With my continued gas savings I bought this! (1999 Accord LX)

[redpoint5]

I repeat my previous inquiries.

[freebeard]

Yeah, now I want to know, too.

Put your KBB book values in one hand and poop in the other. Which one fills up first?

[Xist]

I kept thinking that I needed to drive down and take the Accord to Transmission Center and Auto Repair, which is rated 4.7 with 81 Google reviews.

There is only one Yelp review, but it is one-star.

Some guy said he had his clutch replaced, but there wasn't any pressure, and they told him that he needed to have his master replaced.

"The master was fine when I brought in my truck!"
"Angry mayonnaise noises."

The Phoenix location is rated 4.3 on Facebook with 8 reviews, but also shows the Mesa number.

I had been trying to focus on official problems. I have done speech therapy 3 times with my brother in the last 2 weeks, but I just could not work with him on Friday, mostly because my 09 mom didn't connect until 1900, and then it was too late.

I have made a couple efforts to clean the top of the 2002 Civic engine, but I need to find my razors and mirrors.

I mean just razors!

Can't have acid wash powder too fine!

My sister messaged me yesterday "We have the Accord at Chandler Honda. I had called weeks ago to get an estimate for the rear main seal replacement and it was going to be close to $1,400. Now they are saying $2,100 and cannot explain the discrepancy.

At Easter... supper... (1400) she made it sound like they were gaslighting her, like it would have been $2,100 weeks and even months ago, and she felt like they were trying to make her think there was something wrong with her for ever thinking $1,400.

When Mom pays her bills on-line she writes down the name of the person she called and the confirmation code, so if my sister had done that, she could say "I talked to Dopey on 03/31 at 12:00 and he quoted me..."

They could still feign ignorance, but she would be in more of a position of strength.

"Tempe Honda is saying $2,600."

She should never mention Tempe Honda again. They probably would have told her to replace every gasket and seal from the top to the bottom until they got to the rear main seal and she would have paid thousands before getting to a $2,600 repair.

I asked "What about the transmission shop I mentioned?"

"It seems super shady from the reviews I read."

There is one negative review on Yelp, but only one review, which is weird, especially since there are 8 reviews on Facebook and 81 on Google.

There is one negative review on Facebook and the person wrote, in all caps, "-0 stars!"

There are 7 one-star reviews on Google, one 2-star review, and the rest are 5-stars.

The highest-rated iPhone on Amazon is the refurbished 3 SE, which is weird, I searched for the 14!

There are 7 one-star reviews, although it only has a 4.6 average.

My sister saying a random shop is shady doesn't mean much to me, one time she brought my niece to visit, my niece heard the ice cream truck, asked for money, and my sister said "That's the scary ice cream truck."

She almost never visits, so I cannot imagine she has ever seen it, did she lie to her daughter to get out of spending a buck?

Also, she has only talked about dealerships.

What is her obsession with paying top dollar to maintain a 24-year-old car?!

Let me return to what passes for a conversation with my sister before going off on more tangents.

I told her

Tempe quoted me $200 and you $670.
Chandler quoted you $1,400 and then $2,100.
Who knows what price they would quote afterwards?
That sounds shady.

I paid Tempe to find a bad oil leak and as I told her later, "From what I can tell, Tempe wanted to replace the valve cover gasket, the belts, the valve cover gasket, the exhaust bolts, and the valve cover gasket, and perhaps that total was $670."

The car didn't need any of that. Maybe an occasional squeal on startup would have gone away, but perhaps adjusting it would have the same effect.

Before that Big Two Toyota said my car with 105,000 miles needed 16 expensive repairs totaling $7,316.

Back when my sister drove a piece of Chevy she dropped it off for one repair and never left the parking lot.
"I cannot drive this thing. What did you do to it?"
Three hours later.
"The shocks just blew out. Sometimes they just do that!"
"They weren't like that before you worked on my vehicle! Fix it!"

I will come back to that if I remember, but I am trying to focus!

My sister repeated herself and then wrote "Maybe the price of the part just went up astronomically."

The best price I found from a dealership for the seal was $12, but shipping was over $20!

