... not switching to Geico. It is auto related, partly. About 2 weeks ago the blower in the car started acting up. It would go to only two settings, high and low speed. It could run on high for the entire time I would drive, then it could just switch to low and stay there for a few minutes then go back to high. Nothing in between. At first I thought it was the blower, but if it was then it shouldn't run at all. After giving it some thought, I figured out it was the blower resistor. Checked with the dealership, it would be around $140 for the part through the dealer (the car has auto climate control) and another $400 or so to install it. The "proper" repair is to drain the coolant, then remove vacuum control solenoid from the firewall, then disconnect the heater inlet and outlet hoses, then remove the blower resistor, and then the opposite to put everything back. So for the repair, you get charged for the "proper" repair time, even if it takes less time. I was able to get the blower resistor off by removing the vacuum control (took about 2-3 minutes) then just pushed the heater hoses out of the way, took out the resistor and put in the new one. That took about an hour in total. And the overhead light in the kitchen stopped working yesterday. It's been acting up for the last few months or so. It would turn off on its own, or would take a few flicks of the switch to get it to stay on. I figured out what was wrong with it a few weeks ago, the switch itself had gone bad, if I wiggled it and pushed sideways on the switch the light would stay on. It took about 5 minutes to change it out. The blower resistor was around $45 and the light switch was about $2. I got the resistor at O'reilly's and the switch at Home Depot. Due to my job, I meet a lot of people and find out just how incapable some people are doing their own work. Around here, having an electrician come out would have been about $100-150, and by doing the car work myself I saved around $500. So an hour's worth of my time, and I came out around $650 ahead.
I just got quoted $800 for running a wire for our new furnace...even though I did it last weekend in about an hour.
I too had to replace the blower motor resistor on one of my hoopties. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't especially challenging either. YouTube also offers a vast wealth of information for the DYI'er. A buddy of mine rewired his whole AC system just using YouTube videos.
ditto re youtube - also, check rockauto before you buy a part if you can afford to wait for it to be shipped
I have used rockauto in the past and recommended it to friends. It is a good place to get auto paets at whole sale prices.
yep, if your car already has a lot of miles on it and you aren't going to trade it in or sell it, nothing wrong with putting discount (if not official) parts on it. I saved an insane amount of money fixing/replacing my beetle headlights/headlight assemblies. Today some guys at my work are going to help me diagnose my AC problem. If they can't fix it, at least they can narrow it down to what's wrong so I don't pay for more than what I need.
Shouldn't this be under "the workshop" or "Techforge" or the technically challenged "Camp Wordforge"? We can lament the emasculation of DIYers here in the US. Hotrodders have been replaced by "tuners" whose ability seems limited to degrading their cars' suspensions and putting fart cans on them. Son's Miata had an unfortunate meeting with the rear of another car. Front clip and chassis were tweaked enough to make repairs iffy. Miata's are a pleasure to work on. We did a lot of wrenching on that car... He replaced it with another Mazda that was pre-tweaked. After driving it for a couple days it started missing on one cylinder. He did have a shop diagnose it, which was helpful ($90). They recommended replacing plugs, wires, dist cap, rotor, and the injectors. 250K miles and 26 years I guess they had squirted as much as they were going to. They said the compression was ok and recommended doing the work for $950. He paid $800 for the truck so that was hard to rationalize. AUS sold us rebuilt injectors for $200 (based in Tempe they got us the parts in two days). Gaskets, fuel filter, and the rest came to another $100. A day in the shade getting greasy: priceless. OK I did buy him his first set of wrenches ($89 @ Costco). The prior GA good'ol-boy owner had macgyvered the radiator replacing the original with one of unknown origin. It holds pressure so we left it as is. It's good to have a truck in the family for those Home Depot runs.
Actually, yes. I'm moving the thread, but I'll leave a redirect in the RR. [George]RR[Martin]-->CampWordForge
DIY projects/repairs have always gone in Camp Wordforge. It's not just guns. Techforge is for discussion of science/tech stuff in the news.
