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Re-engineering a clutch assembly to replace the NLA OEM system on a ’97 Citroen Xantia Activa V6 in 2022 – and not being able to do it myself because the car was on the other side of the country.
It was probably the second time I had to replace (3) injectors in my F-Type. It was only surprising because I had just replaced the other (3) a few weeks prior.
I’m kidding, of course. No repair on this car is surprising.
Well, either the 2004 Pathfinder that has an impossible-to-find CEL for something vacuum related, or the former Daihatsu Rocky I had that lunched its head and was then un-possible to fix…both are or were far harder and spendier than they had a right to be to resolve. Because they are still not resolved.
One of my first cars was a ‘93 Lexus ES300 – the intake hose got a crack in it after the air sensor, so it started losing power intermittently. Turned out that intake hose was two hundred and fifty goddamn dollars for 8” of rubber tubing, which I can only assume was hand-molded by blind monks in a monastery on Mt. Fuji. The labor was about 30 seconds of work with a Philips head.
My current car is a BMW, so everything is absurdly expensive, but it at least drives like it warrants the repair bills, as opposed to the slightly fancy Toyota Camry.
Alternator belt broke on my 1994 Toyota Pickup (V6 4WD 5MT), bought the belt, only to realize that you have to remove all the other belts to get access to the alternator belt pully, and that said belts were the factory belts, so the timing belt likely hasn’t been replaced when it should have been, so I took the Truck to a local shop and had them replace every belt.
It wasn’t ridiculously expensive, but a lot more expensive than the cost of one alternator belt.
Water pump on my EcoDiesel. Not only is the part expensive (because diesel, I guess), it’s placed such that you have to remove some one-time-use fuel lines to get at it. At least when they did it they replaced the thermostat and all the adjacent coolant lines too to make sure I don’t have to do it again for a good long while.
Also the rusty exhaust hanger that cost me somewhere in the four figures to replace because it dropped the hot exhaust on an expensive part of the DEF system.
Had a ’98 Jeep Wrangler… Key word (had). That thing was like a crazy ex-girlfriend. Cost a lot of money, had a never ending list of things wrong with it, but when it worked right oh man did it work right… Open air, doors off, 75 degree day and that inline 6 purring was enough to make me forget every dollar I sunk into it.
Almost makes me want to go back to her and giver her another chance.
All of them in the last 2 years.
In 2002 I spent over a grand to replace the Nivomat, self-adjusting shocks on the hand-me-down-from-the-in-laws 1992 Volvo 960. I thought my mechanic was taking me for a ride when he quoted me the price but a call to several other garages confirmed that was the going rate. The trauma was real. I haven’t (seriously) considered a Volvo since then.
I have those on my CTS-V. Haven’t had to replace them ever though. Rockauto has them for $270 each. Yikes.
“Tell Us About The Car Repair That Was Way More Expensive Than You Expected”
Actually, I’m NOT gonna give you that. I’m gonna give you the opposite… My recent exhaust repair on my Honda Fit was way LESS than I expected.
I posted about it on Oppo:
https://opposite-lock.com/topic/97552/my-car-got-really-noisy-on-my-way-home-from-work-today-updated
Basically my Fit became unbearably sound as the pipe coming out of my catalytic converter completely detached from the rest of the exhaust. AAAND I saw there was an issue with the other end where the catalytic converter was attached.
I was expecting it to potentially be a CAD$500-$700 repair.
In reality it was CAD$379.
If you’re in the west end of the Toronto Area and need exhaust work done or want a custom exhaust, I strongly recommend JPG Exhaust:
https://www.jpgexhaust.com/
Anyone know why I can’t see this post even though I’m a member? Finally signed up last week
If Matt doesn’t see this, send him an email. I think he can fix things like this.
2004 Mazdaspeed Miata. This one was by choice for the most part. I broke a connecting rod and initially thought no big deal, I will just drop another stock one in or do a quick and dirty rebuild using one of my other engines. So that plan didn’t last long and I ended up doing a full built bottom end, refreshed head with new seals, stiffer springs, and new valves, a bigger turbo, a fully ethanol compatible PTFE fuel system, and chassis stiffening amongst a lot of supporting parts. So far I am ~$6k USD into what could have been <$2k.
Most I’ve ever paid was a brake job for my old Econoline.
I think it was front rotors, pads, plus upper and lower ball joints, for $1200. Just hurt extra because that thing more or less ate through its brakes on a regular basis. I’d say “I hope my next conversion van has 4-wheel disc brakes” to spread the braking load a bit, but I think it’s gonna be a while before I see any running used Transit conversions for cheap enough. (When did the Chevy Express get 4-wheel disc brakes?)
Separately, this wasn’t a repair I needed to get done but was something I wanted to get done but ended up skipping on–the van’s driver and front passenger seats’ seat belts retracted very slowly when released, to the point that they’d block the doors from closing if you didn’t manually pull the “back” sides down. Got a quote for $250 each to replace the pretensioners. Which I begrudgingly understand since (I believe) that contains the explosive…decided to continue dealing with the issue rather than replace them.
Transfer case shift motor on my 2nd gen Tundra. On most American trucks the shift motor can be removed and replaced from the outside. On the tundra the internal shift rails are integral to the shift motor, and the entire case needs to be removed, split and disassembled to replace the shift motor. I spent $1800 inclusive of the cash discount to get that fixed.
It would be sub-$500 on an F150 or silverado 1500
I never want to hear anything about old Ferrari running costs from any of you rubes ever again.