Comments by "yankee2 yankee" (@yankee2yankee216) on "The Car Care Nut" channel.

If the dealer can’t fix a problem, they SHOULDN’T charge a penny… We pay for success, not failure!
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Auto mechanics has never been simple. There are a LOT of specialized skills and knowledge required! And it is getting MORE complicated every year. Today, a mechanic needs not only to crank wrenches, but also to know electronics and computers, as well as plastics and where to get parts, for dozens of brands and thousands of models. Auto mechanics requires as much or more specialized knowledge as many more exalted professional workers…
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As always, it helps to be a great mechanic!
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I shouldn’t say what was so shocking, so I won’t, but I predict you WON’T be shocked (much)!
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However, dealers will USUALLY be the most cutthroat of all mechanics. The last time I took my Bimmer to a dealer for a $250 job, it wound up costing me $1000, and nothing else was necessary. I told them “replace the coil and nothing else.” Somehow (I was very ill at the time) they managed to tack on an additional $750, 300% above the estimate, without doing more than they were ordered to do! If I had been well, I would have refused to pay (actually, my wife paid it). I refuse to take my car to a dealer if at all possible. They are ripoff artists!
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Absolutely! It all went south on their watch, in fact, the dealer should replace any motor that fails before 100K miles… free of charge. Some motors are so good… we have a right to expect that all of them will be good. If not, the manufacturer, and by association the dealer is virtually ALWAYS to blame.
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@hang4963 You can’t make blanket statements like that, if you care about your credibility! All mechanics are different, and I know for a fact that some of them, and maybe most of them are honest. They are just like you and me, trying to make ends meet.
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I hope you live in dry country. My 4Runner was 10yo with 86K on her clock when I got her, and I do love her. She is a GREAT truck, which I drive like a sports car (not as fast, but with similar joy, she has the 5-speed). She came from Nevada, and I drove her for about 5 years in SoCal before moving to MA. THAT is where the trouble started. We use salt on the roads in MA. My 4Runner went about 5 years before the first rust showed up. By 8 years in MA, it was getting bad in the rockers and bumpers, so at about 10 years (in MA), 3 years ago, I had some stop-gap body work (the complete job would have been over $10K) done to forestall the inevitable, and replaced the bumpers. Today, everything but cruise control works perfectly, but the rust is already beginning to pop back out on the bumpers, and the rockers ate getting rusty again. She still looks pretty good, with only a little rust evident, but there is more lurking right beneath the surface. I love my truck, but I give her 5 more years.
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For me, reliability has always been one of the golden 4: 1) reliability, 2) handling, 3) performance, 4) durability, maybe not precisely in that order! And there may be others, but number one will always be reliability, with the others close behind.
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I paid $4K to fix rust on my old 4Runner, to make her last 3-4 more years (she has the 5-speed, and I love driving her). Well, she lasted 3 more years, when about $3K-$5K worth of necessary repairs cropped up. I’m scrapping her, poor thing… She was in fact one of my favorite cars ever. She gave me 15 good years and 120K miles. I kept her because she CANNOT be replaced. No doubt a poor substitute will be a 2015 MB GLK350, but that was the best I could do for <$20K. I think the MB will be a good car…
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Actually, there have been TONS of complaints about the giant BMW kidney grills! Most of us hate them.
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11K miles! That is NOTHING. That car is barely broken in! I bought a BMW 128i with 11K miles, in mint condition for 60% of what it cost new 4 years earlier. It was like I bought a brand new BMW for 40% off! I have a new system… I buy late model German luxury cars (a BMW and a Mercedes so far) 4-5 years old with extremely low mileage. Mileage is a better measure of wear that years, so I get a car that is very young in miles for the price of an older car. So far I have been lucky, as every car so far has been excellent, and nearly trouble-free. It helps that I deliberately choose cars with a reputation for superior reliability (My BMW 128i STRIPPER (6-speed, naturally aspirated I6, iDrive delete) is said to be the most reliable modern BMW, my Mercedes GLK350 is said by every reviewer to be exceedingly reliable, one of the most reliable M-Bs (several YT mechanics say they rarely see them in their shops), and my Miata is, as are most Japanese cars, extremely reliable! Sometimes despite all odds, I have made good decisions.
