A couple weeks ago when my alternator went out, everyone knew what it was and everyone who has ever turned a screwdriver said "oh, I could replace it for you." I don't like to fool around when it comes to my vehicles, usually I will just take it to the dealership. Do I pay more? Yes, definitely, but I also get peace of mind. Considering my Excursion is almost a classic, I am not going to let any putz stick his hands in her engine bay. I could take for example my brother in law a few years ago was having continuing problems but still insisting my friend is a good mechanic. Sure, but if he can't fix a problem on one or two tries, back up with the compliments and swearing he can fix anything. Thinking about it, it was my sister's Mustang, they kept taking it in. At a certain point, I was just chuckling thinking take it to Ford and stop wasting everyone's time.
The dealership will suggest all sorts of crazy stuff sometimes, this last time when they fixed the alternator, they had a list $1600 long of things that could use replacing, starting with the 100,000 mile spark plugs. But if you advertise them as 100,000 mile plugs and last I changed them at around 90,000, shouldn't I get to at least 170-180,000 miles. We hadn't driven it much, it only has 150,000 miles. I'll keep it in mind, maybe do it next summer, it isn't misfiring or sputtering weirdly.
The reason I even brought this up was Girlie was all happy when her "Best Friend" was topping off her oil two days ago. Fast forward to the next day she is calling me wondering about white smoke coming from her engine. I told her it was probably just residual oil that he spilled on the engine, she had a snapchat video and the guy was trying to pour from a 5 quart container with no funnel. The guy was saying maybe the engine was low on coolant, which made no sense. Smoke comes from burning, either it was burning some oil or she hit a bird or cat and it got in the engine bay. She was too far away for me to help, as I was waiting for Chubs to finish his football practice. At the end of the day, I asked if she ran the car once somebody looked at it, she said they took it to her Mom's house. I am just glad that she's been trying to rely less on my help and I had nothing to do with this.
The point though, is that something as trivial as pouring oil into your engine can lead to problems which is why I don't mind paying for the peace of mind that comes from the dealership. They might abuse their power a bit and charge twice what they should, but my time is expensive too, I can't be spending multiple visits there waiting for them to get it right.
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