One of the best ways to gain ground economically is by saving money on expensive car and truck repairs. Just how expensive are car and truck repairs? Your dealer charges upward of $100/hour for labor service. Do YOU make $100/hour doing… ANYTHING? Yeh, me neither. So how can you make an impact on your car or truck bill yet still have confidence your car will run right? In all honesty if you’re willing to get your hands a little dirty you can go a long way toward saving money on the most expensive piece of equipment you own: your car or truck.
- Three Easy Car or Truck Repairs You Can Do Yourself
- Oil Change
- Without a doubt oil changes are among the easiest do-it-yourself fixes out there. Depending on your shop you can expect to pay $40+ for an oil change and filter which you could do yourself for an hour of your time and $20 in oil and a filter from Walmart
- Without a doubt oil changes are among the easiest do-it-yourself fixes out there. Depending on your shop you can expect to pay $40+ for an oil change and filter which you could do yourself for an hour of your time and $20 in oil and a filter from Walmart
- Air Filter Replacement
- This one is the easiest of all time. Swapping or cleaning an air filter takes under a minute – yet your service dealer will charge you $30 for it. A filter typically costs $10 ($30 if you use a K&N filter – which I highly recommend given you boost HP by 10%, saves on gas and it lasts 100K miles – get auto part discount codes for them). Why anyone would pay a mechanic top dollar to service an air filter is beyond me.
- Small Parts Replacement
- Small parts replacement would include spark plugs and wires (easy to do and you’ll save $100s of dollars), PCV valves (if your car is so equipped), Oxygen sensors (hey they wear out but you don’t need to be rolled over a barrel by your mechanic to replace them), fuses (find out which ones you car uses and keep spares in your glove box at all times), and wiper blades.
Not All Budget Buster Expenses Have to Wipe You Out
Honestly- every month each one of us faces a series of killer expenses around the house. Whether it’s the oil bill in the north, the electric bill in the south, or a (seemingly) devastating car service repair needed. You don’t have to give in to all of them though. You can fight back and pick up the parts you need for a lot of repairs with a discount online auto parts store and a Haynes repair manual and do it yourself and save hundreds every year. That’s one way to be repair shop labor inflation, and you might even learn a good skill or two.