So, Thursday I was driving home from Joey's, and my check engine light came on. That was disconcerting because the last time it came on, my car stopped working about 500 millisecords later. This time, however, I was able to drive home.
Yesterday morning I took it by the place that worked on it before, and walked the rest of the way to work. 60$ and two hours later, they told me that the codes said that the O^2 sensor needed to be replaced (125$ + 45$ labor) and that it was throwing another code that meant either the distributor is bad, or the computer is bad, but that they couldn't tell which until they fixed one or the other. Then he goes on to say that it would be around 640$ in parts and 60$ in labor to replace the distributor. He also said that it wasn't undrivable in this condition, but that the check engine light would probably come on again eventually. I told them to just fix hte O^2 sensor and call me when I could pick it up.
So, I go to Advance Auto Parts web site and I look up the prices for the parts. It turns out that I could get a distributor for around 210$ instead of 550$, the cap for 33$ instead of 90$, and the rotor for 3$ instead of 16$. I don't think I'll be going back there any time soon.
I just find it frustrating, but then I start thinking that maybe this is the kind of thing I should be doing with computers. If you need my help, you get in line. When I feel like dealing with you, you pay me 50$ just to look at it, and then 50$+ an hour to fix it. And that doesn't even get in to parts. But I'd feel bad.
Malachi B-J Brown malachus+spencerandbrown@gmail.com