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Even with over 200K, my 1999 4Runner is solid as a rock, mechanically, but it is getting rusty. I always fixed everything (there hasn’t been much), but recently I have let the cruise control go, and the clutch throwout bearing is making noise. The truck has a few more years (she’s on a frame, and so far, its just the rocker panels), so I’ll fix the clutch (she’s a manual, which makes her special), but that may be the limit… Anything else, and she may get sold (there will be a market, even for a rusty example). Anyone noticing my personification might as well know, I do love her! She is a great car. It will be sad to let her go.😢
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@sharedknowledge6640 It really irks me that you almost literally cannot buy a product that is not subject to planned obsolescence. We used to make things to last forever! Now, even things that could last 20, 50 years now last only 5, and the cumulative cost must be much greater than if they were built to last in the first place. My credo is “buy the best you can afford, and then never buy that thing again!” That is getting harder and harder, as quality commands a premium. It should be standard issue!
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Is over 200K miles on a transmission impressive? My traditional Toyota MT (‘99 4Runner) has over 200K on it, and it still works perfectly, as always. I predict that if not for rust, the entire car could go another 100K miles or more.
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Rust has killed many, many Toyotas! My 1999 4Runner with 205K miles, has the 5VZ FE engine, which is bulletproof, but rust is beginning to take over. My truck has the 5-speed, so it’s special to me, but I think I’ll be getting a new one in less than 5 years.
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If your regular work is as insightful and carefully done as this job, you are everybody’s dream mechanic, and worth every penny! Thank you!
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So, the fact that this engine failed is an outlier, and a rarity! We don’t need to worry about this!
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Do bigger wheels really make a harder, rougher ride? I don’t know anything about it, but it seems to me that bigger wheels would make a softer, smoother ride…
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That’s incredible. I makes me wonder why I bought a Mercedes GLK350 to replace my old 4Runner… the GLK has been fine, and it has a good reputation for reliability, however, there is little doubt, another Toyota or a Lexus would have been a wiser choice!
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I was noticing that the ride on my ‘99 4Runner was not all that great. The car was 20+ years old, had 175K miles on it, and the shocks were all original. So I got a full set of new Bilsteins and had them installed. Guess what? NO DIFFERENCE! The original shocks (also Bilsteins I believe) were as good as new, at 20 years and 175K, I just didn’t know it…
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I understand the owner perfectly. I also drive a stripper with a MT, albeit a BMW. The problem is rarely the mechanicals, here in New England, it’s rust. The salt used on the roads eats ‘em up.
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I didn’t like the “spindle grill” at all when it first came out. Not at all! But it has grown on me. Now I think of it as the exciting big grill of a wonderful luxury car. I contributes to the sense of luxury, kind of like a futuristic Rolls Royce grill! Nevertheless, I DO hate the big new BMW kidney grill. It seems clunky. Maybe BMW will improve it? I wouldn’t buy most of them the way they stand.
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The problem is greed, i.e. bad business. In American society, way too much credit is given to people who made a lot of money, regardless of how they made it. Slumlords get rich, and get invited to the best parties, and some mechanics think of every customer as a mark, to soak for as much as possible! The CCN is of course the better kind (the much better kind), and I know a number of mechanics I trust…
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Mechanics are human beings, and I think many if not most of them are honest businessmen. They have developed good reputations, which they protect jealously! Those reputations bring them business, that otherwise might be hard to find. I can’t imagine a better way to succeed as a mechanic than by being strictly honest about everything (and good at it), charging a fair price for your work, and always thinking of your customers’ interests first and foremost! Customers would beat their way to your door!
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I don’t mind paying a mechanic a pretty high rate if he’s honest and highly competent… Of course a big bill stings, but modern cars are complicated, and require a LOT of knowledge, skill and simple hard work to maintain and repair. Good mechanics should live well enough to drive the cars they fix!* *the more costly ones will always be out of the range of ordinary mechanics - there has to be SOME stratification!
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These engines must be common in junkyards. Every truck that ever got wrecked or rusted out had one, and demand must be low. How much would a good used engine (could probably get one with very low miles) have been?
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