Now it was time for me to return to Nelson for the Advanced Placer Course, only the car had been developing some issues. Trifling issues, like the brakes making loud squalling noises when I drove and not responding - however slightly - when I applied pressure. This was a bad thing, I needed to change the brakes, only I didn't have the $200-$400 to pay somebody to do it.
And I postponed, parked the car, avoided, procrastinated, until finally there was no postponing any further, Wednesday, time to leave, so I watched the requisite youtube videos and purchased the brake pads ($30.00, the cheapest, remembering a Bukowski novel in which he's trying to sort the deluxe brakes from the generic brakes and he asks "What's the difference?" and he's told none, only price..), another $20 for a C-Clamp and 13 mm wrench, and I'm off.
I'm paranoid, this brake changing, if it doesn't solve my problems I'm hooped. It'll be the bus to Nelson for the course, and a nightmare getting to work. And I'm a bit worried about not having the car on blocks, but I jack it up and make it steady, double check, and get it done. I've seen cars come down on people, I don't want to be that idiot. The pads are completely worn out, only 3 remaining, all together they don't measure an inch in thickness, one of them is vanished entirely and only the metal spring has been stopping me.
The whole job takes me 45 minutes and costs, with tools, $50. And they're working fine. Perfectly. I drive around, high mountain roads, not a sound, not a whisper, I'd forgotten what it was like, how easy was that and who pays mechanics $200 or more to do this? Bloody hell.
When I finally get back from the course - brakes working perfectly, I notice I've developed a small antifreeze leak, which - when my next day off arises, I'll fix, in all certainty it's a rad hose, leaky or loose, but I notice a curious symmetry in the events that remind me of a time when I took my car in to be fixed for a leaky rad hose and ended up (or so I was told) getting my brakes done, by "professional mechanics" at Canadian Tire, and it cost me - I'm not joking - $3000.00.
Think fraud, laugh, I know, that is a separate post, I merely wished to observe that having spent almost $3000 at Canadian Tire my rad hose was not fixed, my brakes (no observable problem, but I took their word) apparently were, and so I spent $3000 on a job I didn't need done and probably wasn't done, when I could have fixed my brakes myself for $50 and left the rad hose as leaky as they did. But I'll fix my own rad hose this time, thank you very much, and when I'm in a slightly more venomous mood I'll tell you all - tell the world - about the time I was swindled, defrauded, and out - and - out robbed by the Hunterhorn Canadian Tire, and provide all the necessary receipts and evidence for you to make up your own minds. But that's a different post.