Hi! I'm new to the forum game, a relatively new mechanic (handed my dad tools and watched baling wire and hammer repairs on old American cars when I was young, a long time ago), but I have a new son-in-law who was born with a ratchet in his hand. He has the knack and I'm helping him (more actively than just handing him tools) and trying to learn how to deal with some of the moderately difficult foreign car troubles. Right now, we just finished replacing a Saab 9-5 engine, although it's still not quite rolling, we think we're 99% there.
My current problem is on my daughter's 1996 328i, with the infamous rear trailing arm bushing problem. A $10 part, with $900 labor. That could be considered bad engineering, but I'm not in a position to judge.
I have found some help on this site, but I'm not sure the responses I need are visible enough and don't know how to tell.
Anyway, I hope to learn a lot more about working on cars. I've paid my mechanics enough to put their kids through college, and I now have a VW Golf (son-in-law's), a Saab 9-5 (wife's), the BMW 328i (daughter's), three Mercedes (mine, although one is for sale, and the other is essentially a last resort car), and another to be named later (for the other daughter), probably another VW.
06-14-2009, 10:42 AM
