Random Thoughts... [Automotive Edition]

Ah, the joys of inflation and an orphaned marque. :p

This is why you should learn to work on your own vehicle. If you had some tools (less than $100 for a good starting set) you probably could have fixed this by now.

Just a quick glance at Vatozone shows:
Dayco belt for your car: $18.99
Duralast Belt tensioner: $72.99
Idler pulley: $19.99

Going for a slightly better grade of part (as if you'd want to keep the car...) at O'Reilly's nets us this:
Gates belt: $20.99
Gates Tensioner: $62.99
Murray idler pulley: $23.99

And you could probably change it all in your driveway in about an hour. I recently did a field repair on a Jeep ZJ that had the idler pulley all but fall off, and we had everything changed out in 45 minutes.

Also, I don't see you negotiating the price down to $150. Shop pricing for parts (aka 'jobber rate') is only 10-15% off those retail prices and you're looking at about an hour of labor. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want some 'mechanic' who thinks his skilled labor is only worth about $40 at retail to perform an important repair on my car. :p Consider the problems I've had with people that reasonably ask twice that much, and you should be very, very frightened. :p

However, feel free to try; you might get lucky and find that someone has an empty shop and needs something to do.

Haha, yeah if only I had the foresight to find that GM would do a mass purging of brands, lol. :p

I've let my dad know all of this...and I'm strongly considering doing this myself. There's a video series on youtube that shows replacement of the belt, tensioner, and idler pully for my vehicle, and it doesn't seem complicated. I'd rather spend 100-175 or so myself, then pay close to 200 or 300 dollars even. I'll need to do some pondering, as well as see if I could somehow manage to pull this off given my crap work schedule. (I'd be all over doing it now, as in this evening, but i work from 4 until 9, and tomorrow, from 9 until 4)

I may order the items after work this evening, then drive out tomorrow after work and pick them up using my parents car.

Thanks again for all the advice! :)
 
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Well, it's really simple - you could have had the foresight to, I don't know, not buy a GM product. That solves a lot of problems right there. :p :mrgreen:
 
Well, it's really simple - you could have had the foresight to, I don't know, not buy a GM product. That solves a lot of problems right there. :p :mrgreen:
Says the man who went out of his way to buy a GTO...

Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk
 
Says the man who went out of his way to buy a GTO...

Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk

And how many GM products have I attempted to purchase since I rediscovered the misery, failure and shame that is GM, even prior to my (unsuccessful) purchase?

Oh, that's right - none.
 
My mother had to change the first set of glowplugs on her Mercedes the other day. It's a 1992 and it have 431k km's on the clock. The W124 must be one of the most solid cars Mercedes ever built.
 
Along with the W201 - which isn't surprising because they are related. Only weak spot, if you want to call it that, is the climate control system.

The W124/201 is part of why many people find Mercedes' later offerings so disappointing.
 
If you ever go to Mallorca, and have car while you stay there, make sure to go to "Sa Calobra". It's very scenic when you get there, with a nice little beach, but the road leading there is the real party piece. By god, what an awesome road.

h9r2931a.jpg



The best picture I could find on google...


I had a rented Ford Fiesta 1.4 Diesel for the week (almost new, done 6500km when I got it). Great car by the way, that engine has an adequate amount of gut for most things, yet I got 5,4l/100km by doing some not very economic driving. Quite easy to do better than that.
We drove to Sa Calobra, and got there around 3PM, stayed there for around 3 hours, and then headed home. The way down there was fantastic, this is a maginificent piece of road engineering. Beautiful views (we pulled over quite a few times, it was stunning), and a bunch of seriosuly fun hairpins. I was one big smile, my girlfriend was mostly holding her hands before her face when there was oncoming traffic.. :D
The way home was even better, because now there was basically no oncoming traffic, since it was late. And quite often you can see a long way ahead on the road. Oh, and my GPS told me that the speedlimit was 90km/h. No signs to tell me otherwise.. :D
 
Along with the W201 - which isn't surprising because they are related. Only weak spot, if you want to call it that, is the climate control system.

The W124/201 is part of why many people find Mercedes' later offerings so disappointing.

The heat in my mothers W124 usually decides to go full bore when it is not needed at all, such as hot summer days. But that is the only thing being negative i think she have mentioned.
 
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The heat in my mothers W124 usually decides to go full bore when it is not needed at all, such as hot summer days. But that is the only thing being negative i think she have mentioned.

perfect car for playing the top gear sauna game then :p no way to cheat...
 
I just saw an acura commercial that showed the front of their entire lineup at once. it was so horrid. I didn't realize how bad their entire lineup looked from the front.

Its amazing how a company can uglify their entire lineup in the matter of 2 years. What was wrong with these:

acura-2008.jpg
 
I wonder what brain trust came up with that commercial. They should be fired and the idiots at Acura that approved of it should be fired. All that ad said to me was :"Avoid anything by Acura because it is ugly".
 
Funny video of a guy in front of a pic of a transmission. I don't know what he is saying most of the time, but it works.

 
I was in a stock car race today! I am the slowest driver in the world. Move over James May, there's a new Captain Slow in town, and he's slower.
 
this one is better
 
Shoe polish on seats? I don't think I'd be comfortable sitting on that.
 
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