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Showerthought: I almost junked my car over a $9 sensor I misdiagnosed for 3 weekends
My 2004 Civic started idling rough and throwing a check engine light, so I did what any cheap person does and googled it. Everything online said vacuum leak, so I spent two Saturdays with a can of carb cleaner spraying every hose I could see, no change. Third Saturday my neighbor Dave, who actually knows cars, plugged in his $30 code reader and it was just a bad upstream oxygen sensor. The part cost $9 at a pull-a-part in Tacoma and took 20 minutes with a wrench I already owned. I was literally two clicks away from listing the thing for $500 on a junk car site because I was convinced the engine was toast. It ran fine for another 40k miles after that. So my whole stance on dents and small stuff flipped, because I almost scrapped a solid car over a sensor cheaper than lunch. What is the dumbest cheap fix you almost gave up on before someone helped you out?
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miamitchell20d ago
That line about being "two clicks away" from listing it really hits, because the scary part isn't the money you almost blew, it's that you were about to trust your own gut over a $30 tool that would've told you the truth in five minutes. Half the dead cars in every driveway probably died from a guy guessing instead of reading the code.
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