Car Repair Archives - Faithful with a Few

One of the most underestimated expenses in a household budget is car repairs. A typical car repair can run anywhere from $30 for an oil change to $2000 for a major repair, such as the replacement of a transmission. Car repair expense is one of the major reasons why people need to have an emergency fund. A major car repair bill can easily put a person or a family into a short-term financial emergency.

{Khaleef here: We just spent $1,600 in car repairs, so this is a very important topic!}

There are however ways to lower your car repair bills substantially, maybe even by 50% or more.

Learn To Perform Basic Repairs Yourself

One of the most basic ways to save money on car repairs is by performing at least some of the repair work yourself. You may not know how to change a transmission or to do a valve job, but there are basic functions you can handle on your own. Changing the oil, rotating the tires, and performing a basic tune-up are some of the possibilities.

Even if you’ve never performed repairs on a car in the past there ways that you can learn how to do this. One way is to take a course in basic auto repair. Those courses are often offered through local community colleges. For the price of a few hundred dollars you could save at least that much money on car repairs each and every year from now on.

Another way is by watching YouTube videos. All you need to do is go to YouTube and enter “how to change the oil in my car” or “how to rotate the tires on my car” in the search box. If you do this, just be sure to watch three or four videos and not to rely on the instruction of just one. That will prevent your getting the wrong information from someone who doesn’t really know what they’re doing.

Follow The Maintenance Schedule That Came With The Car

This point should be obvious but it’s worth emphasizing because not everyone does it. By maintaining the vehicle according to manufacturer’s specifications you can prevent future repairs that may result from deferred maintenance.

It’s often said that when money’s tight the first thing to go is maintenance, but when it comes to cars, putting off maintenance can leave you with even less money in the long run. Ignoring small jobs early on can easily lead to bigger jobs needing to be done later. And we all know that big car repair bills are budget busters.

Shop For A Less Expensive Mechanic

Many people will choose a mechanic based primarily on location. That does make sense – after all, if your car breaks down you’ll really want to be able to bring it to someone who’s local. Unfortunately, local doesn’t usually mean the least expensive.

A different and often less expensive way to choose a mechanic is by using a mobile mechanic. I’ve only become aware of mobile mechanics in the last few years, and in fact I have one myself. Maybe they’ve been around for a long time, but it’s probably not until you’re seriously looking to cut costs that you start investigating all options.

You can find a mobile mechanic either by a personal referral or through an advertising source like Craigslist. They may appear either in the automotive section or under the ETC section (where people post looking for work or business).

I have a mobile mechanic who, as the name implies, will come to my house particularly in emergency situations. He has a fully stocked van complete with all the tools a mechanic would need, and even a fair amount of spare parts. And he charges less than half what shop mechanics charge on an hourly basis. With no shops to maintain or salaries to pay, he can afford to charge a lot less than full-service shops.

That’s a lot of savings right there but there’s even more that you can do.

Buy Your Own Parts Or Use Second Hand Parts Wherever Possible

One of the advantages that I’ve found in using a mobile mechanic is that I can usually buy my own parts. Some mobile mechanics will allow you to do that because it avoids them having to stock the parts or having to make a parts run during a repair job. If you’re willing to make a run to a local AutoZone or Advanced Auto Parts store you can save at least 50% on the purchase of replacement parts compared to what a full service auto shop will charge.

The combination of the reduced hourly labor charges from the mobile mechanic, and the much lower prices that you get from buying parts yourself will cut your car repair bills substantially.

Another way to save even more money is by buying used car parts. You can easily buy used car parts through a website called Car-Part.com. They have a network of used car part sources across the United States, and the chances are very good that they’ll have multiple suppliers in your area.

You can buy used car parts for a fraction of what you would pay even for new parts that you by your self the parts dealer. This makes abundant sense especially if your car is at least five years old. There’s often little percentage to putting brand-new parts into an older car.

