An oil change never ends up being just an oil change, have you noticed that? Sometimes the add on expense is a new filter, you grumble a bit, but get over it quickly. Other times the unexpected expense brings your total cost to $1698.42 and you want to cry a little. Or eat cake. I really wanted to eat cake, sigh.
Turns out my front brakes were at 5% and my rear brakes were at 20%. Not good! The mechanic was surprised because the test run he did with my suv had no squealy brake noises, no indicators anything was wrong with them. Poor little suv was chugging along like everything was fine when in reality she was hurting…I’m sure there is a metaphor in there somewhere but I’m too focused on the new balance of my Visa statement to figure it out.
In the end the front brake pads and rotors were replaced, as were the rear brake pads and rotors, the front brake hoses were replaced because they had holes in them, they performed a brake fluid flush, and oh yeah, the actual oil change.
Here I had been so cocky that I had $126 saved up, enough to get the oil change and pay for whatever little thing they would say also needed replacing, all paid for without having to pull out the credit card. As it turns out, that $126 won’t even make a dent in the bill and Friday, which is sit down and budget day, is going to be a day of math magic while I figure out how to deal with this unexpected expense.
I’m trying to focus on the bright side of things, and the list I have is as follows:
I was told that if I had kept driving my front brakes would have been grinding metal on metal within two weeks, so yay that I avoided that!
This was all an unexpected find, I went it there thinking nothing was wrong with my suv, so thank goodness I went in and this was found before something worse happened.
The shop I go to is run by an amazing guy who knows I work Sundays through Thursdays, he stayed late to get everything fixed so I could pick it up and have it for when I work on Sunday, saving me the expense of a rental vehicle.
I’m lucky enough to be able to take on the debt of this bill and still be able to pay rent and buy groceries.
So yeah, in the end does it suck all of a sudden having this huge bill to pay? Yeah, of course it does. But it would be a hell of a lot worse to have had the brakes fail and be in an accident, or do that metal on metal grinding thing, or have a less competent mechanic who didn’t notice something didn’t look quite right and dig a little deeper to discover how bad of shape my brakes were in.
Every time I get pouty about my new Visa balance I’m going to do my best to remind myself of all those positives, and maybe, just maybe, get myself a slice of chocolate cake because hey, I’m human, and sometimes cake helps make things a little bit better. 😉
The Amazing Shrinking Woman 
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