Pay The Man, Then Have To Do It Yourself Anyway

I wrote that last post just before I picked up the Land Cruiser from the shop across the street that was replacing the bad front wheel bearing. It DID have a bad front wheel bearing. I'd jacked it up and shook the wheel before I brought it over there, and the guy did the same thing. But when I drove it after I picked it up, the car still had exactly the same scraping sound.

There's a longer story that I think I'll save for the book, but in the end the scraping sound was coming from a little heat conduction plate on the right rear caliper that was bent up just enough to be hitting the inside of the wheel. Had I taken the car to ANY repair shop, they would've looked at the rear brakes, told me it needed pads and rotors (it does), told me that the emergency brake shoes are garbage (they are), that the entire handbrake mechanism needs to be rebuilt (it does), and that the calipers should be replaced too because the boots are buggered up (they are). It would've cost me fifteen hundred bucks. And while all of that is true, it had nothing to do with the scraping sound. The scraping sound would've gone away because, coincidentally, the new calipers wouldn't have had the bent heat conduction plate.

And people wonder why car guys do this stuff themselves.