No More Wire Hangers!

Humor me for a second, I'm having a hard time believing this myself. That's why I'm putting it here...because everyone knows if it's on the Internet it has to be true.

My car had a little checkup the other day. "While you've got it, can you take a look at the rear seat latch...the key won't release the seat, I think the wire pole is missing"

Now for all I know, it's hiding in the car; I'm not exactly sure how it would have jumped out. But it's a bent pole...I figure if they've got another one lying around...yeah right. And what I said was, "if it's $25 forget it, I'll use a bike spoke"

It was $190. Excuse me, did you say, ONE HUNDRED NINETY? DOLLARS? For a wire hanger?? A BENT wire hanger?? Are you serious?? Mommie Dearest.

No thanks. And the faulty valve on my tire....can you just go ahead and put on the spare; I'll take it somewhere else. They did. They even changed the plastic nut cover...shoot, I should have checked to see how much that cost.

So tonight I tackled the trunk Mcgyver style. I considered it a challenge. Cuz I was determined to fix the seat FOR FREE. And with a shop full of gadgets I jumped on it.

I couldn't quite see how the plastic piece held the pole in place. Against my better judgment I yanked the good one free. Bet you're expecting to hear about how I broke it. Sure didn't. And I noticed that a spoke might actually be long enough. Hot damn!

But do I have a spoke? I might. I start digging. I found a brake cable. But since the mechanics were in my car, the trunk was discombobulated. So I had to dig...around the spare tire...did I mention how it got there?

Guess what I found there on top of the spare tire, that the mechanics replaced? NO! It wasn't a WIRE HANGER, Joan. It was the $190 missing piece. Or was that the cost of labor?

Because I wonder if I had said, yeah, go ahead and replace the part...well, you know what part they would have used and it still would have cost $190.

But it was tricky, you had to hold it in place and pull it against the plastic holder. It took 2.5 seconds to install both sides. That's $76 a second, in case you were wondering.