You get what you pay for

So today I decide to leave work for lunch, mostly because there are times I just don't want to be there.  After getting some iced tea there I am, sitting in my now street legal Durango, and some old dude decides to bang on my passenger side window.

My first thought was aggressive panhandler and that I should just kick his scummy ass for touching my truck.  I was kind of right...

It turns out he wanted to know if he could fix the dents on the passenger side of the truck, for the princely sum of...ready?  Eighty-five dollars.  I told him no, you cannot fix those for $85, and I just got done spending all my money making the damn truck pass inspection.

The rest of the conversation went like this:

Him: No I can fix those right here for $85.

Me: No, I don't have $85.

Him: Well how about $65.

Me: No, I don't have money and you cant fix those properly for $65.

Him: Well I can follow you to wherever you are going and...

Me: If you follow me anywhere I am calling the cops.

Him: Well how much money do you have?

Me in irate-and-fucking-done-with-this mode:

NONE OF YOUR GODDAMN FUCKING BUSINESS HOW MUCH MONEY I HAVE, NOW FUCK OFF!

Is it possible to have a dent removed for $85? Well, possibly.  I cannot imagine it being a dent much larger than a half inch wide or so.  A dent that is, well, just a dent without creasing the metalwork maybe can be done by one of those "paintless dent removal" outfits for that price. Don't get me wrong I am not trying to knock one of these outfits, but I have admittedly never used them because I usually could care less about minor dents.

My dents are about fist sized, and in the case of the right rear door the metal is creased.  Frankly if anything I would just replace the door and call it a day.  Same with the fender.

I tell you this story to tell you another story, and that is that you most certainly do get what you pay for in this world.  Do you want a decent paint job? Decent paint jobs can be had at Macco sometimes for as low as $299.00.  Think you will get rust repair with that? Think again...their ads all say you will not.  Same with bodywork.

The same can be applied to tools of any trade.  In this case, hand tools that you pay a little bit for are going to last longer, have lifetime or forever warranties, and probably are not going to break in the middle of the job you are trying to do.  This is why I prefer to buy my tools from NAPA (Irwin, napa professional, lisle) Sears (craftsman, lisle) Home Depot (husky), Snap on and Matco.  When you go cheap, a lot of times there is no warranty, no guarantee, and in the case of Harbor Freight (from personal experience) good luck getting replacement parts.

The problem with things like a "decent" paint job, "decent" hand tools, and "decent" almost any other service is that your vision of "decent" will greatly differ from the roadside paint and body man's "decent".  Or to put it another way: To properly repair the one dent in the rear quarter of my truck, some dent pulling is going to be involved.  This may remove most but not all of the dent.  What is left will have to be covered in body filler, sanded, primered, sanded again, primered again, top coated with matching paint and then clear coated. The sanding alone is going to take time because you have to use more than one grit (roughness) of sandpaper.  My truck might look silver but it is actually called by Chrysler "bright platinum" and there is a bit of metal flake in the paint. (google that)  Do you think the roadside guy has that in his car?

The bottom line is this: quality costs money in many cases. Probably in most cases.  If you want a proper repair, you should expect to have to pay for it.  I am not saying to go to the most expensive repair shop out there but I am saying that while having your brakes replaced for $25 per axle might sound like a good deal, no way in hell is that job going to be done right by someone with any sort of experience, or a shop for that matter.  It's been my experience that getting work done on the cheap is a lot like rushing through a job just to say you got the job done, in the sense that down the line you are going to end up spending more money to get it done right.

My brother once commented on my facebook page that if you have the money to do something twice then you have the money to have it done right the first time.  Think about that for a minute.  Let's say you go and have your brake pads replaced, but since you decided to "save" money, you bought the cheapest pads out there.  What happens when you have to replace them in a year?  Presuming that you are not stomping on the brakes every time you stop, you now have to pay someone to replace the pads, you are without your car for a time, and you are shelling out money that you could allocate for something else.

Now let's say you actually spent money on those pads. Again not stomping on the brakes at every stop, you could get two or three years out of those pads, possibly more.  There are those that will say that you end up spending the same amount of money with buying more expensive pads and not replacing them as often.  I offer that you are leaving out the time it takes to replace them, the money for the labor to replace them (which is the same no matter what brand of part you decide to purchase) and the down time on the vehicle.

The bottom line here is that you get what you pay for...and tell roadside hucksters to fuck off when they accost you.

Paying someone versus doing it yourself

Those that follow me on the facebook probably know that my Durango did not quite pass the inspection mandated annually by the state.  The state does not require that the shop that does the inspection do the work, but they do require that the facility give you a written list of what is wrong and you typically have between 14 and 30 days to make the corrections.  Of course there is an estimate of how much it will cost to make corrections, and it reads to a total of $1281.75.

First item: wiper blades.
Their cost (including labor) $41.98
My cost $18.00
SAVINGS:$23.98

Wiper blades are one of the easiest things to do, as the vast majority of them snap in and out.  Considering I replaced mine about two weeks before the inspection I think this is just extra money in their pocket.

Second item: Front shocks (both)
Their cost (including labor) $219.98
My cost $55.98
SAVINGS:$164   Running savings: $182

The labor per hour at Firestone is $106.00, which tells me that their shocks are $56.99 each.  My shocks (Monroe gas-a-matic) are $27.99 each and it took me less than 30 minutes to install them both.  Don't get me wrong, I know it costs money to operate a shop, which is why labor rates are what they are.

