Today's trip to the new repair shop was an eye-opener. I expected to wait a few hours and leave with new brakes, paying about $600, and with a diagnosis for the next repair (the noisy fan.)

These folks are smart - before they take the wheels off they examine the vehicle (with a flashlight and a mirror) and determined that I have about 10,000 miles left on the front brakes, and even more on the rear. So, no brake job needed. They took a look at the blower on the fan to see if they could tell what was wrong, and couldn't reproduce the noise, so I drove around the neighborhood while Edgar rode and we listened. I pushed the buttons that usually caused it, turned corners in the way that set it off - nothing. It seems that by simply examining the blower, when it was put back it was secured and it had been loose, so that was the problem. No more rattling. Again, no repair. But I heard someone say something about an inspection - "do you do inspections here? Mine is due." So after two checks and the inspection, I left 2.5 hours later after paying $25.50 for the state inspection.

Nissan and Jewell (the shop near my house) both said the brakes needed new pads, but the mechanics who actually do the work said they didn't. It's about "two oil changes from now" they said (5,000 per oil change). If they'd been able to identify a repair that needed to be made on the fan, the charge is $78, but if they do the repair, they just charge for the repair. Jewell was going to charge $189 to diagnose before any repair, and it isn't reduced if you do the repair there. You can guess where I'll be going for any future work. And perhaps all I'll need to do is pull up and have Edgar lay his hands on the vehicle. :-)