Vehicular "you know you're old when...."

Wife's car's fuel pump cacked this evening. I'm running numbers in my head (trip into town to investigate, trip back to get tools, trip to auto parts store, assume they have a pump, trip back home to get wife, trip back to the car for her to drive home, trip back home, all at 10mpg in the Chevy C10.... or just get it towed home and do it on the street.... or just get it towed to buddy's shop and pay the man....).

While I can certainly DO the job myself, "Pay the Man" is the easy button.

I still do my own oil changes, but I'm sure that's going to go away when I can pay the man and not have to get dirty.

What are some jobs that YOU can certainly do, but you farm out because you don't want to?

I have the oil and filter for Carli's Charger. I drove it to the oil change place last week and sat in the car while they did the work, my hands stayed clean, and they disposed of the oil. It was the first oil change I haven't done since her crapalier. That was a miserable car to do so i made her take it to the quick lube place.

I also almost got killed by the car going to the dealer for warranty work. It lit up like a christmas tree so i plugged it in, saw Canbus MIL codes, and said here ya go I have a warranty.

Oil changes. My mechanic charges me $20. I can't do it cheaper or easier. Most other things that involve crawling under the car. This is for DD. Projects are a different story.

I did the oil pan gasket on my wife's 4.0 ZJ Grand Cherokee for the second time in six months about a month ago. A real bear of a job to do without a lift, and probably not fun even with it. On the first attempt the back arc over rear main bearing didn't sit right causing a worse leak than what I started with.

Anyway, I tried to farm that job out to several shops run by friends and none would do it for friends and family rate, and the two guys that I really trust I offered to pay the real rate, still no go. The guy that do a lot of SAAB parts trading with did offer to let me use his lift, but unfortunately his shop was to far from me to coordinate a time easily.

I don't ever want to do that job again, I'd pay stealership rates to avoid it. Thankfully the second gasket went in just fine.

I couldn't think of a single one, then I remembered that I had a new HU put in my truck a few months ago. For what they charged it's not even close to worth me doing it.

I'm about to turn 53. About the only thing I still do to my car is oil changes, but with long intervals and low usage, that's about a once-a-year thing nowadays.

I live vicariously through this board.

The first thing I gave up was exhaust systems. Too must time and hassle.

I was never a good mechanic anyway, didn't do much beyond oil changes and brake pads at home. I still do my own oil changes, but will likely give that up too pretty soon. Grocery store gives out coupons for the local NTB to do an oil change and tire rotation for $18. I drive 30k+ miles per year on my own car and we rack up miles on my wife's minivan too, so I'm crawling under the car a lot for oil changes...even though I do them at 7500 mile intervals. My wife just took the minivan in for an oil change yesterday because we're leaving for Disney next week. They found an axle starting to leak...son of a... Definitely not something I'm going to do myself, but an expense I didn't want right now.

The only things I don't do are things I don't have the equipment to do. I don't trust anyone else. And getting the recall work done on my bike just reinforced that belief because they failed to do the only thing I asked them to do besides the recall work and they screwed that up as well.

I got in the habit of pulling the wheels off the car and taking them in to replace the tires. I wish I could afford my own machine because the last time they destroyed three finish on my wife's wheels.

People are useless. Especially if you're paying them to do something.

In reply to Nick (Bo) Comstock:

I did that with my wife's Trailblazer and when I got home the hammer on weights were falling off the rim. Back to NTB......

I do oil and filter changes and brake replacements.

I do all the work on the FX16. It's fun when there are no time pressures.

The daily drivers go to the shop. Because it's NOT fun when there are time pressures.

I just hired someone to do a water pump on my Duramax, and it's gonna cost me a fortune.

But the potential down time was a real buzz kill. Book rate says it's an 8 hour job (gotta remove the starter to lock the flywheel, and the radiator to remove). I can only work evenings on it. But the potential of getting it up on blocks for 3 or 4 evenings, pushing into the weekend, and not being able to break the bolts or some other problem was too great.

I decided to pay up, and enjoy the 2 year warranty, a little sleep, and the time with my kids.

I'm seriously considering farming out fixing the blend motors on the wife's MZ5. I know that if I take the dash apart it will be hard, not-fun work and it'll probably rattle forever after that.

Maybe it's because I just spent the last couple of days messing with brake lines and the fuel filter on the 944, but my appetite for laying on my back on a concrete floor contorting my arm to get to some narrow spot with a wrench that I can only turn about an 1/8 of a turn at a time is really starting to run out. There are a lot of things I don't mind doing, wrenching-wise, but that's one area I'd be happy to never have to revisit again.

AC and automatic transmissions. I have tried both and failed both at least twice. Did a steering rack and heater core last week. Distributor and ignition switch on an old Ford truck were something to do while dinner was cooking and replacing a 3rd member had to wait until I got at least 2 tires on their rims.

Bruce

Cracked exhaust manifold on pop's '01 Tundra is a potentially $1800 repair up here if it all goes south (broken rusty studs, likely). In the end, pops just stops looking at the check engine light (one bank O2 not happy) and endures the noisier exhaust.

