The title is a portuguese saying, that translates to half of the world is fooling the other half. And lately, felt it in one of the usual suspects of said fooling... such that I decided to rant a little bit and escape my usual wildlife and travel posts! 😁
I have a 13 year old car and a few weeks ago, a small plastic cap of the gear shift fell off.
Quick solution, a little bit of tape, and since the car was due to the annual revision soon I naively thougt this would be an easy fix together with whatever else the car would need.
So, mechanic booked, the day comes... and the fooling begins. A visit to an anual check up transforms in an estimate almost bigger than the car's current value. After a lot of question on the why's and how's, I'm offered the possibility of not doing some of the "not so essential" stuff... such as the 170€ to fix the gear knob.
So... 170€ for a plastic piece? Yep, said the vendor.
Mind you, I've used this mechanic for ages, and always had a good experience until this time. I won't dwelve on all the shitshow, but this specific piece is a clear example of probably everything else they tried to quote.
Car returned, and me thinking... how hard can it be to repair this myself? Nowadays, with so much information online, DIY is easier than ever.
And so it was. A youtube video, a 11€ new know from Amazon...
And a fix that took around 2 minutes...
11€ and 2 minutes work for someone doing this for the first time so... either the manufacter cost/hour is around 5k euros, or I was getting ripped off big time.
I'm perfectly ok with paying a just cost for work, and even paying a premium by using the car's brand mechanic shop; not that on with robbery.
Got to see it on the bright side: learned a new skill, and saved 170 euros. But maybe our portuguese saying isn't that far off from the truth? 😉
