Thread: What did you do to your car today? Vol 2.0

It's 10 bucks to dismount and mount a tire, then another 5-10 to balance it at my work.

You should see the cost of wheel weights now a days too, stuff isnt cheap anymore. Even through the vendors we use it's alot of money, some boxes are anywhere from $5-15 a box depending on size of the weight and you only get 25 in a box. So on some cars you may use 1/4 of that box on a set of 4. Figure most BIG chain shops only make 5-10% off the tire sale if that, we end up selling most for $5-10 over our cost, so we have to make something back off of wheel weight charges and disposal of the old tires. We may charge you 3-4 bucks a tires but it costs us $1-1.50 per tire to have a company come out and take them away.

Put dual aeroforce interceptors in the cobalt today.

Originally Posted by Fivefingerdeathpunch

Figure most BIG chain shops only make 5-10% off the tire sale if that,

What? I wholesale tires. The spread from mfg to me is huge, and the spread from me to the tire shop is pretty dam good too. Way more than 5-10%.

We may charge you 3-4 bucks a tires but it costs us $1-1.50 per tire to have a company come out and take them away.

Our government charge a "tire levy" of $5 per tire. You can leave your old rubber where you bought it, or take them to any registered tire shop and drop them off for them to recycle.

Originally Posted by Russosaur

Its a brisk 70 here with assloads of humidity.

Kill me

Wah go work in the mill all night shoveling scale and come talk to me

Was looking to see if i could see what was making grinding noise when going left on highway on my 07 project base car.

Put my hand under the axle by where it goes into tranny, and got a handful of grease. Had to grind three parts of hub off, where the bolts go in because stupid owner before me stripped the 3 13mm bolts holding the hub on.

Got axle on, when taking tie rod off the knuckle, i noticed the tie rod rubber part was all ripped up, so went and got those, put them on for both sides, put the axle in, and got the hub on. I now need a new backing plate, and three 13mm bolts, 40$ from dealership.

Standstill now, wait until parts come in on thursday and get them and put it all back together and see if the grinding noise is gone.

It should, as long as you replaced the right side hub.

Originally Posted by 02NavyBlue

It should, as long as you replaced the right side hub.

I have replaced all 4 hubs. They were 120$ special at am auto parts so i pulled the trigger, when trying to do the 4th and final one(front driver), I noticed all 3 13mm bolts were stripped, left it because it made the noise when going to the left, so i thought it was the right side bearing. I replaced those, and the rear driver. Put brake pads and rotors on it, took it for a drive and it still made the same noise.

Parked it for a week, decided to look at it today, and found the bad axle, so now just waiting for the 3 bolts to put it back together and take it for a drive. Im crossing my fingers, it said the car hit a "embankment" about a year ago, a month later was in auction with 5000$ in estimated damage, but the body is completly fine, a couple little scratches but nothing bad.

Hoping the wheel bearings, tie rods, and driver axle will be it with this car.

New caliper bolts ordered 16 bucks for some dormans that should be here by Monday because wouldn't ya know it? 0 places near me carry them in store.

Originally Posted by Russosaur

New caliper bolts ordered 16 bucks for some dormans that should be here by Monday because wouldn't ya know it? 0 places near me carry them in store.

Ace hardware does find some grade 8 bolts

Originally Posted by 91parkave

Ace hardware does find some grade 8 bolts

I couldnt find the right one at ace for my wheel bearing bolt

Originally Posted by Bronco Boy

What? I wholesale tires. The spread from mfg to me is huge, and the spread from me to the tire shop is pretty dam good too. Way more than 5-10%.


Our government charge a "tire levy" of $5 per tire. You can leave your old rubber where you bought it, or take them to any registered tire shop and drop them off for them to recycle.

You are from canada though, it might be different there.

I can't say exactly what the spread is from the mfg to "someone like you" or the pomps/tci tire center/us auto people (those are our main guys we buy from) to the tire shop like is but I just know that we have to compete too much to make any real money off tire sales.

