The Best $600 I Never Spent

About 2.5 years ago, my car developed a nervous tic.  The front passenger blinker went out.  I swapped out the bulb, to no avail.  My local garage claimed that they didn't know how to fix it.  Finally, in desperation, I took it to the dealership.  The dealer claimed to have found the problem and were happy to fix it, but wanted $600.  They also claimed that they needed a full day to do it, which meant that I would have to bring my car back.  Frankly, I didn't have the time.

Since then, I've been annoyed at my non-functioning blinker signal, but not annoyed enough to spend $600 to do something about it.

Fast forward to about 2.5 months ago.  I was minding my own business while driving down the freeway.  I looked up to see a semi truck stopped in the middle of the freeway in front of me:

It kinda looked like this but bigger...

My life literally flashed before my eyes as I braced for impact.  I resigned myself to the inevitable, but I made a desperate maneuver at evasive action as I slammed on the brakes.  Miraculously, it worked.  Mostly.

I knew I'd hit something, but I didn't know what and I didn't know how bad.  The semi sped off--unharmed. I doubt he even felt me.  I pulled off at the next off-ramp to assess the damage.  Here's what I saw...

Ouch!

Somehow, I had managed to shatter my headlight--leaving nothing else damaged.  The headlight still worked even!  I felt like I had dodged a bullet.

I went online and was able to order replacement parts at a fraction of what the dealership would have charged me.  Initially, I planned to have my local mechanic install the replacement for me, but they refused to do so since I hadn't bought the parts from them.  

Two weeks ago, I finally found some spare time on a Saturday to get around to fixing the problem.  I got R. to come out and be my assistant on the project.  I felt like it would be a good way to help teach him how to use tools and also have some good bonding time.  It reminded me of doing lots of projects on the car with my dad when I was a kid.

The project went so smoothly that I'm a little embarrassed that I (a) waited so long to finally fix the headlight and (b) was willing to spend up to $100 to have someone else replace it for me.

As a side benefit, the replacement headlight assembly fixed the turn signal problem that I'd been having.  It was a nice little silver lining.  Apparently the dealership had no idea what the problem was because their "solution" was to fix some other electronic part on the car.

All better!  :-)

The end result was great--the car looks (and works) better than ever!  All in all, despite the moment of terror, it all worked out and I'm sure glad that I didn't pay the dealership all that money to fix something on my car that wasn't even broken.  Considering that I got an additional bonus of doing a fun project with my son R., I'd say that was the best $600 that I never spent!