I gotta work on the Benz and I don't want to.

I really don't want to work on my Miata, but I really want to drive it so I force myself to.

In reply to NGTD:

I hear ya... There are a ton of little projects I need to do on my truck before I can sell it. I suppose I try to think of it like a Wheeler Dealer project....

My current excuse for not wanting to do big work to any of my vehicles is that my work space is an uneven parking spot in a condo complex. I would love to pull the engine and transmission out of the Corrado and rebuild everything, just not in a parking lot.

I feel ya, I really do.

I've paid someone to work on a car twice in the past 5 years. I was too busy w/ work and renovating to do a load of stuff before track season on the M3 so I took it to a very well regarded local BMW-only shop run by a long time racer. His "guy" never got me an estimate - I dropped the car off at 8AM Monday for a Wednesday after work pickup and it was "done" on Friday at 7PM, and I'd been waiting at the shop for 3 hours while he tried to get the electric fan to work. He had the transmission out and back in 3 times as he'd installed the friction disc backwards - which I told him to check. I ended up redoing all of the fan wiring and replacing the fuse block and cover, both of which he destroyed. He double and triple billed for multiple jobs, ie, he charged to R&R the exhaust and drive shaft 3 times to do the Giubo+ center bearing, sub frame bushings and rear control arm bushings. He charged again to align the exhaust and install new exhaust hangers.

The bill was $5k, almost all labor.

This summer we took the wife's 00' Audi A4 2.8Q to a well regarded shop for cam belts+seals+cooling system, front control arms+ install Bilsteins + springs I provided. The bill ended up about $6.5k and the tech destroyed an ABS sensor and sender ring on the outer CV. When the service writer described the problem he was shocked when I replied "Oh, the tech pulled the outer CV into the hub by the axle nut with his biggest impact gun and didn't stop to see what was wrong when it got really hard. That's because the ABS sensor was wedged in there" I was billed for a used driveshaft, an ABS sensor and labor - this was eventually refunded, but the joint was bad from day one - along with the CELs the car was throwing.

So, I'm done with it. I have all the tools and space and could have bought a nice lift and climate controlled the garage for what I dumped on careless bad work.

It's a downer sometimes though when out of 6 cars and 3 motorcycles, only 2 happen to be working. This summer I'm track for a 100% operability rate. I'm having everyone over and I'm going to start every internal combustion engine I own from cars to motorbikes to scooters, go peds, power equipment and all RC planes that run on pre-mix. Then the entropy will start anew and I'll be back on the hampster wheel of maintenance.

Every time one of my cars goes into a shop where I'm not there I end up getting screwed, it seems.

Last summer a local exhaust shop (who does custom stuff) decided that making a 3" cat-back for my 9000 Aero was too hard so instead the charged me $140 to cut up the parts I provided.

Recently I bought a Saab 9-5 with a blown turbo. The car was sitting at a shop and the labor was going to cost as much as towing it home so I went that route. Still trying to figure out why it doesn't boost

I guess I must be one of the lucky ones. I've got a good BMW indy I've known for the better part of 20 years, ever since I bought my first 2002 from him. Over that time I think I've gone to him for actual paid work maybe three or four times; the rest of the time it's annual state inspections, and occasionally just to talk through some problem or other before I tackle it. He's not cheap, but for all the unbilled time he's given me over the years to sort through stuff and all the hours of labor he's saved me on one job or another, I can't complain about the rare case where I actually have to take the car to him.

NGTD wrote: Been driving the Outback lately (yes the one I have for sale) to try to get it out and about so people can see it. A guy cut me off and when I braked something felt funny. I blew a hole in one of the steel hardlines at the back. They only go down under the rear seat, above the gas tank and across the top of the rear diff and I have to replace it so I can get the car sold. Yup - I am real motivated to go lay on a cold garage floor with snow and ice melting off the car to do that.

No car is as unreliable as one that's for sale.

I'll work on my Miata and GTI myself, but the Astro and MINI get fixed with the cheque book except for stuff like brakes or suspension.

I've got the issue that I'm cheap and easily irritated by dealers.

When I was relocating to my current job driving from Ohio to California I flipped on my blinker on the Saturn Vue that I as using as the tow vehicle and a wisp of smoke came out of the steering column followed by the sound of a relay going nuts.

Since the electrical smoke startled me I pulled off to a dealer in Ohio and had them take a look. A couple hours and three hundred dollars worth of troubleshooting later they told me that the body control module went bad. It's apparently a common enough on those vehicles, except that it didn't show any of the signs of going bad that a quick internet search provided. I politely enough paid the bill, refused the 800 dollar plus labor part, pulled the blinker fuse and drove across the country without the blinkers. This is after they broke the bracket on the dash for the emergency 4 ways, broke the trim around the stereo, and greased up the headliner.

So somewhere around a year later I got a bit cold hanging my hand out the window in front of CHP officers and decided it was time to buy a manual with wiring diagrams. It took about 5 minutes for me to trace the wires running the blinkers to any relay in the system (there was a total of 1) and realize that the stalk on the column had shorted. Electricity it's berkleying magic!

So a 30 dollar part later I had blinkers. Needless to say every time the dealership troubleshoots the wifes car, mine never sees a dealer anymore, I ask them to prove how they came to that conclusion. 50% of the time they can't figure out how a relay gets energized or why a contactor closes or they figure that where the wire line crosses over the tech loses track of where the line goes. Then they make up a semi thought through reason up as to what could be bad in the system which results in me coming down on them for poor troubleshooting.

Lately while I'm away on a trip the wife has some maintenance that needs to be taken care of. 2/3 of the time the quote for maintenance comes back without labor factored in and the bill ends up 3x what they quoted, which fortunately never goes over very well with her.

As much as I may not feel like working on a car on the weekends I do anyway because the frustration of watching someone shotgun a problem with parts then have the gall to charge me for it is not worth it.