Celestial & Mazdaic Adventures

The months of March and April gave me a great deal of things to work on my cars.  The flat headed screw above, with washer, had embedded into my left front tire on my Mazda.  The washer made a nice "seal" so that no air leaked out, and the tire had less than 10,000 miles on it with a great deal of tread remaining.  Pep Boys in Aliso Viejo took 3 hours to get it on a lift, then once on the lift, they did a THOROUGH inspection.  All four tires, tread depth.  Brakes, CV joint boot cracking, oil leaks (finding none, because I maintain my vehicle fastidiously).  They repaired the flat - gave me the damaging screw and washer - and did not charge me for the 20 minutes the vehicle spent on their lift.  Nice.  I will use them for tires again in the future.

Then I took Celeste to Niguel Motors where Ramon fixed her rear brakes (as mentioned last month), repaired the electronic roof switch (that opens and closes the roof, and had fallen into the center counsel) For Free, so I took her there for an oil change.  I supplied the full synthetic Castrol 20W50, and Ramon charged me $20 for the oil change AND tire rotation.  I told him he will go out of business (since the filter was at least $8 and it took him 30 minutes to change the oil & rotate the tires), and tipped 2X him more than he billed me.

While changing the tires, he and his head mechanic kept switching off using 18mm and 19mm sockets. I was confused.  Why?  Well, the "nut caps" above, which Volvo, Audi, and several other European manufacturers use Fall Off after repeated uses.   With a cap, 19mm hex.  Without a cap, 18mm hex.  They serve no structural, corrosive protecting, or useful purpose other than being cosmetic.  Useless.  So I have 2 tires with homogeneous cosmetic capped tires, and 2 tires with a mixed bag of 18 and 19 mm hex nuts and caps.  Fun.

Ramon at Niguel Motors and Aliso Viejo Pep Boys have proven themselves to be reliable, quality, dependable service providers, and I will use them in the future to safe me time & money.