VISTAs looking for good deals

Having been a VISTA for the past 9 months has really helped me hone in on finding and evaluating good deals.  I think it's time I share these with the rest of the world! B/C how annoying is it, when you look at yelp reviews, but have to take everything with a grain of salt, because there are no prices anywhere! Yes, the service may have been great, but did you also pay 3x the amount it's supposed to cost?

This grief, as you may be able to tell, comes from personal experience. Now that it's been over a month since I had to get my car fixed, I think I am ready to share the experience and what I learned.

It all started when I decided to get an oil change for my car - for the first time in Marin County. I have gotten oil changes before and it's been a quick and easy experience and about $20 max (I've found places that did it for $15 in Orange County, but that was a while ago). Anyways, I had no such luck in Marin County. After extensive research on yelp and the internet in general, I went to Wheel Works for $30. Now yelp did warn me, with many negative rumors about their service, but it all had to with the wheels not oil changes. So I went for it anyways, mainly b/c it was cheap!

Well, not only did they give me a list of things that were wrong with the car, but they told me that when they did the tire rotation something got stuck and they had to remove one of the studs or I would have to get the car towed!

So my only plausible option was to have them remove one of the studs. Now, he said that it would be ok to drive like this for a little bit, and for short distances, but at some point, I would need to get it fixed. They were even so nice as to give me a printed estimate of how much it would cost...over $300!!!

I said thanks and left. A day after the oil change, I had the check engine light go on as well. FML

Before I went in there, my car was working fine - now I have numerous things very seriously wrong with it!
and $300 to just to fix one of them!!

I was done with this place that was for sure! There was no way I wanted to go back there- I may not know who was at fault for the stud breaking, but I wasn't feeling generous towards them either way.

Now, this is the point at which my research and perseverance really came in. First of all I called my dad! He didn't fully understand my story, because I didn't fully understand what the mechanic was saying (the mechanic actually changed his story half way though, which didn't help), but he did some research on what needed to be done next.

Turns out, that with a stud missing there are two main scenarios and two main price categories. If it's a certain type of car, it's really easy to replace the stud, and if it's another type car, it's more difficult.

Well to install a stud for my car I found out it's actually easy... if you take it to a wheel specialist. I found a place on Mills and Hoag, in the Canal District. Just two guys working on breaks and wheels. It cost me $60 total for the bearing and the labor to install it.

I couldn't believe it! Wheel works (you'd think they would be a specialist in wheels, but apparently not) wanted to take out the whole wheel/bearing and make things super complicated when all we needed was to install one stud (takes half an hour).

I just felt so abused and taken advantage of. But in the long run, I think I learned a lot from this experience, and I will make sure to take my time researching before hand. You should too!