Top 10 most expensive mistakes in car repair

9. Going to a dealership when an independent mechanic will do

Susana Vera/Reuters/File
Mechanics work at an auto repair shop in Madrid in this 2010 file photo. In the US, car owners can save an estimate $300 or more a year by skipping the dealership and using an independent repair shop.

It’s hard to know when you should take your car to the dealership for service, and when you can opt to visit a local independent mechanic. If you don’t think there is a difference in cost, consider this: On average, car owners save an estimated $300-plus a year  by opting for an independent repair shop versus the car dealership. In some cases, the dealership service center can make more sense for recalls, warranty work, or very complex repair issues. For many jobs, however, finding the right independent repair shop and utilizing it can save you hundreds of dollars. Don't worry that you might lose your warranty. That's a myth. 

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

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