In my previous blog I talked about having to spend out almost $1,500 in car repairs on my 2006 Saturn Vue V6 when taking the car into the shop for new brake pads and an oil change. It turned out that I needed a lot of work including new timing belt, new spark plugs, new water pump, new hoses, new brake discs, new pads and a new wheel hub, which came to almost $1,700, but after informing Justin from Scholfield that my maximum budget was $1500, he managed to get the price down to $1,413. That’s still a lot of money when you’re initial budget was $500, but it had to be done.
After three days in the shop, I got my car back on Wednesday and what a different, I had to check that it was my car as it ran better than it ever had since we bought the car in 2010. It looks like the previous owner skipped the 100k mile service, it had 101k miles on the clock when we bought it.
It’s quiet, we can hardly hear any noise inside the car now unless I mash my right foot down and the annoying vibration the car has gone completely. Brakes are now super powerful, just as well as the weather went crazy on the way home when someone decided to stamp on their brakes on a 65mph highway in those conditions, because of the extremely heavy rain, I didn’t see them until I was about 20ft away, a testament to the power of the new brakes that I didn’t plough into the back of them. It’s just another case of Kansas drivers having very little sense, I slowed down for the conditions, but did so slowly to not surprise someone traveling behind me on the highway!
So overall I am happy with the repairs on the car; but the cost came as a shock, and wiped out our savings; which can be easily replaced as myself and my wife both have good paying jobs for Kansas. But I’d rather wipe out our savings to pay for the fixes, a new engine would have been more costly if the timing belt failed completely and now we have a car that feels like brand new to drive!