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Compare these cheap cars
ChadTower:
That's a lot of work... even if you do it all yourself, someone with a family sure wouldn't have the time for that... there's your cost, basically. When you have a family everything costs more, be it time or money.
DrewKaree:
Hence the reason HE is doing that work (single guy) versus ME (married guy). I figure total, there's about three days of our "not quite shadetree mechanics" knowhow labor involved, and the cost of the repairs should be comparitively small. It's the cost of the time involved that precluded them, although the radiator and temp gauge should be less than 2 hours total.
I dunno the emissions laws where he lives, but if I were in NC, it wouldn't pass emissions due to the suspension, but here in WI, the suspension isn't even part of the emissions test, and for what we used it for, the repairs done solved the problem for us. I have a feeling Paige knows a few people who know a few people who know a fe......and so on ;)
Everything's easy to get at on there, which doesn't necessarily make the repairs easier, just makes 'em easier to access, which a lot of times is the reason stuff takes so much time. I'm glad HE got it - sounds like it got a good home :)
ChadTower:
Fair enough. If I knew much about cars I'd probably go an old pickup route myself eventually.
DrewKaree:
--- Quote from: ChadTower on April 01, 2005, 01:03:34 pm ---Fair enough. If I knew much about cars I'd probably go an old pickup route myself eventually.
--- End quote ---
Chad, if you can build a computer, you generally can follow a Haynes or Chilton manual well enough to diagnose/fix your problem. At the very least, going through one of those books without actually doing any repairs you'll still gain valuable knowledge on what's involved in the repair the mechanic tells you about. Prolly the best $15 you'll ever spend on a car!
I didn't know jack about cars (dad paid somebody to do EVERYTHING except put gas in the thing, and he's old enough that he used to do THAT, also!), and I learned enough that I pulled an engine on a Honda Prelude, although I soon lost my garage space I was working in after that and never got to get the car back up and running. Buddy I sold it to said it was the easiest time he's ever had putting an engine back in after someone got it out (I was terrified I wouldn't get it back in correctly and therefore, labeled EVERYTHING religiously! I had several compartmentalized containers with each nut corresponding to a step in the book!)
You'd be surprised what you can do, and the outlay on tools wasn't anything more than a good socket set, flare wrench set, and open-end wrench set. Other tools make it easier, but nothing was tool-dependent. Rebuilding the engine would have been, but the tools weren't THAT pricey, although a mechanic would probably scoff at my sears collection of specialty tools I had amassed.
ChadTower:
Oh, I bet I COULD learn it. But there is a limit to the type of things I am motivated to learn. I'm not really interested in the inner workings of a truck beyond what I would need to know to use it and perform very small maintenance on it. Plus, I don't have a garage, so it would all have to be done on a slanted driveway in front of my house.
That, and my attention span leads me to get things torn apart, half fixed, and then left there for 4 months. My Asteroids Deluxe is a prime example.