save 140$? yes please!

Part of getting ready to leave for Montreal included some rather expensive car repairs. Apparently my brakes needed to be fully replaced (ouch!) so while that was being done I asked the nice folks to make sure nothing else needed to be done before Bluey II attempted a 6000km round trip.

This of course was asking for trouble. A belt needed to be replaced. Or several. They quoted me $160 to change all of them. I sighed, grumbled a bit (a lot), and said fine, do it. My childhood memories are filled with our car breaking down on road trips. None of those memories are particularly fun times. Then I talked to Big Red, grumbled some more. Being the calm, gentle person he is, he insinuated that the car place may be lying to me in a very reasonable tone. I actually quite like my mechanic, and don't think he would lie to me, but none the less, it merited checking out.

So I approached the car guy at my school. Contradictory to what Big Red was screaming into the phone, it would seem it was perfectly plausible that I needed one (or more) belts replaced. He, however, seemed to think it would be no trouble to fix it at the school. He implied this would be much cheaper that having it fixed chez my mechanic. So I called my mechanic back and told him not to fix the belts. Being the nice guy he is, he said no problem and somehow managed to fix my breaks cheaper than originally quoted.

The next day I took Bluey II in to be looked at by Murray's car guy. Indeed my belt was a little frayed, and while it might make the trip there and back, fixing it was most likely a better option. If any of you are curious as to how much a belt costs, it's $15.

So, I took car guy out for lunch, and then we swung by Part Source to pick up the belt. Then we went back to school so it could be replaced. By me. At first, I thought car guy was joking when he told me I was going to fix my own car. And then I realised he wasn't. Ok, well for a savings of $140 I was pretty sure I could get a little dirty.

So car guy pointed at things, handed me tools - mostly wrenches of various sizes, taught me about leverage, and used the lift. I did what he pointed at, loosened bolts mostly, managed to get both belts on myself and then tightened things back up. Car guy double checked everything, and it appeared that all was good to go.

The whole process took me 45 minutes. ME. 45 MINUTES. It is mind blowing that a garage was going to charge me over an hours worth of labour for something I did in 45 minutes. Needless to say, car guy is my new best friend and has volunteered his minions to fix any future car problems I may have. Whoot!