so do you do any of your own repairs or maintenance work
well i do a little bit i just do mainly you know change the oil and uh i'll do an occasional tune-up things like that change set of disc brakes
but most of the stuff i have done i just don't have time to fool with it or you know it's just out of my technical expertise
yeah do you have like an American or foreign car
one of each
okay
a foreign and uh and i have a a truck
because i know like i've got a a Honda and and it's just beyond even my my dad's and my husband's comprehension a lot of that stuff they grew up with Americans
little simpler arrangements on under the hood so so they'll change the oil for me and
yeah
um
that's about it these days
yeah i don't work on anything foreign
yeah it's it's
well you've got to have a different set of tools for it and everything else too so
you have to have metric don't you
yeah metric well even even some American cars have that now but uh
yeah
uh they're still a little bit over all simpler you know to work on but uh
yeah
i feel like if if i can afford to have it done i'm going to have it done
well it's it's a lot easier than getting under there and finding out something major
has happened that you didn't know about and Advanced Auto closed fifteen minutes ago and
yeah
getting into that kind of hassle
well have you had anything done to yours lately or
yeah i had um well i was having problems with the cruise control
um-hum
so i had to take it down and have them look at that and they said it was something with the um
the way the choke was adjusted
yeah automatic choke
yeah
how much did that cost you to have that fixed
well i had the um like the sixty thousand mile tune-up done at the same time
so the whole thing was like two hundred dollars
yeah
not cheap like it used to be
no it i mean the first time i found out how much it was going to be i about fell over
yeah i've had uh we have a Volvo and uh i had some steering problems
but
and it ended up being the entire rack and pinion steering assembly
holy cow
and by the time i got everything done
it was twelve hundred bucks
wow
so something something that small and that minor uh well it's not really minor but something that small can cost that much money
was it is it a fairly new car i mean was it
well it's five years old
well that's still
but
but still it doesn't have that many miles it's got uh just over sixty five thousand miles on it and rack and pinion steerings
uh i don't think i've ever heard of one going out
i know i haven't the the little bit i know about cars i've never heard of anybody having that happen to them
the uh the guy that i talked to that replaced it he said i just he said we've never really had to replace one
we've had to go in and do some adjustments but never replace one but the actual gear teeth on this one had had broken
man
so i think it was a defect defect and i tried to get the Volvo Corporation to cover it but they just refused to do it
did they
so i just rather than get tied up in in a bunch of you know garbage i just went ahead and and got it done and and to heck with it
yeah
but uh and then the the truck i have i have uh
i've had just virtually excellent luck with it and other than taking in for just regular warranty work and things like that it's it's been a real good truck
well i've the only two cars i've had i had a Honda Civic
and it was let's see uh
i'm trying to think
how old it was i got it in
eighty one and got rid of it in eighty eight so it was seven years old and had almost a hundred thousand miles on it
they're good cars
yeah and i i mean i never had any problem with it and i've got an Accord now and other than you know minor tune-ups like with the the choke and stuff i've never had any problem with it so i've been really lucky
i had a i had a Honda Accord uh it was uh
trying to think what year it was uh
i think it was an eighty eight or eighty seven eighty seven
mine's an eighty eight
and uh
it's the the was the LXI with the the fuel injection is that what you have
yeah
no i've i've got the LX
i think it still has fuel injection there's i think the DX is the one that does not
okay
but uh they are probably one of the nicest running cars i've ever driven
they run good and they're and they're peppy
yeah
and this one's you said yours was just now about sixty five thousand and mine's an eighty eight and it's it just turned over seventy thousand
yeah i i will i don't i don't think i'd ever buy another Volvo i bought it mainly uh for my wife and daughter for safety more than anything and i thought well it'd be an investment we'll be able to keep it for ten or twelve years
so
yeah
sure
and uh i i don't think i'd buy another one only because the maintenance costs are very very high
yeah
and that's just a little bit out of my range it's enough just to buy it without uh having the other problems but uh
once it
i will definitely go back go to uh
now go back to Honda or Mazda or something like that next time
we've been looking recently just
