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This really is not about any alanon topic that I can discover. However, I don't know who else to ask, so please forgive me for straying from the subject.
My car needed an alignment. So I went to a tire store. There were 2 female customers there ahead of me. There were 3 male customers. While we were sitting together waiting for our cars, the mechanic came to the first woman and told her that she needed new brakes and a variety of other things and her bill jumped from $70 to $500.
About 15 minutes later a second mechanic came out and spoke to the other femal customer and told her that in addition to new tires her car needed some other stuff also and her bill doubled.
The mechanics came out and told the men that their cars were ready and no further problems existed with their cars. They paid their bills and left.
Then a mechanic came out and told me that in addition to my car needing an alignment they also recommened that the front bearings on my car needed to be repacked. He said my inner seals were broken and the labor would be an additional $125. He said if I didn't do it I would wear out my tires.
I refused the additional work because I noticed that all of us women were being hit up for additional problems but the men's cars were fine. I did not feel trustful of this tire store.
So, my question is, have you heard of having to have your bearings repacked? Do tires really wear out because of this? How do I find out if my bearings really need to be repacked?
If your car has 150,000 miles on it and has never had the rotors replaced, then you "might" need to have your bearings repacked.
Most of those shops are shopping for things to sell you. My advise to people is to ask around for a local mechanic who is trustworthy... even if they are more expensive. Let these quicky-tune guys give you a list of problems, and take it to the other guy to check out. That person will be honest (hopefully) and you won't have to worry about your safety.
Don't think its just a girl thing either. My son had the same thing happen to him a few weeks ago. He agreed to let them "check out" part on his front end. When they said what was wrong, I said "fine, put it back together and I will fix that".
It cost $75 for them just to put it back together. Only cost $100 to fix what was wrong. <sigh>
Whole thing makes me mad... can you tell? LOL
Take care of you!
__________________
"Good judgement comes from experience... experience comes from bad judgement" - unknown
Thanks, rt. The whole thing was making me angry too :) Now I won't worry that I refused the work. How stupid do they think we are that we don't notice that only the women had cars in such poor shape!
Interesting. I ended up replacing a wheel bearing on my car back in the summer. I blew the right front tire on the freeway at 75, and after getting new tires, I noticed the right front made a distinct wub-wub-wub sound that came and went as I leaned into curves and straightened out. Telltale sign of a loose or bad wheel bearing. Considering the beating it took when the tire let go, not too surprising.
Wheel bearing and cone cost me about 20 bucks. Took about an hour to pound out the old one. Been 15 years since I did this... at least. Packed the new bearing -- wheel bearing grease has to be the most tenacious substance ever invented. It gets on your hands and everything, you feel like using a whole roll of paper towels to get it off LOL.
The noise went away, everything is fine now in that department. Well then the power steering went out.
Oh yeah, this car is 38 years old!
Anyway I told this story because... it's pretty uncommon to have to replace or repack a wheel bearing on a newer car, unless it has not been lubed regularly, or it has sustained some kind of damage - such as a blown tire. I suspect my 38 year old car can go 5+ more years before I worry about a wheel bearing again. But it's in the garage now for the winter. I'll worry about it come April.
