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LOL My father has a Lexus RS-460. That car falls into the “I ain’t gonna touch it, that’s what the dealer is for”. My mother has a 97 Corolla. That’s the one my father plays mechanic on. He had it up at my house just last week, I swapped out all four struts. He says “let me ask you something” and pops the hood. Points at something and says “what’s this?”. I said that’s where you check the tranny fluid level, and where you add fluid if needed.
He says “Oh, Ok, well where do you put the motor oil in?”. I pointed at the big cap on the valve cover with the oil can symbol on it. He says “ooh oh”.
He checked the oil, saw it was low, and added a quart of engine oil to the tranny fluid. He even said “I had a hell of a time getting the oil to go in that tiny hole”. Guess he just assumed he topped the engine oil off and didn’t bother to check again.
So there are cars that are still on the road only by the wonder of miracles. But they’re still on the road!
Next time you’re heading downhill and it feels like it’s dragging put it in neutral and see if the drag reduces significantly. That’ll at least isolate the transmission from the anything else dragging question.
You said sometimes you have to turn the key several times before it’ll start, sometimes you don’t get even a click like the starter is trying. I’d check the neutral safety switch. Try starting it neutral. If it stops misbehaving my first guess would be the switch is sticking or mis-adjusted (or just plain broken).
Agree. Telling the customer there will be additional charges for things like that would avoid some of the sticker shock when they get the final bill. We would always get the “What is this shop supplies charge? Isn’t that stuff part of doing the work anyway?”
I had wheel bearings pressed out of knuckles at a tire shop a couple months ago. Would really love to have a 20 ton press in my garage at home but don’t have room for one. They charged me for “shop supplies”. All I could figure was they had to use rags to clean the press after the work, maybe a shot of PB to get things sliding easier. It was only five bucks so I just grinned and paid it. They’re good people and I don’t mind helping them stay in business.
As long as the person is capable of performing the oil change I love saving money. I myself rather buy my own oil and a quality filter than use bulk unknown oil with a filter that’s quality is probably marginal at best. Though I have cut open quite a few motorcraft filters and have thoroughly been impressed. But remember, with the oil change at a dealer or quick lube you are also paying for disposal, chemicals such as brake cleaner and also the labor time for the guy performing the work. Factor all that in, I have no clue how any 15.99 lof place stays open. Though usually that’s just to get you in their door, which they proceed to go for up sells after. That’s how they make their money to keep the doors open typically.
I worked at a mom-pop garage in St. Pete as a mechanic. We did oil changes for cost of oil and filter only, no labor charge. We did of course mark up the oil and the filter a little bit, but had to stay competitive with the garage down the street, so not enough so the customers would drive the extra mile to go somewhere else. Since the car was already up in the air for the oil swap, we would inspect the underside. Inevitably we’d find something that was either ready for replacement, or very close. We’d bring the customer out and show them. Sometimes they’d say fix it, sometimes they said they’d be back (some came back and some went elsewhere), and sometimes they’d say “I’m broke” (often saying it like “oh I’m selling the car soon anyways”). It was the ones we did the oil change only for cost where I think we lost money. There’s time involved, although I had nothing to do with the books so I don’t know if the markup on the ones we did reel in covered the work for free time or not. Myself and the other mechanics were lucky though, the owner was a honest man and would NOT rip off a customer in any way. We felt good at the end of the day knowing we helped and never stuck it to anyone.
Cammed05 I apologize, I quoted you but somehow I lost whatever it is that shows I quoted you. NOOB mistake. I’ll get it eventually. 🙂
I recently helped a friend with a 2000 Focus get back on the road, after she was scared to drive it because of “a loud clicking noise”. It was the CV axles. The boots had split, there was no grease left in them but plenty of road debris.
She took it to a local garage. They wanted $250 EACH, just for the axles. I bought them from Rockauto for $90 total. Putting them in just took a casual afternoon.
Markups are crazy if you let them be.
Thanks for the welcome. I lost the opportunity to do a review of the PI on my Mustang. It’s been stumbling on acceleration for a while now, and yesterday I pressed on the go pedal leaving a red light, and it refused to accelerate at all. After thinking about the symptoms for a bit, I decided to try the TPS. Replaced it, and all is well again. So it having a real mechanical problem repaired at the same time the PI was in the tank negates figuring out what it really did.
But, I did also buy a bottle for my 87 Ranger with the Cologne 2.9 (complete with the “I will NOT idle for you” curse). I use it as my utility vehicle, meaning dump runs on Saturdays and occasional trips to Home Depot. It stumbles, has a surging idle, and after sitting for a week takes forever to start. I’ll add the bottle to the next tank fill and will post results on the forum (after I figure out the best place for them). It has 197,000 miles on it, I can see in the EGR tube it’s full of carbon, so it should be a good test of the PI cleaning abilities.