A Rant About Doing Car Repairs

[SlowwHand]

My truck's starter seized up on me the other day.

Now, I don't have a bigass rollaround more power tool chest, but still...3 tool boxes, full of sectioned off tools.
1 chest for plumbing. 1 chest for home repairs. 1 for auto repair.

After getting the truck on a jack stand, I got my tool box out and started to work.
The starter was held in position in 2 places, along with a quick connect. This is going to be easy, I think.
No.
A combination of metric and american standard used.
Two connections, 2 entirely different sets of tools required.
Naturally, being a Planner, I have both ; but the irritation remains.

Ive chewed people out at work for mixing phillips and slotted screws when building product.
Who, should the ocassion arise, wants to be flipping back between slotted and phillips?
And sure as hell, I don't want to be trying to figure out which of 2 diffrent sets entirely.
But it's that way throughout.
I ran into it on a car, changing the shocks.

Standardization!

I quit. I wasn't all that big a fan of working on cars any more, anyway.





Thank you ever so. I needed that.

[Flatlander Fox]

That bites, what kind of truck was it anyway?

The starter on my pickup is starting to go south on me, but I have no garage so it will have to wait until spring. (I hope)

[Dis]

remember. some parts of the vehicle are made overseas and some parts are made in the good ole U.S. of A.

[cavebear]

Slowwhand, you have my sympathy. I basically stopped trying to repair my vehicles 2 cars ago. It's too hard to get at the parts, there is too much excess stuff around the engine (not that it doesn't have environmental value). The only stuff I can really get at (and I am comfortable with tools) is stuff that is inexpensive enough to have a shop take care of anyway. It's just not worth it to even change my own oil, filters, and plugs anymore.

I replaced a timing belt on a 1966 Pontiac Bonneville in the 70's (oh how I wish I had that car back), but I would never dream of trying that on a modern car.

[The Mad Monk]

My Dodge Dakota is great for do-it-yourself. The engine compartment is roomy and not overfull by any means, and all the usual maintenance points are clear of obsticles and easy to reach.

Well...there is one cable that got routed over the oil fill cap for resaons unknown, but its easily put to one side.

I love my truck.

[Asher]

If you buy a decent car/truck you shouldn't need to do any repairs, aside from routine maintenance such as oil changes and tire pressure and the like...

[Provost Harrison]

That's not always true Asher...things do go wrong, you can just reduce the probability that is all...

[SlowwHand]

1996 Toyota Tacoma, assembled in the USA.
First thing to go wrong, Asher !

[Provost Harrison]

Toyotas are damn reliable. But these things can still happen. If you want the catalogue of work on a 1997 Peugeot 106 email me and delete everything in your email account because it will fill it

Damn frogs

[The Mad Monk]

The engine compartment of my Dak:



(Not actually my truck, but an identical model)

[Asher]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
1996 Toyota Tacoma, assembled in the USA.
First thing to go wrong, Asher !

That's not always true Asher...things do go wrong, you can just reduce the probability that is all...

That's why I said "should". Some of my friends got American cars since they were initially cheaper (like a 2000 Ford Escort, 1999 Jeep, etc), but they have trouble starting in the winter here and go into the shop for stupid repairs about twice a year.

One of my friends has a 1985 Toyota Corolla, has had it for about 2 years now, and hasn't had to do anything to it besides routine maintenance...

Of course things can always go wrong, but it's just much more likely to go wrong with a Ford, GM, Chrysler car rather than a Toyota, Nissan, Honda, VW, etc.

Oh, and I did read somewhere that there is quite a big difference between cars manufactured in the USA versus Import cars, and the USA ones are far more likely to be less reliable. I can't remember which magazine this was in or how they determined it, so you can just assume I'm talking out of my ass.

[The Mad Monk]

Okay.

[Dis]

I would post something about how long I've gone with my 1995 Doge Ram pickup with out repairs, but I don't want to jinx it.

*keep fingers crossed*