(Anyone get the reference in the subject line?)
This looks to be a month for car expenses… all normal maintenance, just “youch”. We brought in both cars over the last two days to our favorite service guy, Aron, at Nippon Automotive. I’ll note that we never go to the dealer unless is it warranty or safety work that requires a dealer. We’ve been going to Aron for over 15 years now, and highly recommend him if you have a foreign car and are in the valley. End commercial.
In any case, the cars went in for the normal milage-based maintenance. However, it turned out my tires (I have a 1977 1999 Honda Civic) were just about gone, so gf_guruilla trudged over to get new tires. Not a surprise: I got 50K miles out of those tires! The car rides much better, but still needs to be smogged (I had forgotten to tell her that). We’re also investigating getting the seat belt tensioners tightened (that’s warranty work), and potentially replacing the hatchback hydraulic lifts (although, at $85 each plus labor, I may wait on that and let the door just fall on my head in cold weather—it can’t damage much!).
With the rain today, my wife had to go get new blades. As she was by the dealer (she drives a 2001 Honda CRV, like the one pictured in the userpic), she picked them up there. They were doing free battery checks. She needs a new battery (not a surprise after 60K miles).
Haven’t seen the charge invoices yet, but I’m not looking forward to them. I’m guessing around $600 when all is said and done. So it goes. This doesn’t happen that often.
Update: Aron replaced my wife’s battery… but now her radio doesn’t work because we don’t have the magic code. Hopefully, we’ll find it at home; otherwise, they’ll need to tear down the dash to get to the radio. Grrrr. This is where theft protection gets you. Much easier to have a removable faceplate.
Update 2: We found the code… on the front of the owner’s manual!
