[TSBeckman]

What are you guys paying each time you take the car in to have all of the belts changed?

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[Cloud9...68]

About sixty bucks (do it myself - a time-consuming job with a few tricky steps, but not too bad overall). As frequently as this job needs to be done, doing this yourself, provided you have the facilities and the tools, can save a TON of money. Others who have mechanics do it will chime in, I'm sure, but I think the labor is in the range of a thousand bucks. I'm WAY too cheap to shell out that kind of money...

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[ds968]

Labor $ 800. Belts, rollers, tensioned, etc..another $ 400. As a reference point , the local

P- dealers charge about $ 2,000.

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[hk968]

[quote name='TSBeckman' timestamp='1351455497' post='134171']

What are you guys paying each time you take the car in to have all of the belts changed?

[/quote]



~ $800 labor, ~$270 parts



I just had this done together with my water pump. The total lobor was ~$1000, parts ~$600 (incl. new WP)

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[TSBeckman]

Is it nuts to be considering a West Coast car? I live in Maryland. I'd have to ship the car ... and that wouldn't be cheap. Is a clean California car that passes a <acronym title='pre purchase inspection'>PPI</acronym> with flying colors (and has had all recent maintenance) worth the extra cost involved in shipping?

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[flash]

not nuts at all. if it has always been a west coast car, you are likely to get a better car, as it will likely not have been subjected to salted roads and such.

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[Rap]

Drive it over!

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[TSBeckman]

I would love to drive it back. I do have a week of vacation time left this year, but I am not sure that would be the wise move with an 18 year old car that I don't know and trust. If we were still in the middle of summer i might be more wiling to risk it. Besides, with $4 gallon gas, it might not save me any money driving it 3000 miles. If I could get 30 mpg, that that would be 100 gallons of gas. $400 would be the conservative estimate. Add a $300 one way flight out and 6 night's in cheap hotels ($400) and we're at $1100 before anything breaks and before I buy a meal.

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[Rap]

Patience is also a piece of good advice. It's the late fall and people might want to sell their 968's before the snow flies on the east coast!

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[ds968]

Yup, given all of the considerations you pointed out, shipping would be the better choice..IMO. You can always take a cross-state drive at another time.

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[flash]

6 nights??? even towing a trailer it only takes 3 days (daryl and i actually did it in 52 hours). if it were just me in the car, i'd easily do it in 3 days.



i would get the belts done first though

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[TSBeckman]

Patience? That's crazy talk. Although if I wait a few days there might be some really cheap East Coast cars available with moderate flood damage.

Okay. I can do it in 29 hours.



"Gumball!"

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[flash]

lol - true enough.



patience is the key though. it took me 3 months, at a time when there were a lot more low mileage cars out there, and even then i had to compromise on color.

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[TSBeckman]

I think I've settled on a car. <acronym title='pre purchase inspection'>PPI</acronym> being done in the morning.

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[Rap]

Yea patience sucks but rarely does it hurt you. Way back when I was a young man, my grandfather gave me his car which had been in a flood. At 16 I had a car and who cared. Had I not had a man who leased a service station from my family I would have been in trouble. The car which was a green dart with those smiles on it broke down frequently. He rarely charged me and the car ran most of the time. Flood vehicles can be a bargain price wise but boy they can be a constant source of irritation. Good luck on the <acronym title='pre purchase inspection'>PPI</acronym>!

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[TSBeckman]

Thankfully, the car is not from an area that suffers floods. There could be issues, but they're not likely to be flood related.

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