She apparently copied and pasted something into Facebook Messenger. I didn't know what everything meant and I happened to have the Toyota Christmas list open, so I typed everything into the spreadsheet to look at it better and when I started typing those items I didn't understand Excel suggested things from the Toyota list:

Rear main seal $2,022.04
Alignment $134.95
Wipers $33.99
Timing belt $1,450.00
Cabin air filter $80.95
Battery $203.41
Brake flush $186.19
Coolant flush $183.18
Auto transmission flush $247.52
Power steering flusht: $174.39
Left outboard driveshaft $879.95
Right outboard driveshaft $935.46
Total: $6,532.03

Big Two only wanted to replace one halfshaft, they said the power steering hose, motor mounts, front control arm bushing, and steering rack were cracked and needed to be replaced. Big Two said that the engine air filter and platinum/iridium spark plugs needed to be replaced, the fuel injection needed to be flushed with plug replacement, and the AC evaporator needed cleaning, but Honda didn't mention those.

It seemed odd they listed 8 of the same things.

Are those the most likely ones to go?

The CV boots may be ripped, but it doesn't click.
I don't know about the power steering or coolant. I didn't flush the brakes when I replaced the pads and rotors.
I doubt the cabin air filter requires replacement, but I prefer to hit them with my compressor and reinstall them.
The wipers and battery work, although they may need replacement soon.
I don't remember when I probably replaced the timing belt, but I think I told my sister it was something like 190-195k, and the car has 230k so no.

[uses spray bottle]

[Xist]

What is her obsession with paying top dollar to maintain a 24-year-old car?!

The Honda dealerships have high reviews, but Big Two is rated 3.9 stars.

In February she messaged me “Cobra Tires in Gilbert said the rear main seal is 8 hours, so around $1,100.”

She hadn’t talked to them lately. I asked her to call again, they quoted $1,400, and she said “Hold my sign.”

She also wrote dealerships “usually have specials to bring their prices down to about what Cobra or Goodyear charge, but then you have Honda techs working on the car.”

Ideally you would want specialists working on your car, but both dealerships that have looked at the 24-year-old car have tried to rob us.

Unfortunately, so did Cobra Tire, which is why I always try to do my own repairs.

I couldn’t find a repair estimator that did rear main seals, but MyCarSpecs said that YourMechanic and Napa gave estimates between $700 and $1,600.

As far as I know, I looked at the coupon page for every dealership in the state. Some had coupons for one or maybe two things on her list and Bell and Superstition have 15% off coupons, but I feel like you need to get a quote, verify they honor their own coupon, and then get a quote in writing with the coupon so they don’t raise the price 20%.

She didn’t mention any specials recently, so that was just an excuse to pay extra?!

Have I mentioned that a friend noticed my brother didn't wash his hands after going to the bathroom 4 years ago? Even when we make him go wash his hands and give step-by-step instructions as necessary with a special timer for kids he does a terrible job, so I have been getting up and supervising him personally.

Well, he got up at 0330 and asked to go to the bathroom. I hadn't been able to sleep yet, so I was making my brother wash his hands in the middle of the night, and then I slept in.

When I woke up I had a text from my sister saying "Cobra Tire cleaned up the oil/dye. Added more oil/dye, drove it, rechecked and there was dye `everywhere.' They recommend an `entire motor reseal.' They are working up the estimate now."

Every time she talks to a mechanic I have more questions about this car which isn't supposed to be my problem anymore, and half the time she is as useless as my employer's office, just saying "They didn't say."

I can understand a bad employee not caring how much money the company makes, but my sister wants to sell her 2019 Odyssey to pay bills and drive this car, so I don't see how she can afford to waste hundreds or thousands of dollars.

I tried to do some research, talked to two mechanics on JustAnswer, and tried to research what they told me.

