Blown Head; what is this part?

looks like a greese fitting to me, but I'm no expert.

It's a bleeder. I can't tell what component it is for. Could be the brake or clutch master bleeder. Your mechanic probably knocked off the protective rubber cap that is usually on it. That is why it's shiny just at the end.

It does look like some sort of bleeder connection. Looking more closely, it looks as if it goes into the transmission bell housing (5- spd manual tranny).

I guess I should wrap some tape around it or something??

It may be the clutch slave cylinder bleeder. I think you can buy the little plastic caps at Auto Zone or one of the other mass merchandisers.

If it is, my local Toyota dealer (here in Germany) charged me like

Regards, Heiko

Toyota can be pricey for some of the parts. A short length of "formed" vacuum hose that ran from the valve cover to the Carb, just slighty longer than my finger, cost me $14 USD last spring at the Dealer (that's around 10 euros, I think).

I'll try one of the parts stores.

A bypass hose from the valve cover to the block for my Supra was $38 (about 18" of hose!) I got it for $22 from a dealer in Texas.

At that rate, it'd take $100,000 to build a car out of component parts! some parts prices are eminently reasonable, but with others you think you have stumbled into a store of aero or marine parts, where you can take the reasonable price for something and multiply by five.

Well, the local NAPA store supplied me with "four to a package" vacuum outlet caps. 1/4" size. They were $1.10 USD. So a little more than 25 cents each. Still high, but... Had to cut one in half (too long), but seems to fit pretty well.

And, back to overpriced dealer parts. A positive batt. cable for my 84 Tercel was $70-something USD back in about 2001 or so. Got a similar cable at a local parts store for $6.98.

If you're getting the proper gauge at the local parts store -- that sounds like a great deal. Sometimes the local parts store will sell you a part that's really just a notch up from junk, no indication there is a better part out there, and in these cases, the dealer part is probably your safest bet.

So hopefully you got a great deal.

speaking of small screwings, I had to replace a combination tail/stop light in my Camry. At Autozone, and presumably everywhere else, they come in two-packs only, so you buy two, install one and stick the other one in the glove box, which you may never need. I can see selling two-packs of windshield wipers, since they usually wear out (or are sun-baked) at about the same time, but lamps have an unpredictable life, so why do you have to buy two at a time? Why, to give the mfr. more profit, dummy!

Hear that... I was not happy when I got home from the dealer parts counter and noticed a coolant hose about 4" long and 1/2" diameter cost me $20 one time.

I guess I should have checked the price but I was getting a pile of parts and it was only like a bucks worth of hose so I thought.

you buy two, install one and stick the other one in

(or are sun-baked) at about the same time, but lamps

give the mfr. more profit, dummy!

here, my car has three wipers but no 2 are the same length and the 3 extra ones left over have a limited shelf life.

But I bet almost all the cost of buying a 1057 bulb goes to getting it there on the shelf, not the actual part anyway.

I don't buy the blister packs if I'm at a "real" parts store - for the cost of two blister packs you can buy a box of 10. And there's a little toolbox under the workbench labeled "Auto Lamps" that they live in, so when I notice a dead lamp I can change it right now.

If you only have one car or make long road trips, you can make up a "lamp kit" for the glovebox - a little plastic parts box and a chunk of polyfoam with holes cut to nest the lamps in. And an assortment of spare fuses is handy too.

When you change the left taillight lamp, change the right at the same time - they both have been running the same time, you already have the screwdriver out, and the other one is going to go anyway in another month or two.

But you are wrong - lamps DO have a predictable lifespan, they just can't tell you "next Thursday at 3:45". For example, the average life for a plain household 60W A19 incandescent is 2000 Hours, and a F40T12 Fluorescent is 12,000 hours - give or take 5%.

(And there are also correction factors for cycle time, vibration, envelope temperature, voltage variations, etc., but that's esoterica that only new product development engineers care about.)

The automotive lamp catalogs give the light output in candlepower, the voltage and current draws, and the expected service life for all the lamps - so you can decide whether the "Long Life" option is worth the extra power consumption. Get one and stick it in your lamp box.

Or you can see that the old 1034 lamp (24CP Stop/2CP Tail) is not a proper substitute for the newer 1157 (32CP/3CP) if the car has only one lamp on each side, since it won't meet the newer rules on visibility distance. But you can go the other direction and use an

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