same way.
After my wife used up the last of my Buick century before we got the Regal, I ended up getting a junkyard refugee Forester from a seedy used car lot.
Though 6years older than the Regal, it proved to be the superior car.
When the regal choked on it's own vomit, I went to the Soob dealer and picked up a 2023 outback XT, and let the wife drive the Forester while the Buick went in to get riddled by a parts canon.

While the Century made me a fan of Buick, the Regal made me a fan of Subaru.
I intend to perform a good bit of maintenance on the Forester, so that it will stand to be counted when the Regal does it's Chinesium constructed thing again

 

[Oldengineer]

Perhaps in hot climes or frigid ones. I typically see at least 7 years for a battery. My daughter's Cavalier was 19 years old when I got rid of it. In those 19 years, it had 2 batteries, the original Delco that lasted 9 years, and the Delco I replaced it with which was still going when the car left.

In mid-1990's, I was our Division's representative on the Ford Battery Task Force. The company was drowning in battery warranty that was primarily in the sun belt. The root cause of the high warranty was something called "dealer lot rot." It basically was letting the battery sit for months with little charging. The solution was to add the battery eye, and have the dealers run the engine for 30-45 minutes every few weeks. Problem solved.

 

[WR Moore]

Decades ago moved to another state and the apartment complex banned automotive work. Went mechanic shopping and was in the office watching the kid in the first bay change spark plugs. When I saw him running the plugs in with an impact wrench I left. A little carefully timed conversation with the apartment manage revealed that so long as I cleaned up thoroughly, she didn't have an issue with DiY.

 

[steelslaver]

I just changed oil in my 7.3 Powerstroke. While I love that truck and motor, paying for 15 quarts of oil and a filter, plus the cost of diesel sucks.

I have a buddy whose shop is heated by a waste oil heater so getting rid of my waste oil is no problem.

I always keep a gallon of waste oil around. Fill a 5 gallon bucket with wood shavings and pour a gallon of used oil over it. A cup of that is easy to start on fire and it will burn hot enough to start even fair sized pieces of wet wood burning. I use that to start fires in my wood stoves, camp fires, whatever. I have not split kindling for years.

 

[JJEH]

We take our vehicles to a Valvoline oil chance place. We know the district manager and he makes sure his teams are running smooth and do good work.

The brake job seems expensive to me. The rotors cost $147/ea. from a Mopar supplier (retail) and Summit Racing has whole sets for around $550 per axle. Labor can't be that expensive. With stuff like that, I rather buy my own parts and then either do it myself if I can, or go to an independent shop.

 

[johngalt]

What's even worse is the cost of repairs, then finding out they didn't fix it.

My '97 Chevy Tahoe spent all last fall (sep through early December) at the garage waiting for parts, one of which was the hvac control. It had the common problem of the resister packs in the fan control failing. It was down to only working on high intermittently. Everything else worked.

I have a good neighbor in Wisconsin who picked it up and parked it in my garage, so I didn't have to make the road trip to do it. Memorial weekend was the first chance I had to get it out. I get there and discover:

* 2 flat rear tires. One was just very low and held more air. The other was completely flat and the bead was off the rim. Had to change that one. It needs new ones anyway, but what the heck?

* hvac control doesn't work. Previously, everything worked except the fan speed control. Now the fan speed control works, but nothing else does. This has the classic GM 3 knob control. The temperature knob might work but couldn't tell because it was so hot out. it was blowing hot regardless of the position. The knob that switches between the top, front, and bottom vents does nothing. The A/C (which was working) now doesn't work at all. The button doesn't even illuminate, and when pushed I don't hear the compressor run. It behaves as if it isn't connected at all.

So now during the next trip I will have to spend time fixing it again.

 

[venomballistics]

What's even worse is the cost of repairs, then finding out they didn't fix it.

My '97 Chevy Tahoe spent all last fall (sep through early December) at the garage waiting for parts, one of which was the hvac control. It had the common problem of the resister packs in the fan control failing. It was down to only working on high intermittently. Everything else worked.

I have a good neighbor in Wisconsin who picked it up and parked it in my garage, so I didn't have to make the road trip to do it. Memorial weekend was the first chance I had to get it out. I get there and discover:

* 2 flat rear tires. One was just very low and held more air. The other was completely flat and the bead was off the rim. Had to change that one. It needs new ones anyway, but what the heck?

* hvac control doesn't work. Previously, everything worked except the fan speed control. Now the fan speed control works, but nothing else does. This has the classic GM 3 knob control. The temperature knob might work but couldn't tell because it was so hot out. it was blowing hot regardless of the position. The knob that switches between the top, front, and bottom vents does nothing. The A/C (which was working) now doesn't work at all. The button doesn't even illuminate, and when pushed I don't hear the compressor run. It behaves as if it isn't connected at all.

So now during the next trip I will have to spend time fixing it again.

Sounds like it got rat chewed.