Gimme a Brake!

In efforts to save myself some buck$, I had my boss/friend Ryan do my brakes last night. I sort of half-asked if he knew anyone who could help me out, and as a matter of fact, he could. From that point on, I sort of didn't want to bug him about it, but a couple of days later, he asked when we were going to do them, so I figured he was wanting to do it - not offering out of kindness.

What he thought would take only a couple of hours ended up taking closer to five. Just what everyone wants to do on a Monday night. The objective of the evening was to get my rotors turned and install new brake pads. Easy enough. Well, since Mable is in her golden years, some of her nuts and bolts are a little hard to jimmy loose. I bet Ryan literally spent 30 some minutes trying to get one of those suckers off. He attached a long metal pole to his wrench to get some leverage, and the wrench snapped and broke. Craftsman!

Just before giving up and calling it a night, he managed to get that thing loose. Blah, blah, blah....we got the rotors turned at Pep Boys, saw the loser service supervisor turn down replacing a granny's battery ("sorry, my car needs a battery, too. that's how busy we are" he says. boo.), went to Bill's Burgers for some burgers, blah blah and everything turned out fine.

There was more than a few times where I wished I had just gone to the mechanic, but after spending only $55 to have some good as new brakes, it was worth it. Best part is, it sounds like we're going to replace the front calipers next, then tackle the rears. I consider myself lucky. I'm going to save close to $1,000 when all is said and done.

Somehow I didn't think I needed a change of clothes after work; somehow I managed to help out and not get one smudge on my khakis. High five!