SkinnyG wrote: What are some jobs that YOU can certainly do, but you farm out because you don't want to?

Aside from airing up tires, pretty much all of them, unless it's an emergency. Working 60-80 hours a week, I just don't have the time. Also, my local Chevy dealer's service department is AWESOME. They did all the maintenance on the "old" V for 3 years, and never charged me for, or recommended, service I didn't need.

Also, one of the best days of my adult life was the day I said "berkeley it" and started paying someone to cut my grass.

I'm with Poopy on the grass cutting. Love having someone else take care of that.

I have the local dealership do the oil changes on the Cummins. And I paid BMW to change out the airbag controller on the BMW. But otherwise, I'm still doing pretty much everything because I don't really have any other options for most of my stuff

In a strange turn of events, my friend's shop was down two techs this week, and they weren't going to be able to get to it.

..... so I ended up changing it myself, in their parking lot, borrowing their tools. I said if it didn't work, I'll bring it back for warranty.

I changed the oil for the first time in my 14 Dodge Minivan last night. (the first 5 were free through the dealer) I have to tip my hat to the Chrysler engineers---- it was so easy it was almost pleasant. Everything was simple to find, the filter is a canister-type--up high in the engine, so it's easy to get at. The drain plug was kind of awkward to reach, but not a big deal. What a breeze!

I wasn't sure if I was going synthetic or not, but there was a Mobil 1 deal going on, so synthetic it is. I'm sure it gained more horsepower!

I enjoy working on my own stuff, even for basic maintenance. It keeps me on top of the machine's needs. For instance while doing the oil, I noticed there were leaves gathering by the windshield cowl, so I got the shop vac and took care of it. Grease Monkey, or the dealer would have left those leaves to rot----and it's a newer car, so who knows when the next time that hood will be opened.

I do all the oil and filter changes except for the Dodge Diesel. Just too friggin' much oil and that was a utility vehicle, nothing I had any passion for. Also farmed out the transmission oil changes.

I don't think I've ever paid someone else to do a brake job on any vehicle I've owned.

I farmed out the spark plug change on the Toyota Highlander. The transverse V6 on that thing made for too many hours disassembling stuff to reach the back bank. Had a few other things done while it was there, but drew the line on a new serpentine belt for $150. I did it myself in 10 minutes for $20, though I couldn't find any of the "cracks" they said were in the belt. It had aged out, so I needed to change it anyway, but still. Needless to say, that place (non-dealer) isn't getting any more of my business. I think they overcharged me on everything else, too.

Had the dealer do the front wheel bearings on the same vehicle. Guy quoted me $800 for both over the phone, which I thought was $200 high. When I went to pick up the vehicle the bill was $1500 and he said that was because it was $800 per bearing, which is not what he told me over the phone. He adjusted it back down to the $800 without too much fuss, though.

That's why I HATE having anyone else do any work on my vehicles. To this day, I really have no way of knowing whether they really replaced those back bank spark plugs, and there is no easy way to find out. I asked them for the old parts, but they "accidently" threw them away.

Knock on wood, I've never had any complicated computer/code issues, though, and I'm afraid if I do I won't have a choice.

My vintage cars are 100% me, except when it comes to machine work.

I farmed out the cambelt on my wife's MDX last year. I had a dealer tech that was willing to do it as side work at the Honda dealer on a Saturday. I've actually done a couple of them on customer's cars but didn't want to give up a Saturday afternoon at the shop to do it myself. My personal time was worth the extra $300.

I've had some good experiences, and some REALLY bad ones...more bad than good, actually...where I walked away saying "I could've berkeleyed that up myself! FOR FREE!"

But again, my local Chevy stealership guys have been such rockstars, I keep going back.

The race cars, on the other hand, I prefer to wrench on myself. Especially the CRX's. I can fix damned near anything on those blind-folded with one arm tied behind my back.

New truck gets dealer service, the add-ons are all mine, the fun kind.

DD E92 gets local indie service. I'll do the intake port media blast and OCC install. Brakes too next time.

Toys like the S197 are all mine.

I'll never take any vehicle to the detail shop anymore. That's all mine too.

Routine maintenance got to be a chore, too much like work. I still like turning wrenches but only the fun stuff. I think it's gettin' time for a build.

Joe Gearin wrote: I enjoy working on my own stuff, even for basic maintenance. It keeps me on top of the machine's needs. For instance while doing the oil, I noticed there were leaves gathering by the windshield cowl, so I got the shop vac and took care of it. Grease Monkey, or the dealer would have left those leaves to rot.

Snipped - but that right there. I just turned 50 this year, but I still enjoy working on my own stuff, plus I enjoy the money saved.

For example - Ford Dealer quoted me $780 to install a new LF seatbelt pretensioner.

I pulled the seat, used 10 cents worth of dielectric grease and fixed it myself (based on reading a TSB that the dealer had full access to!!!). I will enjoy that $779.90 that I can use on vacation.