That Feeling When...
That feeling when routine maintenance costs ten percent of your car's value, and you suspect the mechanic is going easy on a high-mileage beater. Plus a Saturday of orchestrated chores, including the six-year-old who hoped to dodge it all (she did not).
...you spend 10% of your car's value on a single instance of routine maintenance using an affordable mechanic. On the upside, our car apparently doesn't want its oil changed more than once every ~10k miles, so that's pretty sweet. On the other hand, it's like a fifty mile round trip whenever we go anywhere. That ten thousand miles goes by fast.
I got the feeling that the mechanic was holding back on recommended maintenance since our old-model, high-mileage vehicle isn't exactly something you would want to throw a lot of money at. But I pressed, and it turned out there were some maintenance items worth looking into. It wouldn't be worthwhile to replace the transmission or rebuild the engine, but regular maintenance to keep the car running well in other respects is 100% money well spent. And a good policy in general.
