Doing anything on the cheap is often referred to doing it on a shoestring, but how about when that shoestring leads you to the end of your rope?
In other words sometimes you gotta spend a little money.
Especially if you don't really want to do the work yourself!
Could there be a cost effective work a round. Meaning, could or should I actually pay someone to do the job?
The whole idea kind of goes against my cheapskate ethos. However I'm finding myself up against the wall.
I'm finding every excuse to avoid dealing with the situation. The situation being, "what's up with my XJ6's suspension?"
But you have to know how much something is going to actually cost before you can make an educated decision. Or any decision for that matter.
In the past I have made an assumption that something was too expensive to consider, when I had no real idea of what it might actually cost. Where did I get my numbers from? I'll be kind and say that I pulled them out of a hat, though I may have pulled them from somewhere else!
Once I made that determination I just took no action at all. That was kind of comforting, in a way. I just let that particular situation go on for many years. I just put it out of my mind. I was adamant that it was just too expensive to consider. So there wasn't any hope of progress.
Until... My Wife suggested that I get an estimate from a contractor, in this case.
I took another trip to the Jaguar Purformance Center in Los Gatos to speak with the owner. I told him that I was disappointed that he couldn't give me an estimate on how much it would cost to rebuild my XJ6 suspension. He told me that he couldn't give me an estimate until he had done a thorough inspection. He said that there was not a flat rate cost that he could give me. When I insisted that my car needed everything done, he responded that most cars don't need everything done.
Maybe. I don't think that a guy that has been in the business for as long as he has couldn't give me a price range of typical jobs. Maybe he thinks that if he quotes an average price that I might decide that it is too high. That maybe I don't want to invest that much money in fixing the car. Maybe I'll decide that I don't want any work done at all. However if the estimate is not that high, than maybe I'll go ahead with the repairs.
That's a lot of maybes. If he doesn't know what the car needs, than he can't give me an estimate. Without an estimate I can't decide if I want to invest the money and keep the car. I can respect his position that he won't deal in unknown cost projections.
Is it the cost of the inspection? Well it's 180.00, that might be for two hours work. Or whatever it takes to complete the inspection. I wouldn't really expect him to do it for free unless we've had a history of doing business together and he was pretty certain that I was going to follow through. I mean the guy has to make a living, I understand that.
When I had my shop I got to know one of the owners of the German car repair space next door. He told me that many car owners were hesitant to invest much money in their older cars. They would bring them in to get an estimate. He would provide it and then they would disappear. No money made there. Now, he charges them a diagnostic fee and he can waive it or use it to discount the job a bit to help sell the owner on the repair. I know that it's not easy to make a living, especially when you are dealing with cheapskates like me.
I'm proud to be a grassroots car enthusiast, a Do it Yourselfer. I've been doing that for a long time. That's the way my Dad did it, and it's been good enough for me. My home wrenching skills have served me well over the years.
But that's the point, "over the years." I ain't no spring chicken and I've been to more than a few rodeos. When I was a kid I had more energy than money, more time than money, and a higher threshold of pain. The other problem is that currently I don't have whole lot of extra money.
As I posted last week, the tires are holding up and the steering feels okay. Their are a few noises from the suspension. I'm keeping my eye on that upper radiator hose. I also need to track down the power steering leak. I haven't even looked underneath yet. Maybe it's just a bad hose. Could I be that lucky?
Either way my plan is to drive the thing, but it bothers me to let the car start to sink into real beater status. It's going to be time to make a decision. Pretty soon.
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| Luckily the damage was mostly limited to the lock cylinder |
Of course Life always gets in the way. Having my Explorer stolen took some of the wind from my sails and money out of my budget. It cost me over 400.00 just to get the thing out of the tow yard! Another 100 bucks covered the new ignition lock, a replacement window, track, and windshield post molding from the wrecking yard. I still have to repair the damaged area of the dashboard cowl. While I was at Pick and Pull I was eyeing the dashboard that was in the donor Explorer. It would be a lot of work to remove and replace the entire dash. I guess that I could just remove and buy the dash and hold onto it for awhile. It might be worth it if I wanted to keep the truck for a long time, as a collectible. Don't laugh. There are thousands of Millennials that grew up riding around in Explorers. Not every kid rode around in a Camry or Accord. At least some of them might be a bit sentimental about their childhoods. My Explorer could be fixed up as a "Street Machine", an enthusiast's vehicle. Especially with the classic, fuel injected 302 mill.
Collector interest aside, it's always been a real useful vehicle. It carries people and it carries stuff. It's just so much more convenient to use and drive than my F 150, at least most of the time.
The battery was completely dead when I had it towed to the house. I removed the battery and replaced it with one of my extras. I placed the dead battery on my float charger for a couple of days. It took awhile but the battery came back and indicated over twelve volts. Cleaning out all that broken glass was a real pain. That stuff got into everything! Replacing the broken window was a bit of a chore as I discovered that Ford had started to use rivets in a lot of the places I was used to them using screws and bolts. Upon disassembly I discovered that one of the window tracks had broken free from it's mounting bracket. So I picked that up at the wrecking yard while I was there. My repair was successful and the window glides up and down like new. I got the Explorer back on the road and drove it to work and on errands for a week. I even used it to take the family to a relative's house for a barbeque, an 140 mile round trip. It didn't skip a beat.
No exotic or complicated engineering in this area of the fleet.
Maybe three Fords are all I need. My F 150, my Mustang and the Explorer.
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