So far we're having a nice visit with family here in Nashua. Dad worked on the truck today, but it wasn't the work that we expected to do, and the truck isn't done yet. For inspection in 2007, my former usual garage told me I needed around $1,000 worth of work, which irritated the hell out of me because I hadn't even owned the truck for a full year yet and it needed so much work supposedly. When they finished they told me to expect to pay at least as much if not double next year because there was a lot of stuff they "let slide" because it was acceptable but probably wouldn't be next year. I also heard from others that used to go there that they were told they needed a lot of the same repairs for a similar price tag, only to later go to another garage and find out it was basically bunk. I decided for inspection 2008 I would go somewhere else. The new garage told me I needed front wheel bearings on both sides and that I had to fix the chec k engine light. None of that was anything on the previous garage's shopping list of potential repairs as told to me the year before. I seemed to be correc t about my assumptions of the previous garage and thought I found a new good garage. Meanwhile bearings were quoted as an expensive repair, but my Dad told me he could get the parts for much less and save me the labor costs. Bonus! I came down here expecting to pay about $500 in parts to resolve the bearings and emissions issues.
One of the first signs that your bearings are going is that the ABS light comes on. This is because the wheel speed sensors detect erratic readings, which is a warning that the bearings are going off. My ABS light wasn't on. Another indication that the bearings are bad is that they get really noisy. My bearings weren't noisy. One way to check the bearings is to lift the tire in question and try to rock it side to side (not rotate but actually grab the tire and pull it toward and push away). If there's a lot of play, the bearings are bad. There wasn't much play. They weren;t great, but certainly not bad enough to fail inspection. My Dad also found it suspect that both front bearings would be gone at the same time since he has never seen that happen. When bearings go it's usually one, but not multiple. The verdict was in: the bearings were fine.
My Dad pulled off one of the tires to get a look and the front brakes were toast. Completely toast. The pads were only making contact with about 50% of the surface of the rotors, an indicator that the brakes were seized up and not working (thankfully seized open, not closed). The new garage apparently missed this when they did the inspection, so we went out to buy new rotors and pads and fixed the breaks. I told my Dad that I had experienced a thumping sound when making hard turns and that I had slight veering while on the road. The pitman arm, while not to the point of failing inspection per se, was loose and causing those problems. We left off with my Dad half way through removing the pitman arm. So far instead of the $300 I would have spent on new bearings (the repair I supposedly needed for a sticker), I only have $140 in parts fixing the front brakes and the pitman arm (the repairs I actually should have needed for a sticker but weren't addressed). We're also going to replace all of the plugs to resolve the emissions issue, but that should be very inexpensive, even if we get high quality plugs. Regardless, Dad was able to get rid of the check engine light by reseting the error codes stored in the truck computer. Good news: we saved a bunch on parts and the truck should be safe to drive and pass inspection.
Now here comes the tricky part... where to go for a sticker? I've gone to just about every garage in Plymouth and I feel confident in saying that none of them have been honest with me, which is rather disappointing. I've caught just about every garage I've dealt with in Plymouth either lying about repairs needed, exaggerating the need of repairs, or missing needed repairs. At this point I'm positive my truck is safe and road-worthy, but I'm worried that regardless of which garage I go to, I'm going to be told I'll need some unnecessary repair before they'll give me a sticker. There's one garage I went to that I thought was being dishonest because one of the known dishonest garages told me my vehicle completely failed inspection by a long shot just four months after the garage in question passed the same vehicle with no problems. I may go back to that garage and give them another shot, but I also had problems with them when I had my Oldsmobile because they fixed a symptom without addressing the cause twice before another garage very swiftly found the cause and fixed it so I wasn't overpaying for keeping up with symptoms.
Have I mentioned I have horrible luck with cars and am not very fond of them?
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