well, aint this a kick in the teeth
 

so, tomorrow the wife and I are travelling to see my folks for the holidays. so today, when I got home from work, I decided to rotate the tires, as the fronts are lower on tread than the rears and we are travelling to an area that gets a lot more snow than we do locally. So, I do the deed (one that I've been putting off for several weeks) and jump in the car for a test drive. Test drive reveals a noise/vibration from one of the front tires. I get back home and inspect my work, thinking maybe the lugnuts on one of the wheels werent tight enough. Nope, it turns out that the left front tire has a broken belt (beginning stage, no wonder I couldnt feel it on the back). So, now I have to spend $115 for two new tires, money that I was planning on having for the trip.

Oh well, better than having a blowout on the highway at 65 mph. Still, not how I was planning on spending tomorrow morning getting up early and going to the tire place instead of sleeping in.

:(

That definitely sucks, but the alternative sucks a lot worse. Nice work keeping your stuff good to go.

Ok, since we're talking car woes... I had a few of my own last week. My car is presently riding on ultra high performance Yokohama AVS ES100 tires. They are a directional summer tire. I didn't realize just how bad in the snow they really were. I saw they were called a summer tire, and just thought "how bad can it be?" Were talking zero traction here. So I make it over to Tires Plus (barely) and check on some winter tires for my car. He tells me I'm in luck, he just took in a set of Bridgestone Blizzak's (which is actually what I wanted) but they were one size too tall. They had 125 miles on them, normally $157 each, said he could sell me them for $98 each and still give me a 2 yr warranty on them. I wasn't too worried about them being too tall, my speedo will just be a bit fast, no big deal.

1. First off, the tires don't fit. So dammit, now I have to order them in in my size, and pay a little more.

2. Upon getting my wheels off, the mechanic showed me a broken spring on the drivers' side. Now I need new springs. $300 installed

3. GM recommends replacing the shocks if you replace the springs. $457 for the front two.

4. Since he took the weight off the broken spring when he took the car up on the rack, it shifted how the spring was "sitting." Now the front left of my car sits noticeably lower than the right. Dammit.

5. Have a leak in my cooling system that my dad and I have not been able to find. He is suspicious of the water pump. That sounds expensive. Dammit.

Merry freaking Christmas Brandon.

wow that just proves that cars are more trouble than they are worth. sorry for the bad luck guys that really sucks.

Too bad for the tough luck. I am no expert, but if you need to replace 2 tires, wouldn't you be better off just replacing all 4 at the same time. I would love to hear others comments on this.

Ah yes, car maintenance....gotta love it.

wow...sounds rough. And brandon, sounds like you got taken by your mechanic. Dont go to him again. First off, what the hell kinda shocks are you using that cost 200 bucks a peice?! Second off, there is NO reason whatsoever that when he is done replacing suspension parts that your ride height shouldn't be almost identical on each side. He obviously doesn't have too big of a clue on what hes doing. If it "shifts" he better shift it back...end of story. Take it back and tell him to do it right this time.

Just out of curiosity...what kind of car was it?

The price of $457 was the installed price. They were their "recommended" Monroe shocks. When I posted, I didn't have the new springs on, so thats why the car was leaning. My car is currently in the shop having new springs put on, and the intake manifold gasket replaced. Thats what was causing the leaking coolant... the fucking $10 intake manifold gasket. The bitch is the $500 labor to pull the whole top of the engine off to get to it. Oh well, I should have my car back about $600 later.

My car is a 99 Grand Am GT1 Coupe.

Hehehe welcome to the problem of a gm 3.4 v6....two of my friends with both 99 engines had that same problems....we opted to do it ourselves both times.....it wasn't hard to fix or really that expensive....but it takes a long fucking time.....about 24 hours of work....I think my second friends problem was the dexcool when that stuff gets dirty it gets really really corroded....if i can find my pics i can post them if you want of what dexcool does to gasket....also i think it's cause gm likes to go "cheap" on their gaskets...

hey merk and brandon, is GM still putting the alternator UNDER the power steering pump on the 3.4L engines, like they did when it was first introduced in the Lumina Z34s?

The 3.4's that i worked on that had the gasket troubles where 3.4L with normal pushrod operated valvetrain. all 3.4L that of DOHC's still put the alternator under the power steering pump

$450 for shocks? I'm by no means farmiliar with coil-over suspension, is that what it has? I'm guessing you need some freak machinery to take it apart to get the shocks off?

Not trying to gloat, but I can change my shocks in 2 bolts each and just by pulling the wheel. :D

(ducks to avoid barrage of flying shocks)

I actually had a little good car luck ... I sold my avitar, a 83 AMC Spirit and the kid that bought it had to replace the water pump about a week later.

Well, I got my car back. $940 later. I did know that they were having problems with Dexcool. Got rid of that for the green stuff long ago. The gasket was like $98, but they did change a bunch of other shit too, like new plugs, and a few other misc. things. Oh well, at least I have my fucking car back.

A lady friend of mine had that GM V-6 intake leak and had an estimate of over $700 to fix it. I took it to a friend of mine, professional mechanic, and he did the job for her for less than $300.

Tirerack.com for cheap tires...

Upon further review of this thread.... sorry about the threadjack Sion. If you feel thats what I did, my apologies.

aw shit brandon, no biggie. hell, I was just looking fer some sympathy anyway.

Cool... yer in good company