car woes

Anyone know any good, trustworthy mechanics?

Basically, I need a second opinion. While the Saturn guys had my car up in the air to do the brakes, they said they found that the quill bearing is leaking (not enough to leave anything on the ground) and that eventually my clutch will need to be replaced.... which will cost over $1000 to do (because they need to replace the quill bearing at the same time), and will be an all day or almost two day event.

?!?! I know the clutch is getting a bit squishy, but geeze. Oh, and they can't guess how long the car can go before absolutely needing it to be replaced. I did a little searching on the ol' in-tar-net and found this, which appears to be a similar situation that I now find myself in (except my car doesn't go through oil like there's no tomorrow). The "expert" there says don't let them do it. I won't, not until I get a second opinion, and if the giver of that second opinion can do it for a hell of a lot less, then they can have at it.

As for the bit about my brakes... they say the pads are at 80-85%, so those don't need to be replaced.. They say that they've not been worn unevenly. They tried to say they could resurface the rotors again (it's cheaper than replacing them by about $70), but since this set has warped for a second time in less than a year, I'd rather have them replaced.

Then, if they warp again, I guess I'll be taking the car to somewhere other than the dealership to find out why it keeps happening since my driving habits have not changed. I know what causes warping, heating of the rotors, but Saturn claims that the only things that could lead to that are quick stops or extended braking, neither of which I do on a regular basis (once in a while maybe, but certainly not every day). Ever the skeptic, Josh feels that there have to be other things that could lead up to that, and I'm beginning to agree. The question is, what?

At any rate, if the clutch really does need to be replaced, I hope it can hold out for about six months.. by then we may be able to just buy me a new car and the clutch will be someone else's problem (i.e. the dealership 'cause we'll likely just trade it in, although I'm not sure how much we'll get out of an SL1 that will, at that point, probably have almost 150K miles on it...)

Statistics

This page has been viewed 0 times
Page rendered in 0.3468 seconds
Total Entries: 706
Total guests: 2
Total anonymous users: 0
Most Recent Visitor on: 08/05/2025 05:48 pm
The most visitors ever was 186 on 09/09/2005 09:57 pm

Referrers