so, you gonna buy 2 starters?
lol ⊠no ⊠just an example of how per-item shipping costs are reduced the more you buy. Rock Auto allows you to compute the shipping cost without actually having to place an order. Believe it nor not, they offer a re manufactured starter for only $15. A new one is still a pretty good price, less than $60. Not a Motorcraft brand though. If I was going to buy a starter I might spring for two of the $15 units then Iâd have some spare parts.
Wiper blades are a high profit item and take no time to install.
You replace wiper blades if they no longer clean the windshield properly.
Last year I replaced both on my 2007 Corolla. The originals were wearing out and streaking.
Lets see , if a person uses the windshield washers and the wiper blades donât clear the windshield as good as they want then it is time for new blades. How hard is that to figure out for yourself ?
Letâs see, a shop tells you your wiper blades need to be replaced but you donât see why. You have three options:
- Take their word for it and replace what might be perfectly good blades.
- Convinced of your own brilliance, ignore the recommendation and drive on.
- Get a second opinion.
Obviously, I chose option 3. YMMV.
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I bought front and rear wiper refills from the Acura dealer for $20. So maybe they made a few dollars on the deal but not much. Now for the Pontiac I buy the blades and refills that are $20 each which I know is a little high but they are quality and I usually only need to replace them every two years or so.
I have never felt the need to replace my wiper blades as I never use my windshield wipers. At least, that is what a former student thought. I was teaching a computer science class and told my students that when learning to use a piece of software to learn the essentials first so that they can do a specific task. After mastering the main features, they can learn the special features. âItâs like driving a carâ, I explained. âI know only four things about driving a car. If I turn the steering wheel clockwise, the car goes right. If I turn the wheel counterclockwise, the car goes left. Stepping on the right pedal makes it go and stepping on the left pedal makes it stop. I have no idea how the heating and air conditioning works, so Mrs. Triedaq freezes me in the summer and roasts me in the winter. My son is the only one who knows how the sound system works, so I have to listen to a rock station at 100 decibels. I have no idea how to turn on the lights or wipers, but those things are only for wimps. However, knowing only the four essential fundamentals, I can drive my car anyplace I need to goâ.
My analogy was lost on one student. He had to go see Mrs. Triedaq about his class schedule. He saw my picture on her desk and asked, âDoes Mr. Triedaq really drive a car without using the headlights or wipers?â
When Mrs. Triedaq came home that evening, she said âI had a student in my office that asked the strangest question about you. Where did he ever get the idea you would drive a car and never use the headlights or windshield wipers?â
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That gave me a chuckle. Itâs true that you can âget byâ without knowing much about how a car operates. My wife doesnât understand that she needs to check fluids so I check them for her. Unfortunately, she also doesnât understand that you need to start braking before you get to the stop sign or the next personâs bumper. Someday her brakes are going to fail and it wonât end well. But if you asked her sheâd say Iâm constantly 5 seconds away from an accident.
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Over the years, I have known a few people who saidâŠ
All I know is that, if I put gas in it, it goes
It should be noted that none of those folks managed to get more than 4 or 5 years out of their cars before they self-destructed.
Four or five years between oil changes - thatâs pretty good. 
Iâm familiar with the type. A late brother in law had his Toyota overheat coming to a family reunion.
I asked if he had checked the radiator fluid level recently, and he said âthe dealer does that when he changes the oilâ. I then asked him to open the hood, and he could not find the hood latch!
When I looked at the rad, the fluid level was down over 2 quarts. The host fortunately had antifreeze in his garage and we topped up the cooling system. Hopefully the overheating did not cause permanent damage. The car had mostly been used to do local shopping and likely did not have the chance to overheat.
You may not believe this owner was an ENGINEER trained in heat transfer, thermodynamics and mechanical engineering!!!
No, they actually did go for oil changes, although I couldnât say how often.
Their problems were related to never checking the oil between changes, and in not reacting to new, strange noises.
He may have been trained in those disciplines,but he never learned them.
Heh heh, the cobblerâs shoes. Spend a hard day engineering, you donât want to come home and do more engineering.
@VDCdriver âAll I know is that if I put gas in it, it goesâ.
This statement reflects an attitude that really disturbs me. I attended a national convention back in the early 1980s. One session I attended was how computers were used in high schools. Over a ten year period, the use had changed from 95% programming and 5% other applications to about 5% programming and the rest of the use for word processing, spreadsheets and data bases. Now I believe that word processing, spreadsheets, and data bases are important applications as are many other applications we have today. However, I believe that learning to program helps one learn to think. I made this comment.to the moderation of the session and she told me I was wrong. She said, âLet me give you an example. I supervise student teachers in a mountainous area of Colorado. I have driven thousands of miles in my job. I am a good driver, but I donât know what goes on under the hood of my car and I donât care to knowâ. I got up and said âI hope the rest of the state doesnât have your driving sense of curiosityâ, and walked out of the session.
Another colleague and I got a grant to teach algebra to âat riskâ college students by having them do computer programming. These students were successful and had fun writing programs. The computer programming wasnât the important thing. It was developing the thought process that was important.
I have been curious about things all my life. Iâve had auto mechanics explain and other repairman explain things to me when they found I was curious about something. Thatâs why I got upset when the session moderator said âI donât know what goes on under the hood of the car and I donât care to knowâ. I got into a big argument when I was on a curriculum committee for mathematics teaching majors when my colleagues would make the statement âTeachers donât need to know thisâ about a particular concept. Maybe prospective teachers should want to know about the particular concept.
I always believed my job as a teacher was to arouse the students curiosity. I remember one textbook I had to use had the statement âThe explanation of this is beyond the scope of this textbookâ. I said to the students âIt may be beyond the author, but it isnât beyond you people. Letâs find out why this is trueâ.
How many times have we read a post on this board where the poster had a problem, weâve offered suggestions, but the poster leaves the building and we never found out if the posterâs problem got solved and what was the solution.
We need to educate students to think as opposed.to memorizing answers for multiple choice tests.
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I havenât written a program in years and I was never great at it but learning to create a flowchart was very valuable.
@davepsinbox_157004. If you can flowchart, you can program. The beauty of a flowchart is that you can apply any a computer language to do the program.
Hereâs a comic that is kinda apropos to the discussion.
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I donât know about flow charts for programming but I do modified Pert charts all the time for any major projects I have. It helps me identify the components that are dependent on other tasks, the sequence of events, and which tasks are independent of the others. Then I just cross the boxes off as they are done. No one sees them but me. Iâm not talking about a 5 foot long chart like one of my guys did (too complicated), just the major tasks on one or two sheets of paper.
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Have you seen how much many shops charge to replace them? For that matter, have you seen how much wiper blades cost these days? Thatâs actually a bigger crime than what the shops charge.