Car Repairs @Solsticepublish

Cars are such a pain.  They are a necessity in our lives.  Your ability to work or shop or anything else depends on the reliability of your automobile.  My Mother-in-law used to say, “You have a car payment or you have car repairs and sometimes you have both.”  Ain’t it the truth!  Every time I take my car in for one of those discount oil changes they always find something in dire need of repair.  The brakes are worn down and they never seem to be able to turn rotors anymore.  They always have to be replaced because they are too thin.  Another time the shocks and struts were in bad shape which was making the car dangerous.  (Making the car dangerous seems to be the selling point with every repair.)  The tires look fine but they have small cracks in them and could blow at any time, like when you’re driving your family on the highway.  Then there are the ambiguous problems.  There’s a leek and we need to trace it back to its source.  That never ends well.  The check engine light is on and that means there’s a $20 sensor that needs to be replaced but it will cost $200 in labor to get it changed.  Suddenly that oil change has become a very expensive, day long trip to the mechanic.  Engines aren’t the only thing ridiculous about the cost of cars.  My daughter’s car was backed into and the driver was responsible enough to exchange information.  It took about two weeks to fix the car and thankfully neither we nor our insurance had to pay the bill.  I say that because the bill was $3700 for a dent in the quarter-panel.  When we looked at it in detail we saw that less than $400 went for parts.  About another $250 went to tax.  The rest was all labor!  I am in the wrong field.  That is a ton of money for labor.  With most of these repairs, however, you have to have them done or else risk your family’s and your own safety.  There is never a good time for a large auto expense but they do always seem to come when money is tightest.  What alternative is there?  Even if you checked five other places, they are all going to give you at least as grim a diagnosis.  At first I was angry at the mechanics but then I started thinking about it from their point of view.  Yes, it is in their best interest to find things wrong with your car.  But consider this.  What if they saw a potential problem like the cracks in the tires and told you it was something that could wait to be fixed.  Then you go out and have an accident because of the faulty tires.  They just opened themselves up for a lawsuit.  So I guess they have more than just selfish reasons for bringing up these problems.  They are protecting themselves.  It doesn’t make me any happier but I can at least see both sides of the coin now.