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Car Owners Live to Regret Do-It-Yourself Repairs

NEW YORK (AP) — When the taillight of Laura Musall's five-year-old Nissan Altima burned out, she hoped to avoid the repair shop by letting her husband replace it at home. It seemed simple enough: Buy a bulb, pop off the cover and make the switch.

But her husband struggled to remove the plastic casing, and when he used a screwdriver to pry it off, it shattered. What came next was even worse. Her Nissan dealer wanted $250 to order a new one.

Musall, a real estate agent from Fishers, Ind., figured "10 bucks, we'd be done." "But apparently," she said, "it's not a do-it-yourself thing if you don't know what you're doing."

Car owners looking to trim expenses are sidestepping the mechanic and plunging into their own repairs. Or trying to, anyway. Their efforts can backfire, costing more in the end and creating do-it-yourself horror stories.
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Car Repair in 1928

It would appear that in 1928 doing maintenance was still a big factor in the life of your car, even in North Dakota. Paying attention to those maintenance reminders and making those appointments are very important. Not sure where we would find a 1 cent stamp.

Click to take a look at an auto repair mailer from 1928

Station Fined & Suspended, Inspector's License Revoked in "Clean Scan" Case

Attorney General Martha Coakley announced in April that her office had reached a settlement with a Dorchester motor vehicle inspection station and an inspector it once employed, resolving allegations that the defendants conducted illegal on-board diagnostic (OBD) emissions tests on more than 70 vehicles between 2006 and 2008.

Under the settlement, the station agreed to a total penalty of $144,000 — half of which will be suspended if the station operates within Massachusetts Vehicle Check rules over the next three years — and its inspection station license was suspended for six months. The inspector's license to test vehicles was permanently revoked. The complaint alleged that for each of the fraudulent emissions inspections, the defendants performed an OBD test not on the motor vehicle brought in for inspection, but instead on a second "clean" vehicle — one they knew would pass the test — and then used the results to issue a passing inspection sticker for the original vehicle.

According to the complaint, a motorist who wanted to avoid repairing a vehicle that had previously failed an OBD emissions test or had its "check engine" light on could arrange a fraudulent test and get a passing sticker by asking for "Joe the Fish," who the inspector later admitted was him.

By issuing passing stickers to vehicles that were not inspected, the station and inspector misled the public, including potential vehicle buyers, and gained an unfair competitive advantage over stations and inspectors that perform inspections legally.

This article courtesy of the March 2009 Inspection Update Newsletter