In a move to save some cash, I've decided to do my own car maintenance for a while. I used to think that those greasemonkeys down at Bodgit Exhaust & Tyre Centre or wherever were a rip off. Having had my radiator drained and not refilled by an actual dealer shop, and had my oil drain plug chewed up and thread-stripped once too often by a supermarket lube shop I shall call Tram-Law for legal reasons, I still do think they are a rip-off. But those places that actually do real work on cars, where people with cherished classic cars might take them to be fixed, make no mistake, they are miracle workers.
I just replaced a sway bar link on my Expedition. It's a long bolt, with a nut on one end, in a plastic tube. Cost me $7.00. You unscrew the nut, pull out the bolt, put the new one on, tighten the bolt. That's it. That accursed bolt took me 2 hours to remove. That's $140 plus tax at my local expert's shop and I would have gladly paid, had I known how hard it was to replace. It's 93 degrees here today and it's humid as well. I was sweating like a pedophile at a scout jamboree just getting the thing off. In the end I broke the plastic tube into pieces and used a hub puller (yes, for those in the know, it took a tool built for separating heat-shrunk flywheels from crankshafts to get that bolt out.)
No, I'm not going to pay a grease monkey to change my oil, grease my chassis, pour tap water into my radiator and change my wiper blades for ones that don't fit. But when it comes to real work, I'm taking my car to those in the know. They might say they fix cars, but believe me, those people wrestle with demons.
Thought for the day - the older I get, the better I was. Night, all.
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