Home Maintance with my father

[insertNameHere]

A new chapter of why I can't stand my parents and I will be glad to be out of here in a month. Now that the county is done with appraisals my mom decided to trim the bushes in the front of the house because they were extremely overgrown and looked like shit to the point some had to be cut in half to be able to see the windows again. My dad feels it looks like "niggers live here" since we cut out a large amount of the bushes... well now we are the Cosbys i guess since it looks presentable. Where using his racial views before one could assume minorities owned the property for how shitty it looked.

Now, the garage door is making weird noises. I sprayed oil into the spots I figured needed oil, that made it so I could hear the unit itself also having problems. to the point I realize I am NOT a trained technician and have exhausted the limits of my ability. I know enough to not spray WD40 on everything to figure it is a miracle cure (my dad isn't). Now the intelligent thing would be to have a trained person come out spend a little bit of money and do preventative maintenance. I am bitched at to fucking grease it! Right, I have no idea what I'm doing so when I fuck it up it going to cost significantly more than it would have but orders are orders.

However my dad is not big on maintaining shit, i guess he feels it should just fucking work forever. Sorry but some shit you need to spend a little bit of money and have someone who KNOWS what they are doing to come out. They might notice something small that will save thousands of dollars in repairs doing a PM, that a typical homeowner doesn't have the experience to recognize. Like the garage door or furnace.

Then for machinery, he believes only the dealer is competent enough which for double what other places charge i hope they are. However, when he does feel cheap he goes to the cheapest which is why when our snow blower got a new transfer case they skipped the grease in the transfer case, Lasted 1 light season.

He had no problem spending couple hundred a week depending how much we eat out, but want to spend money on something to keep it working is "fucking stupid" or we had it serviced last year. He bought a john deere lawntractor and wonders why the yearly maintance costs couple hundred... in reality it is only a small percentage of the total cost which in my experience maintaining something can run 5-10% a year easy.

[protege]

I could have said the same things about my dad. He's annoyingly cheap, and doesn't believe in regular maintenance.

His idea of proper automotive maintenance...consists of getting the oil changed, and the tires rotated. No 30,000 or 50,000 mile services, no chassis lubrication, etc. All things that a car needs, and without them...can cost even *more* in the long run. That's why his cars are usually junk by 100,000 miles, and mine (which are maintained per the book) are usually still in great shape. In fact, he used to give me grief because I'd "foolishly" hand over several hundred for "unnecessary" things done on my cars. Never mind that he spent *thousands* for transmission, ignition, and suspension repairs. Repairs, that were necessary because of a lack of maintenance.

All of that changed when my mom finally put her foot down. After years of dealing with this crap--and being stranded one time too often--she'd had enough. He'd bought my grandfather's '88 Taurus sedan, which was already in poor shape, and didn't bother to take care of it. That goddamn car was always breaking down. Every time it was driven somewhere, there were problems. Problems, that my dad didn't consider "important enough" to do anything about. That kind of thinking is what caused the '87 Tempo we had before...to destroy itself while I was driving home. The engine blew up, and I got hit while attempting to get out and push the heap off the road. That had happened the previous February, and the Taurus fiasco only made things worse. By June, my mom lost it, and actually threatened to leave him over it. The car broke down *again* in one of the more "interesting" neighborhoods, and she was pissed.

That crap went on until recently. It stopped...when the Saturn L-series he'd been driving...had to be replaced. Mom controlled the checkbook, and wasn't going to let him get a new car. Her thing was, why should he get a brand-new car, and then not take care of it? He was allowed to get a bargain-basement Hyundai...but has to prove that he's taking care of it.

Then there's the lawn mower, which is usually referred to as "that piece of shit" by most family members. Again, dad's cheap. Rather than spend a bit more for one that would last, he cheaped out. Within a year, the ride-height mechanism in the front broke...and required a bungee strap to ensure that it won't drop. Then there's the whole "refusing to start" issue. If you have to shut the thing off to remove the bag, it's a bitch to start. Pain in the ass if you have a big yard, like they do.

Keep in mind, that up until this summer, my own lawn care fleet was rather lacking. I was using a secondhand 20-year-old Toro to cut the grass. It had its issues, but I couldn't complain--it was free, and ran fine once it warmed up. I used it until this past summer, when the engine block cracked.

That brought up an argument. Dad said that I was "welcome to use his lawn mower" whenever I wanted. Then I said that I was going to buy a new one...and he started busting my balls about how the one I wanted (a Honda) was "expensive," and that I was "foolish for spending that much money." Granted, it's only been 6 months, but I think I've made the right choice.

Things like that just annoy me. My feeling is, why not spend a bit more and get something that will last? I can't see the logic in buying something cheap multiple times, when the more-expensive item would have lasted longer. Or even the logic of maintaining something to begin with. For example, would you spend say, $50 now...to prevent a $500 (or more) repair bill later?

[Andara Bledin]

Things like that just annoy me. My feeling is, why not spend a bit more and get something that will last? I can't see the logic in buying something cheap multiple times, when the more-expensive item would have lasted longer.

You need to introduce your dad to the Sam Vimes "Boots" Theory of Economic Injustice.

^-.-^

[insertNameHere]

I had to explain buying quality to my electronics professor who kept buying chairs that would last 1 SEMESTER, not year. for $30 a piece. Because the previous chairs were $80 a piece.... they lasted At least 4 semesters... Which really is $20 a semester and for the most part broke in different parts and you could combine 2 broken chairs and get 1 working one.... the Cheaps were to cheap to combine for one working one.

I flip between crap and quality, I have craftsman and ridgid power tools because of the lifetime warrantys when I bought them. But i will visit harbor freight when I need to break something.

In the area of cars,up until 3 years ago, my parents would always get new cars every 3-4 years. and not really have anything over 60K miles. Then we bought my truck with 100K (6 years ago) and recently have had to dump couple thousand into it for new brakes, tires, tune ups and now my dad wants to get rid of it because of what a pain it is to maintain. Ironically, if you divide the cost out over a year it is nowhere near the cost of a new truck. Now we only have one car that is leased and they wondering what to do. Well sorry but the reliability of a brand spanking new car isn't worth $350-500 a month if can get a deal on a decent used car.

[blas87]

Yeah, I don't want to come across as an ungrateful turd, my dad has taught me a lot about vehicles and without him to help me, my brother and I would be lost, but I refused to inherit his cheap poor-man rigging style of fixing cars or not wanting to deal with them.