List of ways in which cars are made cheaply or to wear after so much time or use

Maintenance/Repairs
161

Call me a pessimist but depending on the car, I have 4-6 spare filters and a couple years worth of oil on hand. Mistakes happen.

162

That’s one advantage the diy’er has over the pro, only one type of oil filter or other routinely replaced consumable to keep in stock for each car they own. Pro shops must work on any car driven into the shop, so they must have quick access to all the common consumables for almost all cars, at least cars from the past 15 years.

However if I took my car to a pro shop for an oil and filter change, and they phoned me later to say there would be a two day delay for them to get the new oil filter, that’s not something I’d find unexpected and wouldn’t complain about myself.

163

B,ack to my lawn mower tire tube. If the guy would have called me and said it would be three days before the tube came in, I could have just driven to the farm store and produced one in 30 minutes, no extra charge. Yeah I know it’s tough being in business. It’s tough to be a customer sometimes too. So I just stock tubes now and a tire changer. I’m sure they won’t miss my future business of maybe $50. But hey that’s enough business to pay for lunch.

Still I was surprised how fast another shop could get an oem air shield and radiator. I don’t intend to stock radiators though.

164

Same w/the shops I would have normally spent money at during Covid b/c my Corolla was forced off the road, wouldn’t register much on their bottom line. But accumulated, maybe this sort of thing does have some adverse effects, $68 B budget deficit.

165

George, you are a such a good person. If that happened to me, id snarl at the person on the phone, and tell them they should have told me that before i left them the key. If someone inconveniences me to that extent, they will pay for it in some fashion.

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166

Well, I would have complained about it

In fact, I would have chewed their ears off

I would have said “Why did you drain the oil and filter, without first checking you actually have the filter in stock? What kind of morons do you employ?! I am going to write a scathing yelp review when I get my car back.”

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167

That is not a realistic scenario. My co-workers drive BMW, Chevrolet, Mercedes, Mazda, Nissan, Volkswagen etc. We usually don’t stock oil or filters for these vehicles, those can be delivered from an auto parts warehouse is a couple of hours. The vehicle can remain in the parking lot in the meantime.

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