The Economy

Be thankful it wasn't the evaporator ...

 

Lotta places like that in my neck o' the woods ... You'd think you'd get a deal on new tires there, but their specialty is llantas of the usadas variety ... fifty smackers apiece mounted, balanced and installed. One place, about a 2-iron from my university, goes by the surprising name of "Latinos Tire Shop." In my service operations class last year, I referenced that place and got several cold stares from Hispanic students. "It's a real place! Right over there!" cried I. Thankfully a couple of 'em pulled out smartphones, checked out the map and backed me up.

 

After the issues with the first generation turbo engines, nobody at Honda wants to hear the word evaporation ever again.

 

No, it was that too. Pretty much everything short of the plastic air vents in the cabin.

(In fairness, I’ve been putting this off the last two summers.)

 

I've DIY'd compressor and condenser replacements multiple times. I did an evaporator replacement ... once. Never again.

 

I watched my brother-in-law, a pretty skilled electrical and robotics engineer do it.

Me:

 

Appropriate story the the Economy/Auto Repair thread. Wife's 2013 Lexus RX350 w/ 60,000 miles:
--Lube/oil and inspection service.
--Two shocks
--Two rocker arms

They kept the vehicle for 3 days (wife got a loaner). Parts nearly $900. Labor more than $3,000. Total just above $4,000.
Labor is the biggest ripoff of the industry.

 

That Lexus won't get any younger. Ask me how I know.

 

Quote earlier today from our BMW shop. We took the car in because the A/C isn't cooling well, and the garage floor shows a small oil leak. A/C was low on freon and showed a leak in the heater valve area. Repairing that with A/C is $800.00. Repairing for the apparent oil leak and the coolant thing, $4000.00. There was a little salesmanship going on with this option..." people now need to take extreme care with their cars", etc. We opted to just fix the A/C. The guy was like "Good choice. The oil thing isn't that bad, just watch for your levels and add a quart if/when needed". Time will tell if our choice is good or bad.

 

And also have a tire-patching kit and some kind of mini-compressor.

 

TIL that there’s an all-electric version of the RAV4.