The Good, Bad, and Ugly of Doing It Yourself

[liberal N proud]

10. About that shop not getting your work, I had 4 cars in the shop in the last month.

Two cars quit running within hours of each other, one of those never came home, it was too much to repair.

In the last month, I spend $2,000 at the shop and still made repairs of my own on one car.

Here is the story, the first two were our primary vehicles and broke down with in hours of each other:
2001 - never found out what was wrong, sent her to the junk yard after a week in the shop.
2003 - needed a new fuel pump
2002 - needed tie rods replaced
1990 - Starter, Water Pump, timing belt, Heater Hose burst.
I replaced the starter and the hoses, the shop did the water pump and timing belt.

After a week with the 2001, I went looking for another vehicle and junked the old care, it had 180,000 miles on it and the repairs were more than it was worth just to get it running again plus it needed new rubber, the electronics were getting flaky and the drivers seat wore out.

Cars, we love them, but can kick us in the ass.