I wrote out a full message, but figured that I would regret it. She would have too many questions and still not understand, so I just wrote:
"Please only authorize the rear main and to say the other seals and gaskets are under warranty."
"Where were they replaced?"
"Mom's driveway in July."
"Oh."
"If I need to replace them again I will, but if the rear main seal is leaking you wouldn't be able to tell if the oil pan gasket is leaking because oil from the rear main seal would get all over the oil pan."
"He said the oil pan was leaking too."
"I talked to two mechanics who said that a full reseal would be the valve cover gasket, the oil pan gasket, the rear main seal, and one said the VTEC gasket. I will replace any and all gaskets and seals once the rear main is fixed."
She sent an emojo.

"They weren't like that before you worked on my vehicle! Fix it!

I don't have any idea what I wanted to write about that, just that we continue to have negative experiences with dealerships [and mechanics in general].

[redpoint5]

I wouldn't own an old car that required service I wasn't going to do myself. Shops have no incentive to properly diagnose, and thereby keep costs as low as possible. They're going to say everything that has oil on it is leaking.

I take that back, I did hire a guy to rebuild the front end on the truck once, but that's because I knew what was bad and he quoted exactly how much he wanted to replace it, all in.

[Xist]

I just hope these snakes aren't like Thompson's Auto Repair & Towing on Main Street in Mesa. They quoted me one hour of labor on the Subaru and then charged me 3!

I said "You quoted me one hour!"

The guy shrugged and walked off!

"What are you doing?! I need my car!"

"I didn't know what you wanted."
"I don't have a choice, do I?!"

[redpoint5]

Looking forward to robot mechanics. You think they'll screw people too?

Maybe about the time I've got such bad arthritis I can no longer wrench, robots will be good enough replacements. Maybe I'll have a robot arm.

[freebeard]

You think they'll screw people too?

Depends. Are they owned by Micro$oft?

Elon Musk? They'll crack jokes while they work.

[redpoint5]

Funny listening to Musk's sophomoric jokes with the BBC, regarding BBC. Somehow he occupies the extremes of genius and juvenile.

[Xist]

How long until robot mechanics are affordable by the masses?

With all of the tools I have I could pay $5,000 for a Harbor Freight Robomechanic.

People have told me that I have carpal tunnels for 25 years, although I rarely hurt enough to take off a day from projects.

I just get distracted, like trying to figure out what to do with my nephew's $250 car.

I asked on Imgur how they preferred guys to start conversation and they replied "Be wealthy and attractive," but someone complained on Facebook that he asked these questions and received short or one-word answers, which was my complaint earlier and a woman who had me take her to an expensive restaurant and then ghosted me said my questions were shallow.

His questions:
1: What does a typical day look like for you?
2: About what are you most passionate at the moment?
3: What’s your favorite thing about where you grew up?
4: Have you traveled much? Or do you want to?
5: What’s your favorite way to spend your weekend?
6: What’s something you want to learn or wish you were better at?
7: When you have free time do you grab a book or put on a movie?
8: Is there anything in your life you’re working to improve?
9: What’s your family like?
10: Where do you want to be in 4 years?

I asked a friend these and she responded with short or one-word answers. With #1 I shared a shorter version of this, where Frye told Zoidberg to ask the lady about her day, and Zoidberg tells Frye "Frye! Look what you did! Now she won't shut up!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdcaSGMedMs

I ask ladies where they want to be in 5 years.

Why four?!

That is usually my last question. If I have not gotten them to actually talk yet I don't think I will.

I started asking ladies these questions and had a great conversation with one, but after the second question I didn't need to ask questions, the conversation took a life of its own--until I mentioned that all kinds of things go wrong when you overheat a car "So, don't do that, okay? "

"Oh, I cracked a head on my 1996 Pontiac Sunfire."
The car itself was a mistake.
I asked "How on Earth did you crack a head?! Did you floor it once the temperature was already in the red?!"
"No, it was a misfortune incident after an oil change at Jiffy Lube."
"Your dad was a mechanic and you went to Shifty Lube?!"
"I am a FIRM believer in gender roles and fixing cars is a boy job."
"Gender roles sounds like learned helplessness."
"I can handle myself just fine ��*♀️"
"Aside from cracked heads."

Well, she is in Alaska, and I already imported one of those who didn't take care of cars.