In about an hour, my car will be sitting at the dealership waiting to get its brakes & rotors replaced.
It's been needing to be done for about a month now, but I've been trying to put it off because of the cost, and other things that were costly that were being done first (two weeks ago: windshield for 2002 Saturn VUE = $400, because we haven't gotten glass insurance on either of our cars yet; one week ago: vet appointment for the two cats = $180, for their rabies, feline distemper, and feline leukemia shots). Now it is my car's turn for its brakes.
The rotors, I am fairly certain, are shot beyond all repair. They're warped, they make my whole car shake when I push on the brakes, which gets worse at higher speeds (i.e. freeway speeds). They first warped in Oct '02 and got resurfaced. Now they're warped again, less than a year later. They're the same rotors that have been on the car since we bought it (1997), so I guess it's to be expected that they would eventually go bad.
Anyway, I last used my car last wednesday to get myself &
Josh to work. The next day we found gas for his car and then my car sat in the garage the rest of the week. I had to practically beg my boss to OK carpooling with Josh (his shift starts at 3PM every day of his shift, mine starts at 1PM except Wednesdays (3pm) and Saturdays (10am)). Sometimes I really hate my boss. We think his reluctance to work with me in situations like this stems from when Josh used to work for and then got laid off by the same boss. Yes, Josh & I worked for the same company at one point, but that's another story.
But, back to my car. The dealership estimates it to cost around $300 I think, to replace the front two rotors, & front two brakes (because they're probably shot to hell as a result of the warped rotors), after labor & taxes. I think maybe it's closer to $350, but I think I left the papers I wrote down the estimates on at work. I could probably take my car to someplace like Just Brakes (where it would be about $100 cheaper), but sometimes those places like to find things "wrong" with this and that and pad the bill with extra work that doesn't really need to be done.
I'm still suspicious over an incident a couple of years back with this same car, where it needed its brakes replaced and we suspected there was something else wrong but Saturn of Glendale couldn't find anything else other than the brakes needing to be replaced... we took the car to Just Brakes instead, and ended up shelling out around $500 because they claimed that the calipers were all twisted and one of the lines was cracked or something and leaking brake fluid... In retrospect I think that perhaps the mechanic purposely broke something so that they could charge me extra to get it fixed (since I am naive when it comes to brakes)... and thinking back, if I recall correctly, after that work was done and I started having brake problems again later down the line and took it to Saturn, they found the calipers were twisted and put together wrong. I could be misremembering this, so I'd have to go back through my stack of service invoices to be sure..
I'll have to look later, however, because in the time it's taken me to write this, it's nearly time for me to leave to take the car in. I'll post again when I find the service invoices (if I find them.. they don't always get put in the same place, I'm kind of bad about that).
That's all, folks...
