westend wrote:
In my situation, I've given up taking anything to be repaired by a dealership (except mounting tires).
I've given up on that too. The last time I had tires changed by the tire shop, I ended up with a tire that vibrated so badly that it nearly took the whole vehicle off of the road. Turns out excessive amounts of lube and water was left inside of the tire caused the problem. You would think that having to add all of those weights to the wheels would be a clue that there's a bigger problem. I bought a cheap manual tire changer and have mounted / balanced my own tires since.
Like Huntindog says, one of the pluses about getting stuff done yourself is that the wife doesn't question tool purchases lol. She's to the point now where she encourages me to buy the better quality stuff and even surprises me with tools that I'm always saying that I wish I had.