Save Money in Daily Life – Tips, Tricks and Practicalities

Consider these numbers: $1500 for an insignificant scratch on the bodywork; $3500 for a new exhaust valve; at least $150 for a new trunk-release switch cover. These aren’t figures from the realm of fantasy, but actual repair expenses that drivers have provided to AOL Autos after having coughed up these amounts for repair jobs that only seemed small. The alternative is to do the job yourself, or buy a new car. That seems extreme, right? So just pay up like a good citizen and suffer in silence, seems to be the mantra.

Stump up for the Bumper

Deana May, at Los Angeles-based AC Auto finishing, is aware of the surprises a store has for even a car brought in with just a minor scratch. According to May, “It’s a scary thing — looks can be deceiving. You can do an estimate on a front bumper then take it off and behind it there’s all kinds of damage. Low-profile cars with low-profile tires go over a bump or up a driveway, they don’t take an angle, often they need a whole new front end.” In addition, problems of these types arrive frequently at her shop. Last month a Lotus driver was billed a sum of $5,400 for his car repairing; however, after verifying the condition she had to agree. She informs about the possible dangers and costs of drivers receiving incorrect quotes for the upkeep with high-performance components, like for an AMG, for a Mercedes or Brabus.

Cracked Grille and Fender Bender

Willy Stroppe, president of automotive engineering firm Bill Stroppe & Sons in Paramount, California, says he once looked at what seemed like insignificant damage to the front of a Ford pickup truck that ultimately became a huge repair bill. It looked like the front plastic grille was broken by a light hit, but when we got into it the housing behind the grille was cracked and broken all the way up. Replacing everything from the fenders, to the headlight vessels, to a new front end, it all adds up. In many cases you gotta pull out the radiator. That’s not something you can do in a couple hours. Stroppes seen similar problems on a Ford Explorer ” he works mainly with Fords ” and the pickups repair bill crossed $1200. Its not like the old days when everything was steel, he adds. He also says that second hand car buyers should beware of a practice hes seen plenty of in nearly 50 years in the car business ” a repair shop buys a car whose frame and shell seem fine but whose inside needs a lot of work, for example, on its suspension. Often, says Stroppe, an unscrupulous shop will make the car roadworthy with a substandard repair job, and then sell it on to an unknowing buyer, leaving room for a huge future repair bill.

$150 Cover Up

Mark Essig, a writer in a small town in North Carolina, was astonished to find a repair bill of $150 on his car by a local mechanic just to replace a missing cover for the trunk-release switch in his ten-year-old Mercedes 320 CLK. Though such expensive repair bills are no longer a surprise for upscale European marques, Essig says, this one really took the cake for its icing on a already frosty $2000 repair bill which he did not expect in the first place. He says that this was not included in the estimate and it came as an additional cost. He says: “It was part of a $2000 repair bill that included valve cleaning and brake work, and I was so sick to my stomach that I couldn’t quibble over $150. Best part was, I didn’t ask him to do it.” Another story involves a Porsche 944 owner, Michael Russell, an AOL Autos friend who too his old-school German car for repair and got more than he bargained for in the form of $3,500 repair bill including labor cost in place of $15 exhaust valve replacement which was what he expected it to be. He says, that they had to rip out the engine to get to the valve, which had burned out, a common enough problem in older performance vehicles. Since without the repair, he had no way of getting to work, he had to grit his teeth and bear the cost.

Air Pressure

It is advised to search out a second opinion, and always review general system reliability as you decide to replace individual parts on older-model cars. Look into this story to know the brutal truth of car repair: I found this to my cost when I took my wife’s 1995 Nissan 240SX S-ER to my local mechanic’s last week to fix the air conditioning. I’d already taken it into the shop the week before, where they’d diagnosed a leaking gasket that had depressurized the system. So they duly fixed the gasket, re-filled the system with Freon coolant and pressurized it. Bill: $300. Not bad for an AC fix, I thought, until two days later the system again began blowing hot. So it was back into the shop, where they took a second look at it before telling me another seal had broken, this time in a hard-to-reach spot, meaning extra labor. Estimated cost: $800. When I pointed out that the original fix was under warranty, my mechanic agreed but argued that a different component had malfunctioned and therefore the additional repair was not under warranty. Many more attempts at bargaining failed. Result: I’m $300 out of pocket, and my wife has a long, hot summer to look forward to (unless she nabs my car, which is likely).

Chilling Coolant, Hot Cost

Ken Lavacot of www.2carpros.com advises you to never ignore little signs. A bit of steam coming out of the exhaust may seem like nothing, but it could be a warning of huge repair bills. For example, he says, “Coolant is normally used to cool the engine, but if coolant gets into the combustion chamber, the engine will burn it, generating white smoke and steam.” Among the expensive solutions is gasket replacement. “If the gasket that seals the intake manifold to the cylinder head fails it lets coolant into the intake port and then the combustion chamber. In which case, the intake manifold will need to be removed.” And getting to the gasket and reassembling the parts once it is replaced is the expensive bit. If there is coolant in the combustion chamber but the gasket is functioning, Lavacot says the engine must be taken apart. He adds: “This can be tricky because it is difficult to tell what is causing the problem. For example: A repair shop has told you the cylinder head is cracked, and as they start disassembly they can discover it was the intake manifold gasket that has failed. An honest repair shop will inform the customer that the repair bill will be lower. Or the opposite can happen. A repair shop may tell you that your engine has a blown head gasket, but once the disassembly is complete they inform you that the head gasket is fine, and so is the cylinder, which has been pressure checked. This only leaves the engine block as the failure and must be replaced, and that can be costly.”

Paintwork Blues

My brother-in-law had lent his Jaguar convertible to a family member who took it to a wedding. He returned it with a scratch in the back panel on the driver’s side. Generally, a good repair or bodywork shop can erase scuffs at minimal cost, but the Jaguar XK8’s aluminum shell demanded a costly adhesive to repair the scratch to prevent further corrosion or damage of the car’s monocoque shell. The whole repair work was as costly as $1500. The technician told him that he was blessed the scratch was light otherwise repairs might turn out double or triple in cost, an increasingly general incident as more luxury carmakers counting Audi, Mercedes and BMW harness the aluminum-shell technology (taking advantage of its increased strength and lighter weight). So, it is better to get several estimates for the paintwork. It is also better to think twice before you lend your precious car.