What Car Mechanics Won't Tell You

[MA-Caver]

I just dropped another $137.00 on my beloved '91 Jeep Cherokee and expect to drop more money in the near future. It's a good jeep and it's up to 265K miles so far. It's one of those vehicles I want to drive until the wheels fall off or leaves a pile of rust in the driveway the next morning.
Yet my favorite mechanic (who's been decent to me) tells me that if a person spends less than $1,000.00 a year fixing things on their car (not including gas/oil) they're doing pretty good. Well so far I'm at about $600.00 this year. Considering the age of the vehicle I think that's doing purty durn good. I also upped the oil change to 5000 miles and six months instead of the usual 3X3. That has saved me a pile of change for sure... and my Jeep isn't worse for wear.

Saw this article and read it and it was good advice. Knowing car expenditures can really drain a wallet/purse I thought to share this.

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/111525/what-car-mechanics-wont-tell-you?mod=family-auto

How's your car doing? Do you have a regular mechanic?

 

[WC_lun]

$1000.00 a year depends entirely upon year, make, and model of the car and how maintanance is kept up on them. If I buy a new Honda, I better not be spending anywhere close to $1000 on it in a year for repairs. If I had a 20 year old high mielage Mercedes, I'd expect that and probably more.

I have a 98 Ford Contour SVT that just rolled over 120K. I've owned it for 7 years and have spent an average of less than $200 a year on repairs, including normal stuff such as replacing the tires. I change the oil between every 4.5 to 5k miles and rotate the tires every other oil change. I do have a regular mechanic to take care of stuff I don't have the equipment for or I just don't want to deal with.

 

[Dirty Dog]

I build my own. It eliminates most of the problems with less-than-honest mechanics. If you lack the skills to build your own, you can still do simple things. Anybody, and I mean anybody, can change their own oil, do a brake job, change their serpentine belt, swap an altenator and most other maintenence/minor repair tasks. The only time anybody should really need a mechanic is for a repair that requires opening the engine.
This was a worn out '89 Wrangler. After stripping it to a bare frame, with two friends and 4 months, we built this. Now she has a 383ci Chevy, TH350, NP205, full width axles from a 3/4 ton Chevy, 5.13 gears, lockers, bead locks, full roll cage, etc etc etc.

 

[MA-Caver]

I build my own. It eliminates most of the problems with less-than-honest mechanics. If you lack the skills to build your own, you can still do simple things. Anybody, and I mean anybody, can change their own oil, do a brake job, change their serpentine belt, swap an altenator and most other maintenance/minor repair tasks. The only time anybody should really need a mechanic is for a repair that requires opening the engine.
This was a worn out '89 Wrangler. After stripping it to a bare frame, with two friends and 4 months, we built this. Now she has a 383ci Chevy, TH350, NP205, full width axles from a 3/4 ton Chevy, 5.13 gears, lockers, bead locks, full roll cage, etc etc etc.

I've a friend that you'd probably get along splendidly with... he has a rock-crawling vehicle and Moab is one of his favorite playgrounds. He has a Toyota Land-cruiser that he's in love with.... not sure of the year or any of the other specs but he goes out and plays whenever time (and $$) allows.