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Phew!

August 27th, 2009 at 03:10 pm

Life resumes to "normal," I guess.

Took the car in for the AC yesterday, and assumed it may take a while. But, we already got it back!

After 10-days of being a "1 car family," we are very grateful to have 2 vehicles again.

Not sure if this is good or bad, but they couldn't find anything wrong with the AC. (Heck, it was working fine when we took it in). They drained the freon (had some moisture in it) and refilled it. It seems to be working much better.

Total cost? $100. PHEW!!!!! (I was worried this would be another $1k bill).

Of course, we will see if this fix "holds." But with summer nearing its end, if it doesn't "hold", not sure I care at this point. Either this is it, or we can survive until next spring.

Phew!

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I also was proud of myself. My parents found it important to teach me basic car maintenance. But, I don't remember getting much education on tires. I can change one, but that's about it.

So, historically, relative, friend, mechanic, says "OMG - you NEED new tires." & so we replace them.

Deciding maybe we need a better method, I have been trying to keep better track of the age of our tires.

Dh's tires are at about 50k miles so I was going to ask the mechanic's opinion. BUT, before we went over, I checked the treads myself. He had one bald tire (thing is OLD - might have been a used tire we bought a few years back - just kind of overlooked. Lord knows how old the thing is). Another tire was iffy. But the back 2 tires seemed just fine, which was actually rather surprising. But I figure this is my guess - I have NO IDEA what I am doing.

We had decided to just get the tires taken care of while we were carless all day.

So, mechanic agreed. Replaced 2 front tires and had a re-alignment. I am not sure how much life is left in the back tires. It's kind of nice we didn't have to replace 4 tires. BUT now it's just more work to keep track of it all. But I was proud of my own diagnostic. Big Grin

I should probably just check the treads at the end of every summer. Now that I am getting the hang of it.

So, yes, about $250 spent on tires and alignment.

Obviously, a very expected part of auto maintenance!

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As we know all of our auto expenses, we can come up with a game plan.

I was rather surprised we only spent $500, to date, on car maintenance. We took the van in THREE TIMES already, but I guess it was all small stuff.

$500 + $350 AC repair/Tires = $850.

We budget about $1500 per year for regular vehicle repairs and maintenance.

For now, I think I am going to pull $1k from short-term savings, towards the van's door replacement. It puts us over $1500 YTD for auto expenses, but I have some wiggle room there.

I am going to pull the other $1200 from the medical fund.

The year is not over yet. BUT, ideally we will have enough in there to cover the Dodge's computer problems (estimates at $1k) AND ideally we won't need it for medical expenses.

Doing all this, we still have a chance to make it to $10k in our mid-term savings fund this year. I haven't touched a dime of the money I saved up this year (Current balance? $9000!).

So, worst case, we can always dip into that. I am just trying my darnedest not to!

3 Responses to “Phew!”

  1. sweetmama Says:
    1251411824

    I've been told front tires wear faster/more. I think it's from all the steering. I am getting into the habit of checking air pressure more frequently to improve wear and MPGs. Wink

  2. monkeymama Says:
    1251415899

    Oh - I am an air pressure checker. HAdn't thought of that when posting. You don't know how many "slow leaks" I have found before a big trip. Though admittedly, I have been lax lately.

    We were going out of town one weekend and I told dh I had to check the tires. HE said, "Didn't you check them last week?" Um, yeah? & I could have run over a nail in that week. IT's goof to check those tires before a road trip. & at the start of every season. Will really have to pump them full of air once the air gets colder.

  3. frugaltexan75 Says:
    1251426774

    Before all my fun with car happened recently, I was thinking that it probably is getting close to time for replacing several of my tires. I'm not very good at all with checking them, and am almost afraid to ask now ..

    That is good you were able to get out for just $100 - hope the ac holds up!

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