Tuesday, December 04, 2018

Pickup repair

My pickup was fixed this afternoon.   The distributor cap and rotor had problems, and some of the spark plug wires were cracked and arcing. (It turns out the spark plug/wire Wyatt and I had checked was a good one.  We didn't check them all.) With that fixed they got the pickup running but said it was running roughly and recommended a tune-up.  The pickup has 30,755 miles on it, but it is 18 years old and never has had a tune-up.  So I okayed it.  I should have asked the cost.

$235.50 for a tune-up?  They said Chevys are more difficult/expensive to tune-up.

Holy crap!  This was expensive.

I had never changed the air filter.  So yeah, I guess that was due for a change.   They said there was gas in the oil so the oil needed to be changed.  I had changed the oil last year and used synthetic oil so ordinarily I would be good for another year  But... okay.

They said the gas smelled bad.  Like it was old.  I last filled the tank the end of October after I hauled the calves to the auction.  So the gas wasn't that old.

But - seriously?! - adding washer fluid?  I could have done without that.  That seems to be padding the bill somewhat.

Everything adds up.   I am out $623.08.   But I now have a running pickup.



They couldn't believe my 18 year old pickup only has 30,755 miles on it.  But it does.  It is pretty much just a farm truck.

2 comments:

Darrell Charbonneau said...

Wow, i looked at my parts supplier and they raped you. All parts would have cost you around 100 dollars at rock auto.com. Chevy trucks, especially with just a v6 are easy to work on.

Tall Pines said...

Darrell, I am getting that feeling too. Today I spoke with one guy who had helped me initially. He felt the "gas in the oil" may only be a very little amount as a result of us trying to use a touch of gas to start the engine in case the problem was with the fuel pump. The shop apparently moved to a new building a few months ago and *maybe* they need extra money.