The Buck Stops Here

Thursday I got a chance to accomplish something that I had never even attempted before. I changed the brakes and rotors on my 1999 Pontiac Montana. I am sick of making mechanics wealthy by paying them to do things that I can do myself with a little extra effort and some reading. I taught myself to change my own oil two years ago for a savings of $480 over that span of time. I can change the oil for about $11 per vehicle, and I love doing it.


I had certain family members worried about my ability to do this. They were probably reminiscing to my days as a Toys R Us employee when I would build bikes and have a couple of handfuls of "extra parts" to give the customer when I was done assembling their bikes. This resulted in my "promotion" to truck unloader and I was told to take the laissez faire approach to bike assembling. All of that aside, I was able to finish the brakes once my new friend DW showed up with a breaker bar. DW is a mechanic at the local Buick dealership in town and he does not mess around. Once he showed up, we were done in 45 minutes.


I am going to learn how to do most of the repairs on both of my vehicles so I can save money. Net savings on the brake and rotor job: $70.