Saturday, July 19, 2008

Car maintenance

I have always felt there should be a resource to tell me how much any maintenance job on my car should cost. Moreover, the feeling that someone is trying to rip me off is so obnoxious that it stresses me out tremendously. Recently, when trying to get my rear brake pads and rotors replaced, I went through this traumatizing experience. I was quoted prices from $350 to $1100 for pretty much the same job (and more) so you can imagine the "someone trying to rip me off feeling" I was talking about.
I googled, yelped and forumed pretty much did everything to feel confident with my approach but in the end gave up and left the car at the Nissan Stealership. Recently I found a new pretty cool website that gives people like me the much needed information and honest price estimates. The website is called RepairPal and I would like to thank the creators. It provides you information on the statistics of how much any service job on your vehicle should cost you. For example, for the brake job I had paid $450 and I was not disappointed to see it as the average amount for that job. Interestingly, the lowest price that I was quoted for the job is also the lowest price according to the website. It is funny how I covered +/- 3 sigma by just making a 10-15 calls, scary isn't it.

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