I enjoyed that

wrote

You can't beat maintaining your own car, IMO.

I did my front brake pads yesterday, cost me £24, I know Kwik-Fit charge over £90, plus the same again if the discs need replacing (which at Kwik-Fit, they always do)

I would have preferred slightly warmer weather tho!

2 hours to change a headlamp bulb ;-( Remove bumper etc. And that was the easy side according to the people on the internet forum.

Satisfying - no.

Another Dave

Amen to that. Damn cold day but satisfying spending 3 hours replacing rear bumper & lights.

Spent most of that removing wet mud/dust/gunk from my face as I lay underneath trying to remove the bolts. even managed to swallow some, yuck.

/mad

I know what you mean when you scrub up after you feel a hell of a lot better!

And then you can count the money you saved with your clean hands lol.

I agree, I like maintaining my own car, as much as I can within my skill set. Not only do I know its getting done properly I'm saving some money and doing something I enjoy. A good feeling.

Funnily enough I did my front brakes last weekend on my mk4 golf *oh one of those I hear you cry*. Strightforward job about 2 hours to do taking my time. Cold as ice outside when I did it, I'd been putting it off since the summer and well I wished I hadn't. Still had a bit of pad left on it but I did the discs aswell which needed doing so turned out to pad and disc change. Parts are about £85. Local garage want £90 labour. Very satisfying job I might add.

I second that.

Blimey thats a long time to change a headlamp. What car was that on ?

James ("James" ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Indeed.

Since getting the Saab ('90 900), there's been a slight change of focus for me in the spanner-wielding. Not only have I been trying to figure the foibles of the car itself, but I've been trying to second-guess the muppets that have been there before... What they've bodged, what they've ignored.

Since buying it over the summer, I've had various cooling system woes - basically all down to a header tank with hairline cracks in it, which the bodgemonkey had "solved" with radweld. I've rebushed the rear suspension and replaced dampers all round. I've swapped the instrument cluster because of a failed odometer - and repaired various broken and bodged bits from when the bodgemonkey had been behind there himself. On top of all that, and an MOT fail for some abysmal previous welding on the one rot-prone area on the damn things - I've tried to catch up with previous lacks of servicing.

And this from a car with a fairly healthy sheaf of paperwork...

I'd bought the XM at 4yo with a lease company dealer history and run it for 7yrs with barely more than routine servicing, so I'd forgotten how bad bodgemonkeys could be...

Heh. I'm lucky to have access to a mate's workshop, so doing the speedo cable and the front damper that got left a couple of weeks ago due to a missing top bush with the new 'un was if anything TOO warm, with the space heater battering away...

Probably a mark IV Golf - That seems to be the going rate!

Fiat Stilo JTD and is about right according to those who claim to know. Dealers charge £65 - Halfords refuse to do it.

Blooming that looks like ball ache :)

I was going to suggest halfords lol.

"Another Dave" wrote

Then that is "bad design".