you know mainly window shopping but um we've been thinking more American just
because we want a bigger car this time
um-hum
and we've been looking at um
Crown Victoria and Grand Marquis and we're leaning a little bit towards
the uh
Grand Marquis as far as just looks but my parents have a um Continental and they've had nothing but nightmares with that car
oh really
it's been it's been one thing after another going wrong that the local dealer
either says there's nothing wrong it's your imagination or says well it's supposed to be that way just get used to it it's been an absolute nightmare for them
hum
so it kind of makes me dread going back to an American manufacturer
that's been i think until they get the reliability up
i don't you know other than trucks i've had always had good luck with American trucks but with cars i i've not had much luck with uh American cars especially General Motors
yeah
but uh you know i look at reliability and and you know like stuff like tires and and belts and stuff like that uh actually
you can buy the parts cheaper for foreign cars if you buy them and put them in yourself
sure
yeah
but if you have to have it done of course it ends up costing you the installation fee but
i have had if i had to say dollar for dollar spending on foreign and as opposed to to American i spent far less on the foreign cars
um-hum
i believe that
long term a lot a lot more and then then you add the the fuel savings on top of it
yeah
so my money's on foreign cars until American until the American cars can can meet the standards
i wish there were bigger foreign cars really it seems like they kind of
well that that's interesting that you say that because if you'll start looking now at some of the Hondas and some of the Mazdas and and a lot of the car companies now are beginning to scale up you know like the the Lexus
really
yeah
see those cars if if you'll go look at them they're as big as some of the General Motors cars
i hadn't really even
if you if you put them side by side and i i didn't really notice it until someone pointed it out he says well if you'll look and see what's happening
yeah
foreign cars
are able to keep the same gas or keep keep good gas mileage good reliability but they're scaling up whereas the Americans now are scaling down and they can't improve the gas mileage anymore
so the Japanese the Japanese have have definitely beat us in both sides of the game
yeah
they they thought you know build them small cheap and you know and and little repair
and you know get them hooked and then start slowly adding stuff on
moving them up
and people like the reliability but they also like the size and now they're sizing up they've got the reliability and they've got the gas mileage you know
and i don't i don't think people mind too much taking the car in for a a tune-up
you know just general fifteen thousand mile maintenance or or even getting the oil changed if they know that they're not going to have any other major problems that they'll have to pay for on top of that
that's right and with American cars and the warranties you don't know
what did they used to say Ford stood for fix or repair daily
yeah except i've got a Ford truck
and i know a lot of people that have Ford trucks
and really they're very maintenance free
well that's great
from i now i i i speaking only from trucks
i wonder why they can't extend the truck's
you know reliability out to the cars i mean i don't know
i don't know that's surprising surprising because you know everybody i know that has a Ford car has had nothing but trouble with it but they they have a Ford truck and they're they're virtually uh flawless
that's weird
the uh the the undercarriage and everything else if you put them next to a Chevy or or another type of truck
American truck you can't even come close to a Ford
really
and uh that's why i buy Ford trucks
mine runs like a top it it i've like i say i've had absolutely nothing wrong with it other than taking it in for normal maintenance
and uh and i i put over a hundred miles a day on it
man
and i've never i've never had trouble with it
that's great
so i'll buy Ford trucks but i'll buy foreign cars
i think they need to uh take a look at and see what they can't figure out what the catch is there
i know it's it's it's kind of kind of crazy but i don't know but but until they until they meet the standards that you know that i'm used to anyway that you know i'll i'll buy what whatever i get you know that's best for my money
yeah and you know like i said i've had i've had great luck with the Hondas and it's kind of hard to walk away from a good thing when it's you know you're not sure what you're going to get when you change
yeah
they're they're good cars i i i will say that you probably made a good choice
yeah
in that one
but how about have you had tires changed on on that car
i had the um tires changed at fifty two thousand they had they had started to look to look pretty bald
um-hum
did you put the same kind of tires back on it did you
no um let's see i had
