A Car Expense That Could Have Been Expensive

A few weeks ago I talked about how I had broken the passenger side mirror on my truck. It was just the mirror itself, and not the housing that was broken, so I was hoping to just replace that and not the whole thing. I had called the dealership and asked how much it would cost, and was told that if it’s the whole thing, then it would cost upwards of $450-500 after labour and taxes, not something to take lightly. So I decided to save up the cash and just tape the mirror in place.

With the recent cold snap we’re having right now, it’s hard to keep the mirror in place with the tape because the cold just makes tape un-sticky. Today while driving home from work, part of the tape came off and the mirror rattled all the way home. As it would happen, today is one of the days the dealership is open late, so I thought I’d pop in and see what they could do for me. Buddy comes out with me after I explained the problem, he takes a look and says “Oh yeah, we can just replace the glass, no problem.”

I took a deep breath and asked, “Are you sure?”

“Yep.”

What a huge sigh of relief! I knew that replacing just the glass would be significantly cheaper than replacing the whole unit, so I was glad to hear that. We then went to speak to the Parts Manager, and he looked it up and said that the glass costs all of $77. And then the Service Manager said he’d install it for me and save the labour cost! Most excellent. I am pleased about that, as it saves me about $350, which I can leave in my Emergency Fund.