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Actually, we had been ignoring them. First, tires were worn. Were told like 8 months ago there were about 3 months left on them.
We knew we were having issues with the brakes but the car needed its pads replaced quite often as it was and we never really thought it was more than that.
OK, take the care in for a tire change. First, tires that had been on the car were the wrong kind and the kind we actually needed were about $50 (for all four) more....then the alignment was completely messed up on the car (which is what caused the tires on there to run down so fast to begin with)....add $65 on top of what we expected to pay. Plus some other tire related issues....so in the end, tires were about $100 more to get all fixed up than we originally though.
We weren't intending on repairing the breaks today because we can normally get a hookup through as friend making things much cheaper, but that usually has to be scheduled and can take a bit of time (ordering parts, etc)...
The brake pads on the car tend to wear out often and we just thought that was the issue, but on the way there I actually feared for my life a few times because the brakes were just causing the car to shake violently and were clearly messed up...So while we were there, I went ahead and paid $15 to have them check the brakes out to see everything that was wrong and to give an estimate.......well, let's just say all the pads, rotors, the master cylinder, the drums, and some other (even the emergency brake!) things were either completely broken, leaking, or on their last thread. In fact, they were amazed how the brakes still worked at all considering we lived in the city with all its hills. And well, we had to either get it repaired right then or we were risking our lives driving....
Soooo, we did. Luckily they cut us a good deal and got pretty much the entire brake system replaced for about $550...saving a few hundred bucks off the regular price. So with the tires, having to do a complete realignement, the brakes, making sure to get hazard insurance, etc....it all came to like $988 w/ tax.
Yeouch.
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