The Toaster- the greatest example of wasting money

[MineralMan]

37. The auto industry has taken modularism to

it's full extent. No longer do you pack wheel bearings. You replace the whole hub on today's cars. What used to cost little now costs a lot. You no longer take two bolts out and swap in a new fuel pump. Instead, you drop the fuel tank and replace an entire assembly. Big bucks.

Nobody overhauls engines any more. You just replace the whole thing or junk the car.

That said, today's auto components generally last for at least 100,000 miles without failing. After that point, when they fail, it's always a toss-up whether to fix or junk the car. Depends on what fails and whether you can replace it yourself or not. Labor prices at dealerships are up to $100 in most markets, so it doesn't take long to run up a major repair bill. I just saved $675 by replacing a fuel pump myself. The dealer wouldn't just replace the pump, and would only replace an entire fuel gauge sender assembly that holds the pump. For $125, I replaced the damn pump myself. It just took two hours. But, I have some wrenching skills. On a 20 year old car, it was the difference between another year of driving it or the junkyard.