By using the methods above you can cut your car repair bills in half or even more. And if you can save that much money on car repairs you’ll probably also be able to hold on to your cars a lot longer. And the longer you can keep your cars, the more money you’ll save as a result of not having to buy a new one.

Have you ever tried any of these methods to help you save money on car repairs?

A Rental Car Is Probably Newer Than Your Own Car

My wife and I don’t like having car payments, so our cars are – shall we say – more mature than average. For that reason we don’t like taking our cars on out-of-state trips. But even if our cars were newer, we would still rent cars for long-distance travel.

Rental cars tend to be late-model, usually not more than one year old. They also typically have fewer than 20,000 miles. That makes them more reliable than a car that’s a few years old. It also generally means the latest safety features and maximum fuel efficiency. You need all of that on a long-distance trip.

You Can Choose The Vehicle You Need

Another advantage of renting a car is that you can choose the vehicle that’s most suitable for the kind of trip you’re taking. For example, on a long trip fuel efficiency would be really important. You can choose a car that gets better mileage than the car that you own. You could also choose a larger vehicle if you’ll have an excessive amount of luggage, which is usually the case when we travel for Christmas.

Mechanical Breakdown

This is a factor that has always been super important to me. When you’re traveling on a long trip, especially during the winter months, you can never ignore the possibility of having a mechanical breakdown. If it’s your car that has the breakdown, your only choice will be to interrupt your trip and have the car repaired.

There are two issues here, cost and time. On the cost side, the repair may be only $200 – but it could also be thousand dollars. That’s a lot of money to be spending when you’re already paying a lot for the trip itself. In addition, the repair work may require an extra overnight stay in a hotel, which will add still more to your cost.

Then there’s the time factor. If you are on a tight schedule for your trip, you may not have time for a one or two day delay for repairs. And near the holidays it can be difficult to even find a mechanic, not the least of which because you’re from out of town and not likely to be a repeat customer. A single repair episode could compromise the whole trip.

If you rent a car and there’s a mechanical breakdown, all you need to do is call the 800 number that the car rental company provides and they will take care of everything for you. They will tow in a replacement vehicle and you can be on your way while they tow out the broken vehicle. It will cost you nothing and it will take no more than an hour or two and you will be back on your way only having been slightly delayed.

This alone is worth the price of paying for a rental car, but there’s more.

Lower Cost To Rent A Car For A Long Trip Than To Drive Your Own

I can rent a Toyota Corolla in Atlanta for one week and drive back and forth to New Jersey for the holidays for a base price of $175 through Hertz. Now there will be add-on fees, but I also have a discount through Triple A, so let’s say the final price settles at $200 for the week.

Now let’s compare that to driving one of our own cars instead. We may save on the rental fee by using our own car, but there is a hidden cost to doing that.

The Internal Revenue Service allows 55 cents per mile as a mileage allowance. Since the trip is about 2,000 miles round tip that would mean – according to the IRS – that we’ll have incurred expenses of about $1,100 if we use our own car for the trip. But some of that is gas, so let’s back that out. 2,000 miles would mean using about 100 gallons of gas; at about $4 a gallon, the total cost for gas is about $400. If we subtract that from $1,100 we still have $700 left. Let’s cut that in half to allow for the fact that some of the IRS allowance also includes other auto costs, like insurance.

That leaves us with $350. That’s a rough estimate of the wear-and-tear costs on our own vehicle for a 2,000 mile trip. Even though we can save the roughly $200 car rental fee by driving out own car, the cost of using our own vehicle is at least $350. That’s what we’ll eventually pay for repairs and replacements by using our own car for a 2,000 mile trip.

By using this estimate – crude as it admittedly is – we’re actually saving $150 by renting a car instead of using our own. Saving money, in addition to having greater peace of mind, is something I’ll choose every time on a long trip.

Do you ever rent cars for long trips? Do you agree that you save money (and hassle) when you do?