Friggin' Expedition - Day 3 (D-Day)

I can't believe I forgot to post Day 3 in the saga that was the "quick" brake job on my dad's Expedition. If you need to catch up, here's the low-down from Day 1 and Day 2. Basically, it was a simple job that turned into a clusterf*.

Well, I bought all the pieces I could from AutoZone. They have probably the best warranty since they'll look up your info instead of making you dig through old-ass stanky receipts to replace your jankey Chinese parts. That said, I love to hate that place. I would compare it to the BMV but at least those beat-down bastards are making an effort to be nicer. I digress.

Anyhow, there was a matter of replacing a bearing bolt. I put a dart in the dealership section and called Capitol City Ford. The "oh so not annoyed that I called" guy said the only way I could order the bolt was if I ordered a pack of 6 and it would take a week to arrive. Oh, by the way, 6 bolts cost almost $40. Funk dat. I stopped by the local Fastenal to find it was an extremely odd size grade 8 hardened bolt with a fine thread. After calling about 8 different hardware suppliers with no results, I started wondering how I was going to reinstall the rounded off bolt (Hindsight Error #5) . I hopped back to the phonebook to hit dealerships. The next dealership I called said they didn't have the bolt but it's available at a place called Sharp Parts. The story goes when Sharp Ford folded, their parts department was purchased by Capitol City Ford. I called Sharp Parts and they had the bolts in stock and would sell them individually. What a worthless goose chase. If the counter guys at Capitol City Ford weren't such r'tards and would have just referred me to their subsidiary, Sharp Parts, I wouldn't have had to run around for nothing. In the future, I will ONLY call Sharp Parts if I need junk for a Ford. *SIGH*

By the way, speaking about Capitol City Ford (Hindsight Error #2 & 3), they marked my dad's in stock brake lines "Special order" (even though they were in stock???!). This means they are non-returnable items so I guess his truck gets two brake lines. At $50/ea this was a rip-off. Thanks assbags.

So I put it all back together. I used enough anti-seize compound to choke a horse. I don't want to be on the receiving end when this thing needs repaired again. To recap, it's got two new brake lines, a rebuilt caliper, new pads, new rotors and two new bearings. Pweh. That's a lot of shiny new metal. I finished it off by bleeding the entire system and torquing everything together to put a pretty bow on it.

Kids, I've learned a few things: (1) if I say something will be a 'quick' job the time estimate I give you will need to be multiplied by 3... days, (2) Parts departments and auto parts stores suck because they're the Walmart of auto stuff. They pay their people crap per hour in an effort to keep prices low but service sucks, (3) Finally, in just talking to the mechanics at (insert dealership name) I would only take my car there as a last ditch effort for repair. Again, it's Walmart philosophy folks. You wouldn't want to take your kids to a doctor that had a "C" average in school if you had a choice. That's why we pay for health care... well, at least that's how it goes now. If congress has their way the auto parts store people won't be the only college flunkies. I don't care who you are, low cost health care comes at a premium (pardon the pun).