We have NTB, discount tire, a chevy dealership and us. We also are a private owned business that uses a corporate stores name so we have to follow what they sells the main market tires for. Just figure a tire costs us $89 to get and we are only able to sell it for 99-105 each because we have to compete with the other stores and match the online corporate stores price.

I still bet that the mfg makes 10-20% when they sell the tires and the middle man makes 10-15% on some select tire brands when they sell them to a business like us.

We have to hope for profit from weights, labor, tire disposal and alignments or other service work when cars come in. There just isnt any money in straight tires sales for a "repair" shop like us anymore. Discount tire can make an ass load on money because they an sell certain tires that we can't buy and they sell way more wheel packages and make lots of money off that stuff.

MnB runs $12-15 in my area generally.

Access on those those hub bolts is just silly. I keep a specially mistreated 1/2" short socket for them, a Taiwan one cuz its nice and soft. Beat-to-fit lol but wobble extension is perfect for the angle.

Russowhoreous Max, dang buddy. Man I bet that thing DID make a racket. You're still doing better than me, by your age I had run over a couple toolboxes doh. Just pucky them weights back with tape. Heaven forbid anything should disturb that nice alignment that took an act of Congress to accomplish! Sux they don't have bolts at the BFE general store but living in a big town is a load of crap too, just a different set o problems. The face gun made me chuckle although tasteless to do so. I know of a guy tried to off his self with 12 GA in mouth but failed and rots in prison for it with half a head. Thats a thinker. Nam vet I knew managed with a .25ACP. How many does that one in your pic hold ha ha. Heard of one guy drilled eight holes in his head before he croaked, now thats a winner!

I asked painter what he done over the weekend, said he talked a buddy down from that. He had called to bid farewell. I asked how he done it and he said he reminded him that some folks don't have what that guy has- a family. So even in life its just different sets of problems to pick from and no workarounds. Embrace your car troubles.

My buddy that mounts my tires doesn't even sell tires for the reasons you outlined. He tells people to go buy what they want from Discount Tire, or wherever they can get them the cheapest and bring them to him and he will mount and balance for $40.

got the gxp back yesterday, somehow I think the converter cracking was a good thing. its weird trans temps are down a bit and no funny business going on now.

I filled it up again.

Think I may have finally fixed my fuel pressure dropping, car off, hard start issue. The stock hose fits pretty loose on the Aeromotive outlet. Got good clamps and taped it. Left the gauge on overnight and I still had pressure this morning! If this doesn't work I'm replacing the supply line from rails and connecting straight to the pump.

Originally Posted by BillBoost37

I filled it up again.

How many miles have you put on her?

Originally Posted by Fivefingerdeathpunch

You are from canada though, it might be different there.

I can't say exactly what the spread is from the mfg to "someone like you" or the pomps/tci tire center/us auto people (those are our main guys we buy from) to the tire shop like is but I just know that we have to compete too much to make any real money off tire sales.

We have NTB, discount tire, a chevy dealership and us. We also are a private owned business that uses a corporate stores name so we have to follow what they sells the main market tires for. Just figure a tire costs us $89 to get and we are only able to sell it for 99-105 each because we have to compete with the other stores and match the online corporate stores price.

I still bet that the mfg makes 10-20% when they sell the tires and the middle man makes 10-15% on some select tire brands when they sell them to a business like us.

We have to hope for profit from weights, labor, tire disposal and alignments or other service work when cars come in. There just isnt any money in straight tires sales for a "repair" shop like us anymore. Discount tire can make an ass load on money because they an sell certain tires that we can't buy and they sell way more wheel packages and make lots of money off that stuff.

Now that I've slept on it, you are bang on. I can buy tires cheaper from an online source than I can from my US supplier. My government rapes us when we import product, so we pass the rapeage on to the end user. Welcome to Canada!

Mmmm 2-3K

you know me... I sit still

I'll give it 2 1/2 years until your car sees 200k on the odometer!