Road trip gone wrong, or standed in Maine

dj06482 (Forum Supporter) said:

I once paid about a grand for an alternator replacement at a Honda dealer in FL while on vacation. I checked AutoZone and other stores, and their availability was sketchy (and their part was over $500), so I decided to pay the man. Swapping an alternator on a transverse V6 in 100 degree weather without my normal tools was an experience I was happy to skip. In all the work that's been done on the Odyssey, I think that's the only time it's actually been to the dealer for a repair.

You chose correctly. I did a starter on my in-laws Odyssey in a Florida parking lot. What a miserable, miserable job. 

Radiator on my old GX470 cracked 2 days before the "bomb cyclone" here.  Had no choice but to take it to the dealer as it's my sole winter DD.  $1000 later it had a new radiator that I could've done myself for $300.  That definitely smarted and taught me a lesson, which is that toyota radiators/water pumps are the same as BMW ones, you just replace them at 100k miles period.

In reply to docwyte :

All plastic-tanked radiators are timebombs, you don't know when they'll blow open, but they will...

In reply to GameboyRMH :

They seem to last around 110-120k miles on the Toyota's.  Everybody on ih8mud recommends just replacing them at 100kish miles.  Of course I didn't see that when I had my GX470...

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Yep. I talked to a guy who worked at Nissens (the parts supplier, not Nissan) who said plastic end tanks are generally good for about 8 years, replacement is just the nature of the beast.

As I have got older I find my self paying for service more and more on my DD cars.  

As a sales guy I own the vehicle that I use to travel 7 states.  I've learned it to sometimes let the mechanic do the work.  

The motivational speaker Zig Ziglar told the story of selling cookware in Mississippi in the late 1940's.  He got a flat tire and changed it and had to go get another white dress shirt when finished.  The other salesman said to call a garage and pay the $15 service call. 

Zig said that was too costly until the salesmen said that while Zig changed that tire he sold two more cookware sets and made $35 in commission's while Zig saved $15 plus the cleanup time and shirt change but made zero commissions.  

Lesson is that it sometimes is better to farm out the work. Just don't look up the parts costs on Rockauto afterwards.  

For closure, we got back home without further incident.

The shop advised that the front brakes were "metal on metal" and suggested letting them replace them; I declined, as I knew the pads were low and had already ordered new parts before I left. No brake issues were felt. Just changed them out this morning, and one of four pads was basically gone, so at least it confirmed their diagnosis as being accurate.

The happy news is that, two-up, loaded with luggage, and on snow tires, the car - a V50 T5 AWD with an auto - pulled the astonishing figure of 28mpg over 600 miles. Granted, that's almost all highway, but it's almost 5mpg higher than I ever saw over similar driving. The only things I did that could have affected it were dumping in a can of Berryman's fuel injector cleaner before I left, mostly just to get it off the shelf, and changing the O-ring on the oil filler cap, which was rock hard and creating a small air leak into the crankcase. Stunning.