The blog of Michael Rice

So my car has been running kinda rough for a while now and the stupid “Check Engine” light has been on since the day I bought the car. I decided that I should get it fixed before the summer time gets here and the stupid car breaks down on the freeway and leaves me stranded.Now with my new fancy job I dont really have time to screw around with fixing my car my self, and all my tools are still in Odessa because I dont have any where to store the tool boxes. I take the car to a local shop today that was right down the street from my house. Its basicly 1/2 way to my office. I know from having wokred in a shop for most of my working life that getting a car fixed isnt cheap. Infact it can be damn expensive. I told the service writter the symptoms my car had and he told me it would be Wednesday at the earliest before they could look at it. Thats no problem for me since the car does still run it just runs kinda crappy. I set up the apointment and tell them I will be back Wednesday morning on my way to work. He tells me ok and informs me of their service chanrge to “check out” my car. Brace your self folks because I nearly passed out smooth. They have a 1 hour charge to check out the car… at a whopping $84.50. I was like holy shit!! I can recall going to a new doctor for the first time about 18 months ago and not havving health insurance and only paying $90 for the office visit. I mean shit.. the doctor went to college for what.. like 10 years or more, and I pay him $90 and I have to pay some guy who at best has a 2 year degree and most likely just took some test to get a cert like the ASE. Did I give up the being a mechanic at the wrong time.. Our shop charged $57.10 an hour and I thought we were a little on the high end.. but wow these folks may be charging more than the dealer.. I will have to look into it and find out. I do still plan on taking them my car becuase I dont really have time to go out looking for a better deal either, and with me not really having anyone here who can take me around or anything Im just gonna have to spend the money this time.. Ill keep you posted on what ends up being wrong.