Posts tagged car

Well, my car broke. I’m in Champaign, IL visiting friends and it just died on the road while I was driving around in town. $60 towing, $750 to fix a timing belt. Makes me wish I were back in the Philippines with it.. the parts themselves are hardly even a factor in that cost, it’s mostly just labor. In the Philippines I would probably spend less on the labor than I would on the parts - here in the US, I’ll spend 5-20x the cost of the parts on the labor.

Also makes me think, why do we build vehicles in this country with parts that commonly break where the cost of repair would be anywhere near 5-10% of the cost of the entire vehicle?

Anyway. It’s made me think about the near future - next few months to next year or so. Thinking about buying a newer vehicle if I’m planning to drive several thousand miles of highway. I got lucky here and was in town with friends. Would hate for this to happen on the way through the desert.