[speaker001:] so uh have you got any repairs done by auto shops on your car or do you do maintenance work or what
[speaker002:] I uh try to do what I can and uh we have two vehicles uh and uh on the Honda which is the older vehicle
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] I try to do as much as I can on that on our newer one uh uh mini vans it's all electronic and computers and everything in it
[speaker001:] still still under warrantee right
[speaker002:] yeah uh well some things are some things aren't you know
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] not everything's covered by warrantee I don't try to mess with that at all I mean I I can change the oil and
[speaker001:] do you do any uh body work on the Honda
[speaker002:] uh no uh no no I do have a place that's rusting I need to get something on it
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] put some paint on it or something to stop the rust like scrape it and paint it right right right I know if you don't get the rust off that's there already that it's just going
[speaker001:] yeah scrape it and paint it put primer on it then paint it don't put paint over else it'll just continue rusting under it yeah
[speaker002:] continue on but yeah I was sitting here looking at my Honda manual when I got the call
[speaker001:] I got the so you you're ready to talk about it
[speaker002:] yeah yeah right the uh
[speaker001:] do you so you change like you change your own oil and oil filters
[speaker002:] yeah yeah I do my own brake brake work on the Honda I just
[speaker001:] uh I mean I
[speaker002:] I just finished working on the brakes
[speaker001:] yeah I I know where you're coming from because I do the I do the minor things to my car
[speaker002:] right right not the right the things I know how to do I I'm not an expert I don't claim to be
[speaker001:] uh but I don't right exactly yeah I just do what I can I don't really you know I don't it's like the simple things changing the oil checking the fluids you know rotating tires
[speaker002:] hum right
[speaker001:] things like that that you don't need heavy equipment for
[speaker002:] right seems anymore you need special tools to do a lot of jobs you know and and
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] I'm afraid I'll get something take it taken apart and not remember how to get it back together and then I'd be in big trouble
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] I do know a couple good shade tree mechanics and I call them once in a while for advice and once in a while for advice and once in a while they'll come over and say oh this is how you do it you know and I try to learn
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] but I think a lot of people learn how to do maintenance from whether their father did it you know my didn't do much at all and didn't know much about cars and
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] as a result I really didn't have that much interest to learn how to maintain fix and maintain cars
[speaker001:] right right
[speaker002:] so I didn't learn much growing up and I just after I we bought the cars you know and things got so expensive to take them someplace all the time
[speaker001:] yeah because it
[speaker002:] that I decided that I better start learning you know
[speaker001:] yeah because things go wrong and you don't know what the hell's going on and you don't you don't know where to start
[speaker002:] right that's right
[speaker001:] and that's where it costs money
[speaker002:] well yeah that's that's when I call some friends or something or sometimes I just take it to a place you know and they'll tell me what's wrong and I'll say oh it'll be this much money and I'll say oh well I'm going to think about that that sounds like too much
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] right now and so you know I got to think about that so they'll put it back together I'll take it home and then I'll fix it myself sometimes they charge you you know just to diagnose the problem
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] some places do some don't right just depends you know how long how long it takes them to figure it out if they can just tell right away
[speaker001:] those are electronical diagnostics
[speaker002:] by just listening to it and then they're usually going to charge you you know
[speaker001:] yeah I have a a fuel injected engine so I don't do anything to the engine you know it's like
[speaker002:] uh-huh yeah right they're pretty tricky
[speaker001:] I don't I don't want to mess with it because since I don't know exactly all the ratios you know and everything that all the proportions the fuel and air and compression and all that stuff that needs to be precise and it's controlled by computer I figure I won't mess with that
[speaker002:] uh-huh right that's how I figure on those things it's just not worth the worth it
[speaker001:] but I mean I play with everything else that you know that's not too serious you know you can bend it one way and you bend it right back or you know turn it
[speaker002:] right right
[speaker001:] just as long as as like you were saying it's not too hard to take apart and put back together I'll try it
[speaker002:] uh-huh right now that we have two cars I'm not as scared to play with play around because we always have the other car seems like I before I would get the car all apart and realize I needed a part you know and I'm calling all the neighbors and stuff trying to get them to give me a ride down to get my part you know because I don't have another part so now that we have two cars I'm less leery about just going for it
[speaker001:] have you had any body work done on your car
[speaker002:] um no no I haven't had any problem
[speaker001:] that stuff is expensive
[speaker002:] yeah I know I had an estimate for that little rust spot and they wanted like three hundred bucks
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] I said forget it I can live with it you know if the car's
[speaker001:] but
