Repair Sense

Last Saturday evening, there was a heavy downpour in our area and the temperature outside was freezing. I turned on our heater and started preparing dinner when my cell phone rang. When I picked it up, my wife was on the other end of the line and she sounded a little shaken. She told me that she was driving on a busy street in the city of Rowland Heights when she came to an intersection whose traffic light just turned red. She stepped on her brakes but nothing happened! She lost her brakes! She frantically kept on pressing the brakes but her van just kept on going! She went through the red light but fortunately, (by the power of God) she did not collide with the other vehicles. What gave me the fright was my young daughter was with my wife during that time. I was thankful to our Lord for being there at that intersection on that rainy evening.

I immediately drove to where my wife and daughter were at. Along the way, I passed a vehicular accident that looked really bad because the highway patrol blocked one side of the freeway. When I got to where my wife was at, I told her to use my car and bring our kids home. I got on her van and when I stepped on the brake pedal, the pedal went all the way down to the floor. One thing I learned about brakes is whenever a car loses the function of its foot brake, the other option to stop the vehicle is to use its hand brake. I slowly drove our van home that rainy evening using its hand brake to stop the vehicle.

When I got home, my wife urgently told me that we need to buy a new car because her van is (in her own words) “falling apart”. I told her, “Dear, don't you think that is kind of ludicrous? How could it be falling apart when the only problem is its’ brakes?! We cannot afford to replace your car every time something malfunctions in it. Besides, it would be insane to buy a new car during this crumbling economy!". I assured her that I will try to find out what went wrong with her van. AHHHH, WOMEN!!!!!

The following day, I went through the brake system of our van to find out why it malfunctioned. Whenever I do repairs on our cars, I would always get my son involved reminding him that the skill that he will learn will help him when he reaches adulthood. When I checked on the brake fluid reservoir (A little plastic tank that holds brake fluid) I noticed that it was empty. This tells me that there could be a leak somewhere in the system. I refilled the brake fluid reservoir and told my son to pump the brakes. I looked underneath the car and saw that one of the brake lines (An aluminum tube where the fluid travels through to get to the brake) has sprang a leak.

After my son took off the brake line, I called different auto part stores to find out the cost of a new brake line. I found that a pre-bended Toyota brake line costs $27 while a generic brand (unbend) at a local parts store cost only $7. Since every penny counts on our family budget, I opted to buy the cheaper brand and bend the brake line myself to match the Toyota brand. After installing the brake line, I test drove our van and its brakes worked just fine.

Here are some repair sense:

1. Don’t give up on your vehicle even though it breaks down on you often.


2. Don’t take your car to a dealership when doing repairs. Car dealerships are like greedy cookie monsters that bites off a big chunk off your checkbook every time they look under your hood. You don’t believe me? Try visiting one and have your car go through their 100,000-mile check up. The service fee will run you between $400 to $600. Their technician will tell you that you need to replace “a worn part” or they found “a leak that is about to happen in some hard-to-reach place in your engine” that needs immediate repair.


3. Are you being enticed by the dealers to go through those 60,000, 100,000-mile or so 100-point inspection promos? Here is my personal money saving rule—If a car passes a smog check then it means that its engine is running efficiently. There is no need to adjust the valve clearances and other expensive engine adjustments! A great example is our Toyota 1991 Previa van. Its odometer reading is 236,000 miles, which is almost the same distance between earth and moon. It has never failed a smog check in its 19 years of existence. Its last smog check was 4 ½ months ago. I have never had its valve clearance adjusted.


4. Save yourself unnecessary expenditure by using this simple mechanical common sense: If it ain’t broke, why fix it?!


5. Buy a repair manual and attempt to do the repairs yourself.


6. Do not be intimidated by the seemingly complex design of your car. Most of the time the parts that are hard to fix are often the ones that does not break down easily.


7. Repair manuals have easy to understand trouble shooting sections. Read them and you will be surprise that you will be able to track down and repair the problem in your car yourself.


8. If you are about to give up, step away from your car and give yourself time to relax. When the feeling of frustration has left you, go back to your car and continue where you left off. Remember, it is a machine and it wants you to repair it.


9. Lastly, getting your hands all dirty with grease and oil is a natural part of working with engines. Your nail polish will get ruined!

Eighteen years ago, I was an apprentice at my friend’s auto repair shop located then at the city of West Covina, California. The name of his shop is: “Bicol Auto Repair”. He told me something that inspired me to never give up when repairing my vehicle. He said, “If it is man-made, it can be fixed!”

Though vehicles are machines, they need care and maintenance—like people. You define its value by the quality of care you give it.

If you have a vehicle that was made back in the 1960’s or earlier, try your best to restore it back to its old glory. Do not say, “Ipatansan mo na yan!!”. If you restore it, you will not only bring back memories from the past. You will also have the sense of satisfaction that you brought a tangible piece back to life from a bygone era.

Sorting through tools and time….

Joseph Ivan.