Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire $54.95 to change brake light bulb!

Had the 24 month service on our 2022 Sienna done 3 weeks ago... Oil change, inspection, tire rotation...

$311

No charge for us... but for the average Joe/Jane it is damn expensive.

Quite a thread - revealing of modern vehicles, maintenance/repair practices and human nature.

Vehicles and maintenance/repair practices sure have changed a bunch since 1955, and so have the percentages of those who do their own.

Human nature - very little change.

I've always been grateful for my father and all those years he spent teaching us about everything from how to diagnose and repair our power toys and vehicles to how to build your own home.

Every time I drive by a auto repair shop and see a brake job advertised as being a bargain at a price that just staggers me I feel for those less fortunate than I that are out there saving up money so they can eventually get the brakes repaired on their car.

It's not that I think the costs are unjust, I've just never been down that road having to pay someone else to fix my stuff.

I'm not a pro mechanic by far but even at my advanced age I can still drop the transmission outta my truck and replace the clutch the pilot bearing and rebuild the hydraulic clutch assist.

Brakes, bearings and oil changes are easy stuff that should just consume a part of your morning.

A guy should be able to change his oil in less than 30 minutes.

Even for those that didn't have a father that was as talented as mine in those trades we have the internet to research and learn what we don't know.

Everything is YouTube, the right and the wrong ways to do things, if you choose to use it for that instead of just sitting around on your ass being social media addicts and complaining about how much you have to pay because your a lazy fu_cker and don't do your own work.

I gotta neighbor nearby that's a Polio victim and wheelchair bound yet I see him out with his hammer and skilsaw doing carpentry work around his property.

I have a retired preacher friend that's in his early 90s call me not long ago and asked me to stop by when I could he needed help.
He wanted to do some brush hog work and he couldn't lift the 5 gallon can of diesel he'd bought up to the filler cap on his tractor.

By the time I got there he was doing the brush hog work, he told me he couldn't lift the fiver but had no problem lifting two 2 1/2 gallon cans...

You just gotta keep the inspiration and not get frustrated with your possible short comings.

When I was a teen ager in 1969 my tail light in my 58 Chev went out.
I started troubleshooting at the brake pedal worked my way through the whole car back to the tail light.
Then I remembered telling myself, "start at the tail light".
I flicked the bulb with my finger and the bulb turned on, indicating it was just oxidation on the contacts.

54 years later, I can still feel the tail light stupidity.

Aa someone that worked as a master mechanic for far too long, heed my advice here.

I've worked all of the places, dealerships, corporate places and privately owned. I've seen the horrors and watched how they operate.

I understand that people take their car to the dealer that corresponds with the manufacturer of their vehicle but thats the worst damn thing you can do. You have guys working flat-rate that are rushing through jobs to get to the next one and many times that tech is the one that brought coffee and donuts to the service writers. Expect higher prices and subpar work.

Then you have the corporate places where the guys work on commission and the managers are pressing the guys to sell so that corporate sees they're making their "numbers." These are hit or miss.

Find a private shop that's know and established where the guys typically get paid hourly. They're not inclined to ràpe you..

Five stars for this post. Experienced all of the above - and sometimes use the 2.5 gallon cans these days. Same kind of grateful. Thanks again, Dad.

Experienced and solid advice - some communities still have such shops, often passed through the family. In the big city areas, I don't know.

Glad to hear someone say what I want to everyday but I don't want to blow my own horn to loudly, just keep wheeling!

.

Bingo. Before I moved to another state, I went to an independent who was a master Toyota mechanic for 25 years, quit the dealership when the new owner screwed employees and customers alike. Very fair prices, didn't oversell, kept his overhead low.

I generally avoid places that advertise on TV. Any idea what TV ads cost? Guess who pays in the end.