Car Repairs

Well, ever since we moved to CA, Trek has become quite the car mechanic. He said he wanted to save us money & learn something in return so mechanics was a perfect option. I'm SO happy he is enjoying it (& that my van is in good shape now thanks to him!)

We knew our brakes & rotors were bad, but when all the car places were quoting upwards of $700 to get it fixed, I about died! It's not that we couldn't afford it, it's more of I HATE TO AFFORD IT!! There are SO many other things I could buy with $700!

So Trek got right to it. He bought brakes & rotors at his new favorite store "KRAGEN!" He got it all for under $200! How awesome is that? He saved us $500 right there! He got a manual for our van, read it, & got to work.

The brakes were easy. Once you get the wheel off they are simple to change. Once we got the old brake pads off & compared them to the new ones, we knew we would have been in trouble if we had driven much longer on them. Can you tell a difference?

The rotors on the other hand were a pain beyond belief. Changing rotors is supposed to be as simple as pulling the old one off & pushing the new one on. . . but not after you move from Germany where all the salt has rusted your rotor TO YOUR VAN! The rotors were screwed onto the metal part (there's Honda's 1st mistake) & then those screws as well as the rotor itself was rusted to the van. It was NOT going ANYWHERE! Trek spent 2 full days trying to get the rotors off! We have mechanic friends here who even lent us an air compressor as well as a ton of high pressure mechanic's tools. NOTHING was taking these things off. Trek ended up drilling the screw heads off entirely & then we pounded, kicked, & did everything else known to man to get those things off. They finally DID come off thank heavens! It was nice to see shiny clean rotors on my van instead of the nasty old ones.

Thank you Trek for a fabulous job that saved us a TON of money! I love you!