We got an ancient Camry Wagon last October to replace our reasonably new soccer van (domestic budget cutbacks, you see). For the price of 3 car payments, we now have a “good enough” car with no payments. As I said, it’s oldish–177k miles, but not a POS.
Needed a new exhaust system. No sweat. Inigo the shade tree machanic to the rescue.
New brakes & front rotors. No sweat. Inigo the shade tree machanic to the rescue.
Hole on the top of the fuel tank. No sweat. Inigo the shade tree machanic to the rescue.
Replace the blown rear struts. No sweat. Inigo the shade tree machanic to the rescue.
Replace CV boots/joints. No sweat. Inigo the shade tree machanic to the rescue. :wally
Replace tranny juice & strainer. No sweat. Inigo the shade tree machanic to the rescue. :rolleyes:
Poor fuel economy & sluggish performance=replace spark plugs & wires & O2 sensor.No sweat. Inigo the shade tree machanic to the res…WTF? NO accelleration at all? No Sweat, Inigo the shade tree mechanic must have bumbled on the plug wires.
:reroute, reroute, reroute: There. That oughtta do it. No?
:check firing order, confirm plug wires are in correct position: Nothing.
Posible fix: Catalytic converter gave up the ghost? Tranny finally shit the bed? OK :sucks up pride & visits ASE mechanic:
Drives 3 miles to mechanic–car stinks, smoke entering the cockpit, Inigo prays for combustion (full Comprehensive insurance will pay up if the car burns up!) arrives safely at the friendly neighborhood mechanic. Have at it boys. Be gentle with me.
:later:
“Hey Inigo! It took us a while, but it looks like the plug wires were crossed up a bit. The smoke was coming from unburned fuel in the catalytic converter–hope it didn’t get damaged. Runs great now. That’ll be $161 & change.” :o :mad:
Shit. 16-year-old mistake. Anyone can cross plug wires–that’s why you do them one at a time (and I DID!). But only a grand chump checks 'em & confirms they’re in wrong. Idiot. I needed that money for tires on my other dinosaur.
[Dumbshit hat]
Wow! Inigo Montoya just so happens to have a friend named Inigo too, and he’s a mechanic.
His mechanic, named Inigo, messed up.
Wait, huh? :smack:
[/Dumbshit hat]
Don’t feel bad Inigo, my own shade-tree mechanic boyfriend just finished replacing the transmission in his Mazda. While he was at it he scavenged a radiator to replace the old one which had a slow leak in an unpatchable spot. What’d he do? Managed to poke a hole in the NEW radiator. While trying to remove a piece that as it turned out he didn’t need to remove.
It’s always the stupid mistakes that get you, not the complicated stuff.
$161 seems quite high for just re-routing four plug wires.
Did you tell them the last thing you did that may have fouled up the car?
The mechanic should have looked at the wires first and realized you screwed them up - about 10 minutes into the job. At most I could see an hours worth of work and maybe a computer hookup. Probably $100 total tops.
Maybe you should be pitting the mechanic…
What caused you to F up the wires if you did do them one at a time?
Going rate for mechanical around here is $80/hr. My description of the problem probably didn’t point directly at the wires. It’s my wife’s car, and the only reason I was messing with it was because she was complaining about a significant loss of power that had been developing over the course of about a week. She couldn’t tell me if I had made it worse after tinkering with it so I didn’t really suspect I’d screwed it up so much as misdiagnosed the issue. Given that I told the shop the problem pre-existed my butchery they didn’t think to check my work until checking on our mutual assumption that the catalytic converter was hosed.
I am still at a loss to explain how the wires got messed up. It’s a V6 front wheel drive, so 3 of the wires are next to the firewall and hidden under the intake manifold/throttle body/fucker thing or whatever–damned hard to get to. I’m guessing I had a brain fart tracing the wires back there.
As far as I’m concerned the mechanic bailed me out and was kind enough to not laugh in my face. No, this pit’s for me.
Heck, just be proud that you are as mechanically inclined as you are. That short list of repairs you did yourself would have run into the thousands! Makes me wish I had a spare brain to put all the extra mechanical info into. Or just one fully functional regular brain.
Well, I’m a pretty good DIY plumber, and a not-bad electrician, but I would have been over my head about Repair #3 on your list. You saved yourself a grand or so on repairs, it only cost you $161, and you got a funny story to tell in the process. Sounds like a win-win to me!
Aw, c’mon. Comp on that sucker is just $45/year. I carry it for the windshields…and in case someone ganks my fly ride!
And the FMV is gonna be … well, a *lot * just as soon as I install the lift kit, tint the windows, nail on the $2500 alloys, paint it black with a red racing stripe, install the cold-air induction & turbo superduper nitrous charger … (someone out there thinks I’m joking!)