[speaker002:] ten years old now you know
[speaker001:] yeah I went I went uh I got in a wreck recently and uh well I didn't do much damage to my car but I did some pretty heavy duty damage to the other car I have a plastic bumper
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and I happened to hit the rim of the tire
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] it made like a little semicircular incision on my plastic bumper
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] right and and and kind of put little fissures on the on the paint of the bumper because it's plastic so when it bent you know when the plastic bent it kind of cracked
[speaker002:] on your plastic bumper uh-huh
[speaker001:] to to change that bumper covering of the plastic cover
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] was going to run me five hundred bucks
[speaker002:] uh-huh whoa that's on the other car or your car
[speaker001:] on my car
[speaker002:] is that right
[speaker001:] that just to change the cover you know because do just had to get the that whole cover my my car's a Beretta they had a big big bumper they got on there big white bumper that covers like the whole bottom front of the car that that whole thing you know to be replaced and repainted would cost five hundred dollars
[speaker002:] uh-huh right
[speaker001:] and I got this guy to uh to this this uh company I don't know if you ever heard of Maaco Auto Body Shop
[speaker002:] yeah I've heard of them
[speaker001:] I got the I talked to the owner and he said that the best thing to do if I wanted to save money was uh
[speaker002:] the chain
[speaker001:] to just go ahead and since there was no major damage he could just kind of like fill in the little ridges where the rim hit with some like bond or something and then paint over it and it would look just like new for only two hundred bucks so I did that instead
[speaker002:] right uh-huh
[speaker001:] but and it you can't tell you can't tell the difference you know it just looks like a brand new bumper
[speaker002:] is that right uh-huh
[speaker001:] and it hey I saved three hundred bucks
[speaker002:] yeah well you're a student right
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] so that's important
[speaker001:] very important
[speaker002:] yeah it seems anymore for cars or they want want so much to work on a car we've had our car in the dealer or our van and they want they charge like forty five dollars an hour labor
[speaker001:] yeah I think that's ridiculous isn't it
[speaker002:] golly they're yeah I I
[speaker001:] forty five dollars I mean people people get out of college and work for less than that
[speaker002:] right well the mechanic doesn't see that you know it's the owner or the dealer who sees the big bucks
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] mechanic probably gets about twenty dollars an hour yeah the thing about automobiles they're so unpredictable too you know they're hard to hard to plan ahead for for things
[speaker001:] yeah like that commercial that you plan for uh the car new car second garage but you didn't plan on breaking down
[speaker002:] yeah uh-huh
[speaker001:] ever see that commercial
[speaker002:] right no I haven't seen that one
[speaker001:] it's it's pretty good it's I think it's um a bank commercial or something like that and uh it just kind of flashes out these uh partial sentences like you planned on and it says a new garage second car
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and then all a sudden the music in the background changes and it says but you didn't plan on it breaking down
[speaker002:] that's true that's true I mean it's hard to you know it's hard to say oh I should set aside this much money for repairs on cars because you never know it could cost you nothing or it could cost you three times as much
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] it's hard to plan for those things and when you need to have it fixed you know a lot of times you can't just take it all over town if it uh you know
[speaker001:] yeah that's true
[speaker002:] sometime you can but on some things it's you're just stuck and you got to have it towed somewhere or something you just got to got to got to got to make a quick decision I don't know I don't trust a lot of people who work on your cars too I know this one guy that works for dealerships as a at dealerships they replace things they don't fix
[speaker001:] that's that's uh that's one thing about dealerships is you don't I don't think you get the real quality work at dealerships because they have to work with so many cars it just kind of
[speaker002:] so they'd just rather replace something and charge you for the new part rather than just you know fixing the part
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] and the part could be probably fixed you know for a third of the price of of a new one but they that's dealers don't do that
[speaker001:] yeah they want as much money as they can
[speaker002:] oh sure sure they do and then they take your old part and sell it to some reconditioning house and make money off of that too
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] you know so anyway well we got to got to have cars in this society not like uh Europe and Japan and some other countries where they have good enough public transportation where you can just
[speaker001:] yeah but I think
[speaker002:] get anywhere you need to go anytime you need to get there
[speaker001:] yeah I think uh I think public transportation will move up though in the future I mean I think we pretty much phased out the bus
[speaker002:] well I hope so right
[speaker001:] but I think maybe uh you know um like subways you know public transportation such as subways and monorails will probably come in
[speaker002:] uh-huh right right but it it's going to be a while I think but
[speaker001:] well yeah I mean not nothing like in the next ten years but more like in the next fifty to a hundred
[speaker002:] if I had a car uh the a bus