Never too old to learn!

I re-learned that old lesson once again! It came about when my wife, daughter, son-in-law and I enjoyed an outing in our beautiful desert. We drove our old Jeep Cherokee to a spot along the Rio Grande and found ourselves on very soft, loose, dry sand. As always, my wife shifted into four-wheel-drive and easily moved out of the sand onto firm soil.

When she shifted back to two-wheel drive, the "sound" from the transfer case did not change. The 4WD did not disengage. We drove the 30-odd miles to home, and smoke began to boil from the bottom of the vehicle.

The lesson I learned?

We have all been taught the importance of regularly lubricating our cars, on a specific schedule. This has spawned an industry... "The Fast & Easy Lube & Oil Change Joints". Competition has led them to ever lower prices.

I recently took another car to a Pep Boys outlet in response to an advertised low price of something like a $19.95 lube, oil and filter special. I agreed to an extra $5 for high mileage oil for my high mileage vehicle. I think $24.95 was to be the total price. When I picked up my car, the tab was $37.95, plus tax, about double the $19.95 that drew me in. I objected and was shown that my receipt contained a certificate for a $13 rebate! Wow! All I had to do was package up all the "proof of purchase" information and mail it to a distant address, wait six weeks or so, and I would get the $13 rebate by mail.

Understand, the purpose of a rebate is two-fold. First, a given percent of customers will lose their proof-of-purchase material, or procrastinate past the deadline to apply. At best, the seller will get to use your money for a few weeks. The rebate deal was not revealed up front or I would have walked. Only when I objected to the price did they explain the rebate. Had it not been for this, I doubt I would have examined the receipt to learn of the rebate. If Pep Boys ripped me on price, what other corners may they have cut?

The cut rate instant lube joints cut every possible cost. We may believe that they actually do lubricate every grease fitting... but we can never know how many, if any, they skip.

They do drain your oil, replace the oil filter and refill the crankcase. Do they use the full amount of oil necessary? Better check your oil to find out. Do they check any other fluids? Maybe. Maybe not. Did you verify? Probably not. Did they replace those fluids with quality brands?

Now, the lesson learned. I took the smoking Jeep to a full service garage, run by honest people. You can imagine I was faced with a huge cost to rebuild the transfer case. But, no... the only problem? The transfer case had not been checked for a long, long time and had completely dried up. They just re-filled the thing with the correct transmission fluid and it worked perfectly again. They asked me to drive it for a short time, then bring it back so they could check for leaks.

Okay! Here is my advice! The cheapest thing you can do for a car is to keep it properly lubed on the manufacturer's schedule. That is savings enough. Don't look for a quick and cheap lube job. Find a good, honest operator of a full-service garage. Ask them to specify that they check all fluids, and lube everything properly. When you pick up your car, you may ask some questions, like, "How was the water level in the battery?" "Was the transmission fluid low?".

Don't worry about the price. Whatever they charge will be less than a new transmission.