Does it make sense to get interested in repairing your own car, especially if you aren't in a position to work on it, or because you are a traveler, lack a garage or machine shop, or are old and stiff?
A You Tube channel warned me that repair shops usually talk you into replacing your brake pads before their time, because of concern for the shop's liability, or because they assume customers won't check the pads themselves. Thus inspired, I removed the wheel and went to work. Besides, I needed practice removing the wheel in case of a flat tire or to enable closer inspection of things.
It was fun to learn that my brakes pads had a lot of material left on them. By chance I looked up and found this:
Dead center in the photo, an electrical cable is resting on top of a bolt head. "Resting?" Like hell. I could see the cable being deformed by the sharp 90 degree angle of the bolt head.
On my first van, 15 years ago, I suffered my most expensive and frustrating repair because something like this happened. After 196,000 miles of washboard roads, a bolt head had actually cut through the insulation on a cable, and shorted a sensor wire to ground. The Ford mechanic who finally found this was so proud of himself that he brought me back into the inner sanctum of the shop -- where customers are not permitted because of "insurance regulations" -- and showed me the bare copper wires.
Previously, two independent shops had replaced sensors, and all to no avail. Were they incompetent or dishonest? No. They were just doing the modern mechanic thing of looking at engine scanner codes and taking them literally. Apparently, 'garbage in, garbage out' is no longer taught in school.
This all happened 15 years ago. It must be worse today, and will get worse in the future. Mechanics are losing their instincts about loose connectors, chafed wires, creaky hinges, or loose cable clamps. If you thought your car was losing fluid, a modern mechanic's first thought would be to run an engine scan, rather than put a piece of cardboard under a couple spots and look for a fluid leak, or jiggle something to see if it is loose.
I have dwelled on this problem because it perfectly illustrates a general syndrome, which deserves to be discussed in a later post.
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