Frugal Babe

A rich life without a lot of money

  • Home
  • About me

Keeping My Car Happy

May 20, 2007 By Frugal Babe

My trusty Honda Civic has 211,000 miles on it, and I decided it was time she got a tune up.   My dad loves to work on cars, and I was asking him questions about it when he offered to help me with the project.   Sweet!   Last weekend, I went to my parents’ house (they live just over an hour from us) and we spent the whole day working on my car.   I was able to do a lot of the work with my father offering guidance, although he did some of the more complicated stuff with me just watching (and hopefully absorbing details).   I spent $83 at the car parts store and $12 at a junkyard for back door struts from a car just like mine (incidentally, that car had 269K miles on it when it went to the junkyard, so I still have a lot of driving to do on mine!).   For the $95 I spent, plus several hours work, I got:

  • new distributor cap
  • new distributor rotor
  • new spark plugs
  • new spark plug wires
  • serviced the battery and terminals
  • filled all fluids
  • back door that stays up without a broom handle wedged into it
  • 35 miles/gallon! (I had been getting about 26)

The last time I went in for an oil change – I know, I should be doing it myself, but I had a coupon which made it really cheap, about $14 – they printed a list of all the things they recommended I do on my car.   The total estimate came to about 2 grand, which is funny, cause I only paid $2300 for the car 4 years ago.   Anyway, they mentioned the distributor cap and rotor, and they wanted $60 for just those two things.   They wanted $25 to service the battery, which took us about 15 minutes to do.

Spark plug wires for my car are pricey – about $50.   So I got all the other parts, including the perfect back door struts, for $45.   When I compared everything with what was on the list from the repair shop, I think I saved about $200 on the stuff we did, not counting whatever the door struts would have cost to buy new.   We still have other work to do later on, but it’s a bit more complicated and doesn’t have to be done right away.   The stuff we did was pretty simple, didn’t involve taking lots of parts out of the engine, and the new parts were very inexpensive.   It’s amazing what a difference it made in my gas mileage, and I have renewed confidence in my car (and myself – if I can do this stuff, anybody can!).

Filed Under: our frugal stories, Our stuff 2 Comments

Comments

  1. tanyetta says

    May 20, 2007 at 8:50 pm

    my 96 toyota needs a tuneup come to think of it :)

    Reply
  2. Kim says

    May 21, 2007 at 1:58 am

    I so hope my car lasts that long!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Great eBooks:

Recent Comments

  • Chris on Still Here, Still Frugal!
  • Cassie on Still Here, Still Frugal!
  • James High on $20 Window Well Makeover
  • Kay on Still Here, Still Frugal!
  • BigMama on Still Here, Still Frugal!
Shop for Fashion Dresses on DHgate

Organifi coupon

Recent Posts

  • Still Here, Still Frugal!
  • Goodbye, mortgage!
  • Achieving our goals, thanks to long-term frugality
  • Still here!
  • An update from our frugal corner of the world

Blogroll

  • Brave New Life
  • Budgets Are Sexy
  • Early Retirement Extreme
  • Green Baby Guide
  • Kristen’s Raw
  • Mr. Money Mustache
  • Nature Moms Blog
  • No Impact Man
  • Penniless Parenting
  • Personal Budgeting
  • Pleasantly Poor
  • Sense To Save
  • Simple Mom
  • Stop Buying Crap
  • Surveybag
  • The Good Human
  • The Thrifty Chicks
  • Tight Fisted Miser
  • Ultimate Money Blog


  • See Store Coupons
    • All Coupons
    • Amazon Coupons
    • Apple Coupons
    • Best Buy Coupons
    • Buy.com Coupons
    • Dell Coupons
    • HP Coupons
    • Newegg Coupons
    • Office Depot Coupons
    • Staples Coupons
    • TigerDirect Coupons
  • See Category Deals
    • All Deals
    • Laptop Deals
    • Netbook Deals
    • Cell Phone Deals
    • TV Deals
    • GPS Deals
    • Camera Deals
    • iPod Deals
    • Tablet Deals
    • eReader Deals
    • iPhone Deals
2b6bab8e374c855da7bfa46c21b51c6e-332