well what is it that you prefer to provide as far as maintenance on your vehicle
i do all my own maintenance matter of fact i just finished putting a timing chain in my wife's Toyota i do i do all of that myself
wow
how about that
that i'm not quite as mechanically inclined although that some of the the basic things that you need to do for uh the maintenance of your warranty on a vehicle
oh sure sure
is is stuff that you can do yourself just the oil uh changed and things of that nature that's about where i my expertise ends in in that category just you know
well there's two things that drive that up here one is we is the lack of
good service people
um-hum
because there just aren't are not any left hardly around up in this area
i believe that
and the other thing is the cost it's almost prohibitive to bring it to a dealer
boy i tell you i just got my car back from a dealer and when it was in there i had them just go ahead and change the oil and filter thirty four dollars
oh sure sure the the price is astronomical but what i do is
i like to do this okay and i and i i like to play with mechanics and that's i really i've done that all my life so
huh well that's uh that's quite a savings having that talent
and the
the little the little Toyota is a nineteen eighty three so i really don't have too much to lose if i mess it up too bad you know
how many miles there is that
now what did you just replace
the timing chain well the camshaft timing chain
now i'm not even familiar with what that where that is
okay it's in the front of the engine uh say like directly behind the radiator or the water pump
um-hum
and it it drives from the crankshaft it drives uh a chain that drives the camshaft which is an overhead cam in those foreign cars
um-hum
and uh it it was getting kind of worn the car has a hundred and one thousand miles on it and it was getting a little noisy so
hm
not so much for the noise but if it were to jump a tooth or something of that nature i would be in serious problems on the freeway and i didn't want to chance Irene driving the car like that so
sure
well how much how long did it take to replace that
i
oh three nights i worked on it three nights and about four hours on last Saturday and i just put it in the garage and worked on it i have i have a new Oldsmobile so i really
uh-huh
uh it's it's it's just a little hobby and if it's not too cold outside and the weather's starting to get pretty nice so if it's not too too cold out i can go out work on it don't have heat in the garage or anything but
oh sure
um-hum
how much would uh something like that cost in the garage
uh
well i figured if i had it done in the garage at the Toyota dealer i would be looking at probably three or four hundred dollars
jimminy
between the gasket kit and the new distributor cap i put on and the new uh chain and the labor
and how much do you think the parts was by itself
well the parts to to me i spent twenty two dollars on the parts
oh really
yeah
wow
so i really i really don't have heart burn at all with doing it myself over four nights tie i tied the car up if four days but we're fortunate we didn't need it
oh gosh
yeah four at a hundred dollars a night that's not still not too bad
no i know but you know you you save the markup on the parts and of course you buy them whole sale from the parts store and and you can save a little bit there and you can save an awful lot on the labor which is high today like all the rest of us we expect top dollar for what we do and
sure
i don't i don't blame the garage people it's just that it's very very hard to find anybody here that's willing to do that type of work
um-hum
all of our so called garages are now a convenience stores that sell gasoline and they really don't do any repairs anymore so you know you're you're you're you're almost tied to the dealer to go back to them and
right
exactly
well it seems like they're just swamped with work so
well
yeah well unfortunately i just had replaced the the power antenna uh you know it kind of dumb having the garage door i drove out before the door was completely up and the radio was on so it took off the antenna
sure
sure
but the mast itself cost uh thirty four two dollars
uh-huh
and i went i called the dealer and they wanted two hundred and twenty to put it in
sure and that's that's held in by two bolts and a bracket and a plug of wire in the bottom of it no
and
gosh and then i went to
well it i i looked at it myself to see if i could do it myself because i you know i i feel i'm so pretty competent and handy but unfortunately unfortunately they buried this one in the sixty six Mazdas you have to remove the dash and the fuse box to get to the motor
i'm sure you could of
uh-huh
uh-huh
and so they say there's uh three hours of labor just to uncover where the the metal shaft goes in because it goes through the through the door in between the windshield and the driver's side door and comes out above the driver's head
okay yeah that's one of those that sits up at an angle back there yeah okay yeah yeah
yeah so it's terribly engineered
well that's that's another problem you know and if you don't have all these special tools of course like i said we're very fortunate with the older cars we can work on them what
um if you don't have all the special tools and the technology i i'd i would hate to buy a brand new car today with the electronics that are in them
