Frickin' Cars

So my car was making this wonderful noise. Basically this loud, grinding of metal on metal noise. Not very heathly. I took it in the shop today to get it checked out. Previous to this, we had multiple people and research trying to guess what was wrong. We thought it was the bearings on the front left or the CV joint was going. But that's as far as we ventured.

So I go in, after arranging for Rachel to pick me up, to drop it off at 10am. The guy walks into the waiting area holding this funny piece of metal. Apparently my brake pad had worn so far down that the rotor and the metal backing of the brake pad had actually started eating away at each other. So I stare at this metal in the man's hands with these large gouges in it and start to worry. I don't think those things come cheap. Ends up that its going to cost me $452. Yeah. That's a lot of money. Especially for a poor student. So I call Josh, talk it over, and decide to leave it. Find out I can come get it later in the day.

So I leave the car, go about my day. Finally meet up with Josh to go get my car that I miss dearly. Get there and suddenly my bill had jumped to $554. WHAAAAAT??? That's a lot. *sigh* Apparently brake pads have suddenly gone up in price to $118. Great. Frickin' wonderful.

So the upside of the story:
1. Josh is calling tomorrow to complain about the price because they shouldn't be that much.
2. We got the brake stuff taken care of about a year and a half ago by Meineke and they couldn't figure out why my brakes had so much give. Apparently they missed the seized caliper pin. Geniuses. So my dad is going to take it to their corporate section and try to get money back because they missed something so obvious. And they guarantee their brakes for life.

Moral of the story: Car repairs suck. They need to invent cars that don't break.