Houston?

[Bret4207]

Just out of curiosity, anyone here from the Houston Tx area? My oldest boy is down there now, has car trouble, may need to know of a decent garage. He's been down there in Sugarland for about a year but just moved closer to Houston...or so I'm told. Oh, and he got laid off the same day the car issues started. When it rains it pours.

 

[Ian]

My Mom used to live in the Alief-Clodine area a few blocks south of Westpark Tollway and just north of Sugarland. After a fashion she finally found a halfway decent indy shop in the area, good shops are apparently quite scarce.

What kind of car trouble?

 

[Rick]

And what kind of car?

 

[Bret4207]

Honda Accord I think, brakes.

 

[Ian]

Goodyear or Firestone auto care centers used to be pretty good with basic stuff like that, they probably still are.

 

[Pistolero]

No magic in Honda brakes. Any good shop should be able to handle it, honesty and a fair
price seem to be the main sticking points. My older ones with drum rears never needed
anything for the rears for 250K-350K miles, so he should resist a "rebuild them all" if he is trying to save
bucks, likely nothing happening on the rears without evidence of a leak. See if the shop will let him
purchase replacement front calipers for them to install, if leaking. If so, O'Reilly and other nationwide parts houses
like NAPA usually can provide "lifetime" warranty rebuilt calipers for amazingly low prices. If it is
the master cyl, no experience there recently, but probably the same applies - shops often
make a lot of money on their parts markup and if you can convince them to just do the labor
on parts you provide, there is often a significant savings. Important when money is tight.

I once had a friend's wife call, nearly in tears, that the Chrysler dealer told her that her minivan
was "unsafe to drive, needs a $1200 brake job". I asked if it drove OK to the shop, got a "yes",
so she drove it home. Inspection showed it needed a set of front pads and a new front rotor,
total of about $65 in your hand at O'Reilly, 40 minutes teaching her boys to install the parts.

Beware of "unsafe brakes, needs $1200 overhaul" kind of talk. IME, on my several Accords,
NEVER did anything beyond replace front pads in 250-350K miles. Suspicious of needing more
than that, although it is certainly possible, especially if brake fluid not changed every two years.

 

[Rick]

Beware of "unsafe brakes, needs $1200 overhaul" kind of talk.

That should be huge red flags even to the novice.

I used to be a grease monkey in years past. I had just finished a complete brake job on my own car, new drums, shoes, re-built cylinders & all. Took it to the tire store for some new rubber, while waiting in the show room to have them mounted the guy runs in and informs me that the brakes are to unsafe for him to even allow me to drive it home that way.

Silly fools they were, I had them put my old tires back on and down the road I went. Their greed and attempted deceit cost them the sale of four tires. Sad thing is that most people don't know and that sort of dishonest business practice often works making the thieves a lot of money. Money picked right out of the pockets of honest folks.

 

[Ian]

I figure he's in an apartment and vehicle maintenance on-premises is a no-no. A Honda brake job can be done with $20 worth of tools, $15 in a Haynes manual if you have no experience, and very little in parts unless there's an ABS issue or rusted out brake lines. With u-toob these days there's a half-decent how-to for just dang near anything one could imagine, so a resourceful person should have no issue doing basic car repairs themselves on the cheap.

 

[Bret4207]

My thanks to you all. He located a garage nearby and got the car there. I imagine the problem is related to the car sitting for a long period and will be a simple fix. At this point the main thing is to get the car on the road so he can find another job. Again, my thanks to you all! This business of your kid being so far away and unable to help him drives us nuts!