(written on the 16th)
I was amazingly and quite pleasantly surprised with how well today went on just about every single front.
🥳🎉🎊💪
Before going out to work, reinstalled the battery that I had charged up for my BMW Z4. I started the Volkswagen to make sure it’s battery was still decent. And I started the Civic to make sure it’s battery was still charged up.
I sent an email to my accountant to make sure that my tax extension had been filed since it was the 15th and the due date for personal taxes.
Then I got my truck hooked up to the dump trailer in preparation for tomorrow morning. It’s supposed to start raining early in the morning, and I’m crossing my fingers and hoping I can get a load of wood chips for my mom first thing in the morning before it rains. They open at 7:30, so I want to be as prepared as possible to just drive up to my truck, and then drive away in the truck and trailer to be loaded up.
🤞
So I got that done.
I stopped off at AutoZone to pick up some receipts and whatnot. Then I was off to my first of many jobs for the day.
First job was going back to that 2010 Chevy traverse that I had gone to on Friday that had some kind of an issue with the shifter assembly or shift cable.
Parts weren’t easy to get to be prepared for whatever it was going to turn out to be, so I let them know that it was going to be basically an exploratory session to verify for 100% certain what the actual issue was.
Gratefully, relatively quickly, I found the cause of the issue. The shift cable had two little plastic clips that had both split in half. Unfortunately, I don’t think you can buy just that clip assembly. I think it all comes as one big shift cable assembly. So, since they were paying for a full hour, I spent the rest of the hour creating a system of zip ties that would lock the cable in place so that the car could be driven if they wanted to drive it.
By the time I left, the traverse was shifting just fine. I let them know that it would be best, of course, to replace the shift cable, but I also told them that if it were my own vehicle, I’d probably just leave it as is with the zip ties.
Plastic was holding it on before. So why not plastic again? 🙃
Card number two turned out to be cars numbers two and three. I was going to a 2013 Toyota Corolla in Bentonville. The first car was in Bella Vista, by the way. The Corolla people wanted me to come out because they had gotten quotes from two different auto shops for something like 4000 plus dollars worth of work, but the two shops disagreed on what needed to be done. The funny thing, though, is that their estimates didn’t even overlap. One shop was quoting x repairs, well the other shop didn’t even mention those things and quoted y repairs. So they wanted me to go out and give them another opinion.
As has happened previously, what I found was that some of the work that was recommended needed to be done. Some of the work didn’t need to be done. And glaring problems that needed to be taken care of that seemed like they would be impossible to miss, for example, the tire shop not even mentioning the fact that they had a completely bald tire and two other tires with dry rot. 😶
Anyway, the brakes that they were told that needed to be done had probably 75 or 80% brake pad left on them.
The struts that they said needed to be replaced definitely we’re worn out, but they weren’t wearing the tires in properly and they weren’t making it unsafe to drive, so in my book, that means they don’t need to be done yet.
They were told they needed one inner tie rod, but they needed both. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen inner tie rods in that bat of condition. 😅 Crazy that they were only quoted one.
Anyway, by the time I was done with that first inspection, the potential bill went down from around 4,500 to probably more like five or $600.
So they were happy about that.
It didn’t take that long for me to do the inspection on the car for the things they were concerned about, so they had me look at one of their other cars. It was a 1995 Toyota something or other, right hand drive, imported from Japan.
That one was making an awful clunk in the front end, and the belt was shrieking something fierce.
Took it on the drive, but could only recreate the sound once, but gratefully, during the inspection of the suspension system, I found a sway bar link that was completely loosened up. It probably had a half an inch or 3/4 of an inch of the threads showing, so it was just clunking around each time it got the pressure just right on it.
The shrieking was just a crazy loose alternator belt. It was a manually tension to belt, so I crawled underneath the car, removed the under shield, and tightened up the belt.
Car number four, also in Bentonville, was a 2021 Buick encore that the poor lady had accidentally put windshield washer fluid in her coolant reservoir. Fortunately, it was clear that the coolant was heavier than the washer fluid, as the bottom of the reservoir was the proper orange color, and the top was kind of a greenish blueish color.
So I siphoned out the reservoir, refilled the coolant to the proper level, and was on my way.
Card number five was doing a pre-purchase inspection on a 2021 Toyota Corolla. I figured it was a no-brainer that it was going to be a great car. Only had 50,000 mi, but when I got to it, I could tell that it had been in a previous wreck, and much more substantial than what the seller had represented. There was also hail damage that My customer hadn’t noticed, all over the hood and top and whatnot.
Crazily enough, it needed struts already, the coolant was below the safe line… yeah… big red flags.
So I recommended that she not buy it, which was disappointing to her at first, mostly because she’s been looking for a car for a while, and she thought she had finally found one, but I think turned out to be really great later.
In chatting with her after we finished the inspection, I found out that she was planning on paying for that car in cash, which was going to be about 18,000, her entire life savings. That would have left her bank account completely drained.
So I chatted with her about that, pointed out the fact that even the 2021 needed four digits worth of repairs, and that’s even if it weren’t a lemon (thinking about the coolant being super low).
I made of the argument that it would be better for her all the way around, especially since she only was looking for a car to get her through for about a year, for her to spend under $6,000 on a car. I told her that she could find a great little car that would be really reliable for under $5,000. She could buy herself a mid-2000s Civic or Corolla for 3500 and keep some money in the bank for potential repairs, and then keep the other 10 to 15 thousand dollars in the bank for her life and her student loans and all that other stuff.
She was super grateful, and she actually felt really relieved with the idea of not spending her life savings on the car.
🥳
Car number six was the perfect example of why I recommended buying an older used car. It was a 2009 Chevrolet Cobalt. Normally, I wouldn’t recommend those to save my life, but it only had 130,000 mi on it, and though it needed a few things, it actually appeared to be quite the solid vehicle.
1500 bucks.
She could easily goodbye with something like that without much of an issue at all, especially since she doesn’t have to go into work every day. She only goes into work I think a couple two or three times a week.
Anyway, I did the inspection on that one, taking a little bit of extra time because he wanted me to look at a few extra things, so ended up being an inspection plus, going about an hour and 20 minutes instead of the normal hour.
Car number 7 was just down the road in Bentonville. It was a 2011 Jeep Liberty that was dead and just needed a battery. So, gratefully, I slept in a new battery, and headed to my last car of the day, 2014 Honda Accord that he wanted spark plugs installed in.
Oh, I forgot to mention that after my first job of the day, I actually went to Lowe’s, bought some lumber for the shed that I brought home for my mom, stuffing three 4x4x12s into the back running from the doors all the way almost to the windshield.
The spark plug job went just fine. Had a great little chat with the owner while I installed the plugs, and headed on my way home. Amazingly, all the errands that I had run, including online errands and stuff at home and Lowe’s and eight cars, and nine and a half ish billable hours, and I was finished with my last car by like 6:00. I got home around 6:30, hung out with my mom in the garden for a little while and then headed inside for the rest of the night to vege a little bit.
Super amazingly incredibly productive day.
😁🥳😁🥳😁
Loves and hugs
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 