I have been on a streak of bad luck this year. And it hasn’t stopped.
Last night after picking up Grace’s friend (who is a flight attendant stopping over SFO for two days) from her airport hotel, I started to notice the car rattling violently (relatively speaking) as the “check engine” light came on. I said to myself, “GOD! WHAT NOW!“.
Annoyed with fear for bad news, I drove the car to the Precision Tune AutoCare shop I normally go for oil change. But of course, it’s the day before Christmas, it’s closed. Luckily I had one of their coupons and found another one on El Camino (run by an Indian who hired an all-Indian mechanics staff).
After almost two hours of computer diagnostics and testing on the car, they determined it was a “code 51” — fuel injector gone bad. I paid $70 (would have been $90 without the coupon) to find out that I have to pay more to fix it. Later another customer, who was waiting for his oil change, told me that I should’ve brought my car to AAMCO where they do engine diagnostics for, get this, FREE. BASTARDS! The same guy also told me that Jiffy Lube always tops off all of your other fluids when you get your oil and filter changed there. Precision Tune charges for that! ARGH!
Back to the fuel injector… The Indian owner told me it’d take about six hours (a.k.a. whole day) to change the injector. And the break down of the cost is:
Fuel injector: $126.95 (that’s only ONE out of the six cylinders)
Labor: $450 (estimate only)
He also said that Infiniti recommends replacing all 6 injectors, which brings the total up to roughly $1,200 – $1,400!!! ARGH! But he did say most people only replace the malfunctioning one to save some money.
Chinese has a saying: “It will rain for days just when you have a cracked ceiling.” This is certainly true for me this year.
I called AAMCO when I got home. And sure enough, FREE engine diagnostics. A 70-dollar-lesson for me today.
I am taking my poor car in on Wednesday and getting a second opinion on the cost and the repair. Hopefully they won’t find other problems when they open up the engine. Both the Indian owner at Precision Tune and “Rick” at AAMCO told me that fuel injector seems to be a common cause of engine problems on Nissan cars (which Infiniti technically is). The Indian guy went further to state that his shop has never changed a single injector on any Ford, Toyota or Honda cars, but plenty on Nissans and Infinitis.
Guess why Toyota and Honda are among the best selling cars in the world…. ?
This experience reminds me why I became obsessed with certain things, namely computers — it costs for not knowing.
🙁