[masraum]

A few months back there was a bad scuff on the bottom front corner of my car. Someone had pulled too closely to a curb. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't good either. We have no idea when/who/how it happened and it doesn't really matter.

So she wanted to get it fixed. At the same time, I suggested that we get the front end and hood painted to fix various rock chips, and had a few other small things fixed or touched up. It was a few grand, but looked great when we got it back.

Then the A/C exploded and it needed its 40k mile maintenance anyway. I was assuming it shouldn't be much more than an oil/filter change and the A/C fix (I used to do maintenance and many/most repairs myself, but we moved into an apt so I'm stuck paying to have them done). I had noticed that one of the CV boots had a small crack, and we had some squeaks from the suspension. I told them to give the car a full check to let me know if they find anything that needs to be done. We went with the full shebang. The A/C fix was really cheap, but the squeaks were all four of the strut top mounts (read lot$$ of labor) and the CV boot ended up being a full half shaft replacement. Then there were the plugs and coil packs. That maintenance was almost double the cost of the paint work. We were shocked at putting out that much money for the car (11 years old, but only 44k miles), but the work was preventative instead of reactive. OK, this is the cost of maintaining a car so it has minimal chance of breaking down.

Less than a week after picking up the car, I noticed that it had a slow leak in one tire (about .5 psi / day). There was a nail or something in the middle of the tread. It took me about a week to setup the appt to get that fixed. The shop found a nail in the shoulder so they couldn't fix the leak (I'm cynical so find myself wondering if that was sabotage or the other alternative is that I picked the nail up on the way to their shop). I didn't have them replace the tires because they'd have had to order them and I now had doubts about them. After that appt, my leak was more like 1.5 psi / day. Due to the ages of the tires and availability etc..., I went with 4 new tires from a vendor used by several folks on the local PCA.

About a month later, we ended up spending $2500 on surgery for our dogs teeth.

Last Fri, on the way to a long weekend getaway, 2 hours into a 3 hour trip, I started having clutch problems. When the clutch was engaging at anything other than an idle, there was a major shudder. I spent the next 4 days ~350 miles idling away from stops with no gas if possible and using no clutch while underway.

I got estimates from both shops (previous work and tires). The shop that did the previous work was about 25% more expensive than the other shop. The other shop's parts prices (where the difference was) were about the same as if I was ordering the parts from Pelican Parts myself. I decided to give the less expensive shop a shot. It's nice to have options, right?

I dropped the car off at the shop that had done the tires as soon as we got back for a full clutch job (clutch, pp, TO bearing, pilot bearing, rear main seal, input shaft seal, dual mass flywheel, clutch release arm, etc...).

Here's where it gets weird. I got a call today, "they noticed that the rear ball joints need to be replaced. That's another $1150."

My thoughts are immediately, "why didn't the last group that replaced a drive shaft and the strut top mounts notice the ball joints and what are the odds that the ball joints are bad with only 45k miles?"

I don't want to think badly of the new shop, but I'm also a little cynical and have seen too many unscrupulous shops for that to not be my first thought.

I called the previous shop and asked them about the ball joints. The guy said "it's possible that we could have missed it but VERY unlikely." He suggested that I tell them not to do the ball joints, then when I get the car back, take the car back to them and they'll check out the ball joints. If they are worn, then they missed them, and they'll do them at cost (not sure I feel right letting them do that, but that's a bridge we'll cross when we get to it).

The good news is that I have a good job and good credit, and we'll be able to pay this stuff off. But good grief, this has been a ton of money spent over a 2-3 month period. The good news is that the car should be pretty solid for quite a while. (which is what we thought a month or two ago after the last work).

We could have darn near bought another nice boxster for what we've spent on this one this year.