deepinsurance: Thoughts from My Car Dealership

Last Wednesday I took my car in for its 60,000-mile tune-up. I had several finance-related thoughts about the experience during the time I waited for the car and wanted to share them all with you. Here goes:

I don't usually have my car worked on at the dealership since they are way over-priced. But for major work/tune-ups, I'd rather pay a bit more and have guys work on the car who really know the ins and outs of it (after all, they work on these cars all day, every day.) I also have a few other reasons I go to the dealership that I noted last year, most of which are still valid.

Since my last visit, the dealership has upgraded. Instead of a lounge where you can hook up your own computer and get dial-up access, they now have the dealership's computer with high-speed internet access. Cool! I could do several blogging-related tasks while I waited. Yeah, they still had the option for me to dial-up my own computer, but why bother?

During the tune-up, the manager came and told me my brakes were almost worn completely (95% or so) and asked if I wanted new ones (for both front and back) or wanted to get them elsewhere. If I got them here, it would be $425. Within 20-seconds, here's what went through my mind:

I do trust these guys -- I don't think they would tell me something like this if it weren't true.
I KNOW I can find a better deal on brakes somewhere else. I could probably save $100 or so versus their price.
How long will it take me to find a place to do my brakes? And to price shop? And to take my car in again? Maybe two hours at best. Probably more like four hours.
My car is here NOW. It can be done NOW for only maybe an extra hour's worth of waiting time. Even if I value my time at only $50 per hour (which I value it at more than that), I'll probably "save" $100 to $150 by having the work done here and right now.
If I get the brakes done now, I have a coupon that will give me $25 extra off the price.
I told him to do the work now.

When I paid, my bill was $800. But I knocked it down a bit as follows:

I had a coupon that gave me savings off different levels of spending at the dealership (I'm on their mailing list and they sent it to me.) The tune-up alone was going to get me $25 in savings, but adding the brake work bumped me up to the next savings level, so I got to save $50 off the work.

I redeemed my last $100 rewards certificate from my Subaru Platinum MasterCard from Chase (for details on how/why I had this card, see What My Second Credit Card Does for Me.) I'm getting rid of this card in favor of the Chase Freedom Cash Visa Card since next year I'm looking to dramatically increase my cash back rewards. But I did use my one, last rewards certificate to knock $100 off the bill. And I timed it so it will leave me with no rewards accumulated on it.