Third item: right rear tire replacement.
Their cost $152.40
My cost $161.98
SAVINGS:$-9.58 Running savings $172.42

Ok so I spent a little more on this than Firestone's price, but then again they wanted to replace my brand new wiper blades at a cost of $41.98.  I was able to get my tire replaced the same day by a tire outfit down the street from my job which helped out tremendously.

Fourth item: Front driveshaft reinstallation
Their cost (including labor) $697.59
My cost $30 (for replacement shaft to transfer case bolts)
SAVINGS $667.59 Running savings $840.01

I had removed the front shaft to make the broken transfer case last a little longer, and frankly had not gotten around to reinstalling the shaft.  That being said, the vehicle does not require a front shaft to pass inspection, as the law states that the vehicle must be able to move forward and backward.  The presence or absence of the front shaft does not affect this.

Fifth item: Right front side marker lamp lens assembly.
Their cost: undetermined
My cost: $26.83, including shipping

Firestone was not able to give me a price for this job because they could not look it up, however, I can presume that they would at the least charge me for the factory part, whether or not I actually got the factory part.

The part I got from parts geek is a reproduction part admittedly.  It does fit, however, and it does work.  My biggest problem with having to replace this is where it was broken there is no bulb to damage or burn out.  No matter because the truck looks better with the new part.

So, the total cost of doing this myself is $262.79. This alone is a savings of just over $1000.
If I were to do this for someone else, there would be $300 in labor at $60 per hour, which while I do not have a shop, I do feel that my time is worth something.

With this, there is something to be said about being able to do at least some of your own maintenance and repair on your vehicle.  Don't get me wrong, there are some that do not know how, or are uncomfortable doing this sort of work, or maybe they or you just don't want to do it.  This is all fine and good, but to save yourself money, in this case substantial money, this is a good start.

Shocking, isn't it? (Shock install tutorial)

(Warning: contains locker room language)

So one of the items that supposedly did not pass the state safety inspection were the front shocks.  The place that did the inspection wanted around $220.00 to install new shocks up front, but you know what? That's a bunch of bullshit considering they are under the impression that it takes one hour to install them both.

So, I did it myself.

Step one: get the front of the vehicle off of the ground so that the front tires do not touch the ground.

See this thing? Remove it.

Once you have the wheel off you will be looking at the brakes and suspension components that live there behind the wheel.

See that thing in the center? That's the shock absorber.

The factory manual I picked up insists that you can use locking pliers or the flats of a wrench (hint; it's a 1/4 inch wrench) to hold the top of the shock in place while you loosen the nut, but it was not working for me and nobody has time for that shit anyway, so I used a cut off wheel to cut the nut and the upper rod off.  Just go at a 45 degree angle and use a hammer to break the piece off.  Fair warning: See that hose toward the top? That's your brake line, so if you are not careful you can cut that too, and that will suck.

Cut off wheel to the rescue! Note the not cut brake line...

So at the bottom of the shock there is a 18 millimeter bolt that securers the lower part of the shock to the lower control arm.  Use a 18 millimeter socket and impact gun or ratchet to remove it.  Then pull the shock out of the upper control arm and out of the vehicle.  It is important to violently toss the old shock into the garbage can at this stage.

New shock...

This is a Monroe Gas-A-Matic shock and the supplied hardware kit that comes with it in a convenient little bag which I tore open and tossed to the side, which incidentally is also important to this being a success.  You probably want to make sure you have all this stuff before you cut off your old shock, though...driving without shocks is going to be really difficult.  There should be a shock, two rubber isolators, two metal end caps, and one 9/16" nut in my case.

The purpose of the shock absorbers is, besides absorbing shock, to control the up and down motion of the suspension on your car.  In effect, they act as a sort of motion limiter and they dampen the movement of your suspension as you drive down the road.  If you tried to drive without them, you would be bouncing up and down so badly that your tires would most likely come off the pavement and this is never a good thing, unless you are the Duke Boys or have one of those stupid cars with the hydraulic shit that makes your car hop and jump.

Have all your parts? Good! Let's get them installed!

Look at this picture very carefully, important plot point here.

You need to slide one of the end caps and one of the rubber bushings over the top of the shock as shown in that order.  Then, only after this is completed, you need to compress the shock (you can actually do this by hand, believe it or not...not so much with a strut) and place the shock into the area between the control arms where it came out of.  The top of the shock will start going up very quickly so while it is doing that, get the 18 millimeter bolt and place it into the bottom of the shock and then thread it into the mounting point where you unbolted it from.

The bolt goes into the bottom of the shock and into the mounting hole, like this.

You might have noticed that there is a hole for the top of the shock to go into.  As it raises up make sure that it is centered in this hole.  The bushing will help to center it and you should be able to move it a little if it is not quite there.  Place a rubber bushing and metal end cap-in that order- over the shock rod.  Now is the time to install the nut.  In my case, since this was a new shock and not the old one I could use a 1/4 inch wrench on the flat sides of the top of the rod and a 9/16 inch wrench to tighten down the nut. 

For my application, your torque settings are as follows:

Top nut: 19 ft/lbs.

Bottom bolt: 80 ft/lbs.

For your application: LOOK IT UP!

Repeat for the other side.

When you are done, it is extremely important to yell "FUCK FIRESTONE!" because if you did this right, you spent maybe a half hour total of your time and only $55 to $60 of your money, which is way cheaper than $220.

And now you have new shocks installed...

...fuck firestone.

DISCLAIMER: Don't come bitching to me if you yell "FUCK FIRESTONE!" and get in trouble, especially if you are doing this in your parent's garage or at work where in my case the mean mechanic that paid tons of money for his shit will not let you borrow his tools because he doesn't know you and thinks you look like a crackhead.