Bingo!
$910.44.
That's the most I've ever paid for car service.
I gaped slack-jawed at the girl behind the cashier window.
“I thought it was gonna be around $500,” I said, looking at an apparent page subtotal.
“No, it's this page,” the girl chirped. “$910.44.”
“Well, $910.44 beats $30,000 for a new car,” my wife said.
It's all relative, of course.
In early 1967 I shelled out $325 or so to repair my Corvair.
Back then the minimum wage, which I was making, was $1.60 per hour.
And a new car, a 1968 Triumph TR250 sportscar, set me back $4,500.
So in 1967 dollars $910.44 might be over $2,000, maybe even $3,000.
Repairing my Corvair involved dropping the motor to access the tranny, a two-speed PowerGlide automatic transmission.
The car was crippled, completely inoperable. I was told differential fluid had leaked into the transmission; that they would have to replace seals.
They were doing the same repair to another automatic transmission Corvair when they wrote up the service order. —It's motor was on a lift.
This was O'Connor Chevrolet, which at that time was on West Main in Rochester.
There was more to that $910.44 than just the 60,000 mile service, which was probably over $500.
A 60,000 mile service replaces almost everything, including spark-plugs, transmission and differential fluids, and adjusting the valves.
All things I used to do myself.
My garage has a pit. I designed it in as an option when our house was being built 20 years ago.
“Best $2,500 I ever spent,” I always say.
A 60,000 mile service is rather extensive.
A Honda CR-V has anti-roll bars at each end, a sort of lateral torsion-bar that resists roll as you pitch into a corner.
Those anti-roll bars are connected to each wheel suspension with a plain bushing, in this case an unlubricated fitting.
Mine were just about corroded solid, and of course you couldn't lubricate 'em.
You could hear them binding, or so I was told.
Well, I was hearing something, but I thought it was inconsistency in the rear brake discs. The noise seemed to be a function of wheel rotation.
“Well, you guys know more what that noise is than me,” I said.
Score $338.84.
“Thank you, Mr. Hughes,” the service-rep said as I walked out.
“Well I guess so,” I thought to myself. “You just cleaned me out.”
Despite that I still think the world of Ontario Honda.
• “O'Connor Chevrolet” is a large Chevrolet dealer south of Rochester, NY. It was long ago in Rochester, but relocated out in the southern suburb of Henrietta.
• The “Honda CR-V” is our 2003 Honda CR-V SUV, purchased new at Ontario Honda, the Honda dealer in nearby Canandaigua, NY (“cannon-DAY-gwuh”). We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester. Canandaigua is about 15 miles from where we live.
• “Mr. Hughes” is of course me.
That's the most I've ever paid for car service.
I gaped slack-jawed at the girl behind the cashier window.
“I thought it was gonna be around $500,” I said, looking at an apparent page subtotal.
“No, it's this page,” the girl chirped. “$910.44.”
“Well, $910.44 beats $30,000 for a new car,” my wife said.
It's all relative, of course.
In early 1967 I shelled out $325 or so to repair my Corvair.
Back then the minimum wage, which I was making, was $1.60 per hour.
And a new car, a 1968 Triumph TR250 sportscar, set me back $4,500.
So in 1967 dollars $910.44 might be over $2,000, maybe even $3,000.
Repairing my Corvair involved dropping the motor to access the tranny, a two-speed PowerGlide automatic transmission.
The car was crippled, completely inoperable. I was told differential fluid had leaked into the transmission; that they would have to replace seals.
They were doing the same repair to another automatic transmission Corvair when they wrote up the service order. —It's motor was on a lift.
This was O'Connor Chevrolet, which at that time was on West Main in Rochester.
There was more to that $910.44 than just the 60,000 mile service, which was probably over $500.
A 60,000 mile service replaces almost everything, including spark-plugs, transmission and differential fluids, and adjusting the valves.
All things I used to do myself.
My garage has a pit. I designed it in as an option when our house was being built 20 years ago.
“Best $2,500 I ever spent,” I always say.
A 60,000 mile service is rather extensive.
A Honda CR-V has anti-roll bars at each end, a sort of lateral torsion-bar that resists roll as you pitch into a corner.
Those anti-roll bars are connected to each wheel suspension with a plain bushing, in this case an unlubricated fitting.
Mine were just about corroded solid, and of course you couldn't lubricate 'em.
You could hear them binding, or so I was told.
Well, I was hearing something, but I thought it was inconsistency in the rear brake discs. The noise seemed to be a function of wheel rotation.
“Well, you guys know more what that noise is than me,” I said.
Score $338.84.
“Thank you, Mr. Hughes,” the service-rep said as I walked out.
“Well I guess so,” I thought to myself. “You just cleaned me out.”
Despite that I still think the world of Ontario Honda.
• “O'Connor Chevrolet” is a large Chevrolet dealer south of Rochester, NY. It was long ago in Rochester, but relocated out in the southern suburb of Henrietta.
• The “Honda CR-V” is our 2003 Honda CR-V SUV, purchased new at Ontario Honda, the Honda dealer in nearby Canandaigua, NY (“cannon-DAY-gwuh”). We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester. Canandaigua is about 15 miles from where we live.
• “Mr. Hughes” is of course me.
posted by BobbaLew at 11:24 AM
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