everything was visible
oh yeah
i imagine that would be a bear to work on you know uh
anymore just putting everything on a chip is your going to have to replace the chip unless you have the tools to diagnose what's the problem with the chip
sure
uh-huh yes that's absolutely true
uh have you done have you done much repair work yourself other other than just routine maintenance like oil changes and stuff
but
i had a a seventy nine Mustang uh Mazda RX7
yeah
first year of the rotary engine that i used to do i used to work on because it you know heck seventy nine if i was to do something screw it up electrically uh i could i handled everything i put in antennas there you know the power antenna the replacement parts all that kind of thing
sure
but when it came to ever giving kind any kind of tune ups or things like that i'd take it into the shop anything basically with the yeah
that rotary engine always fascinated me i was i was always enthralled by the rotary engine i think that's a neat idea and i'm surprised we haven't gone that way more and and
yeah and they just stop making them now
yep yep
so it's kind of interesting when it's work great smooth
it's a smooth running quiet car i i just i don't know why well perhaps the the retooling cost were probably prohibitive to most companies you know
i suppose but i had a hundred and twenty eight thousand on it when i sold it
the uh the automotive industry is in dire needs of something in this in this country and it's too bad uh the Toyota we bought i i bought second hand i did not buy it new uh
yeah
um-hum
but if you look at what's in that little car and as opposed to what's in some of the American cars you can see where we're probably a half a step behind and i think i think we're trying to do something to correct that but i think we got away from us a little bit so
yeah
but i i i i just like i say to work on it myself i one i like to do that
uh i i think i would do all of the maintenance i change my own oil and i change of course spark plugs and stuff like that that's routine that i i would call routine maintenance once a year i do that every fall i get ready for the winter
um-hum
and i even lubricate the car myself because i have a i have means of of running it up on on jack stands and and you know i have a creeper and i crawl around underneath it so it's not a big deal
wow
sure
sure
but even today like with your waste oil when you drain the oil and change the oil now i have to bring it to a disposal center i can i no longer can put it in in the trash you know or in a container yeah we have
oh really
we're we're really on an ecology kick up here i guess like all the rest of the country and
well that's good
and and they really really they come down and pound you real hard if they catch you dumping oil on the ground because it does go in and it effects the lakes and streams and it eventually winds up on the ocean here and it really makes a mess around around New England
sure
so we have to take the oil to uh a uh a disposal center that's an EPA you know authorized disposal center
um-hum
and they gladly take it but they only take it like for two hours on a Saturday morning you know and it's it gets to be a pain sometime to go through that but i think it's still worth it in the long run
right
because oil you can buy for eighty five cents a quart but if you buy that same oil at a dealer it's going to cost you probably two dollars a quart
sure sure of course
and uh and now the labor to put it in
of course
and uh i i again i like to do that i i would do all the maintenance on my car if i could uh
um-hum
you know even even into major things just to keep our car longer because i don't think we get the money that we put into them out of them in two years or three years and of course i was never in a position where i could trade my car off every two years
right
well it seems like you've got a very valuable talent
uh well i i like i said i've done mechanics all my life and i do that with the company so uh i'm a senior engineer for them so i am mechanics and i i just uh i enjoy it i really it's like a diversion for me i i think if i had to do it
oh great
if i had to do automotive repair or or anything i love to do woodwork and too and it's a diversion because i know i'd really don't have to this okay so i think i like that because i know i don't have to do this but if if i were forced to do it that may be a different situation
hum yeah that's true well it's been good talking to you
uh it sure has i really appreciate your call and uh it's nice to talk with you folks from from down in the in the main office area and
every once in a while down here at the main site
yeah sure how's your weather it's pretty good
oh it's been beautiful
yeah we're just starting to get some nice little warm weather up here in New England it got up to seventy today that's a good sign we we we've been running around twenty in the morning and getting real cold and it's too cold to work on automobiles outside generally but we had the last few days been pretty nice
there you go
starting to defrost
well that's great
i appreciate your call and you enjoy yourself if you're ever up this way look me up in Attenborough okay sir thank you again
well
you too
all alrighty good-bye
