Little Things and Big Things

Little Things and Big Things was Originally Posted on April 11, 2015 by lavarock

Oftentimes there are both little things or big things that we pay someone else to do. Many times we can do these ourselves.

So case in point. I worked at a restaurant where I was a dishwasher. One day we had a massive number of buses come in at one time (70 or so). Normally we might have 10 but this was so many that we opened the employee bathrooms and at one point, when the women’s line got so long, we stopped entrance to the men’s room, cleaned it quickly and started letting women in.

Speaking of cleaning, when I worked front desk at a condo, sometimes I went behind the cleaning crew and inspected. Other times I might be called upon to actually go into a unit and clean after a family had been in there a week. This involved, vacuuming, cleaning blinds, mopping floors and the lanai (porch), stripping and making beds, cleaning out the refrigerator, microwave and stove top/oven. Then scrubbing the bathroom and taking out all trash. Remember that my job was to greet visitors and check them into rooms, but when called upon, you do what you have to.

So I bought my truck and it needed front end work. I watched videos on the repair so I would be ready should the neighbor who was going to do the job needed help.

Here is an estimate of what it would have cost:

Ok, labor time to replace the rack and pinion is 3.6 hours, which at avg labor rates of around $100 per hour will be about $360.

A rack and pinion for yours cost $891 for new from Toyota. A re-manufactured aftermarket rack and pinion runs $560.

So, for new part, about $1251 plus tax

For a re-manufactured unit, about $920 plus tax

So it took us 4 hours at $60 an hour for labor (he didn’t charge me extra because I ‘helped’) and the re-manufactured part was $390. So I think we did pretty good. 

We also discovered that a wire from the oil pressure sensor had been cut by the serpentine belt.  I patched it today with my trusty soldering iron.