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Car issues, who will screw me least?
azith28
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I have a 2002 Toyota Camry. a little over 55k miles on it.
So Saturday evening i was coming home from work when my Check engine light came on. The next day i went to autozone and got them to pull the error codes. P0446 ....EVAP System Vent Control Circuit. First thing i tried was replacing the gas cap, but as of This morning, its still lit. I'm aware that this could be anything from the sensors to the Catalyitic converter...and its potentially a rather expensive investigation and fix.
The good news is that my registration this year required an e-check, so if worse comes to worse, i could ignore the problem probably for at least another year as it skips 1 or 2 years usually between times it requires me to e-check again. Given the age of the car, its possible other problems will make replacing it a more cost-effective solution.
If however I do have to get this taken care of, I'd like opinions about various chain repair places if you have had work on this done before and if you felt you were screwed into paying more then you needed to for the work.
Thanks
Stercus, Stercus, Stercus, Morituri Sum
0
Posts
A breakdown:
Avoid national chains, they will fuck you over
Local mechanics, get a word of mouth from a friend or family, you run a huge risk
Dealerships, can be a bit expensive, but usually won't fuck with you because they want you to buy cars in the future
I never fuck around anymore, always the dealership, pay the 25% premium, not worth the hassle IMO.
If you know what is wrong, then the cheapest way to go about it is call around shops and ask them how much for that particular job and pick among them, but if you're wrong and it's still throwing engine codes then you'll still need someone else to diagnose and repair or just live with it.
Word of mouth is good. Ask your co-workers and friends who have 10+ year old cars that maybe aren't so clean and are dinged up. You could try Yelp, but I find Yelp pretty hit or miss.
A sign of a cheap mechanic would be dozens of janky 10-20 year old cars tightly parked together outside the garage and in the back, but he may just tell you to live with it for now and the day of e-testing to fill up with super, throw in some bottles of fuel additive, and have autozone clear the codes before the test.
It might be different in your state, but generally Registration stickers have nothing to do with the state of the car.
INSPECTION stickers on the other hand. Make sure you don't need both, cause then you can still be pulled over.
For future reference when you pull the code you have to clear it in order to get the light to go out. Otherwise it takes a while to reset on it's on. Generally for the orange light stuff you want to just clear the code after you've done whatever you're going to do. If it comes back on then get it checked out, if not then you're good to go.