About two weeks ago I brought my car to get Spee-Dee to check it out and see why I was losing power and couldn't get up to speed on the highways. I am a law student and was busy with a paper at that time and couldn't do it myself.
I had previously taken it to Advance Auto when my check engine light came on. (In case you didn't know, AA will hook the computer up and figure out the Check Engine light problem for FREE). I knew that I had a cylinder misfiring so I took it there for them to see what was exactly wrong.
The next day they called me to let me know that it would cost me SIX HUNDRED AND SIX DOLLARS to fix the problem. (This included two new coil packs @ 120/each, 6 new double platinum spark plugs, and labor). When I heard that price for that amount, alarm bells went off. Although I am a student and don't look like a grungy grease monkey, I'm not an idiot when it comes to cars. I told them not to work on it and got it towed out of there. (This was after they tried to charge me $120 for just ""checking it out""- $45 of that was the computer hook-up charge...Thanks for identifying the problem I already figured out at Advance Auto for Free...)
Ultimately, I decided to tackle the problem myself. After firing up my car, I took all of the screws out, holding the coil packs in and pulled each out, one at a time to see which ""two"" coil packs were bad (at least that's what they told me.) ALL SIX COIL PACKS WORK COMPLETELY FINE. I went to Advance Auto, bought six spark plugs for TWENTY DOLLARS (Spee Dee was going to charge $7/per plug). I just put those in, plugged the SAME COIL PACKS back in and it is running like a BEAST again!!!!
Yeah. SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS, my foot. I spent one hour and TWENTY bucks and fixed it.
ALL CAR OWNERS BEWARE. Especially if you may not be well versed with the mechanics of your car.
Saved FIVE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FIVE DOLLARS. DO IT YOURSELF.... Stay away from this place. They sure are Spee-Dee, but thats just cause they're quick in trying to separate you from your money.
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