The website rocks vs a dealership

[babyfacefitz]

I love this site. It offers the correct advice, what to look for...what to think about...all those ins and outs of working on cars.

 

I'm a good mechanic, good diagnosis but can make bone-headed mistakes.

 

I have a friend that works at a local dealership as a mechanic. Last summer I asked him to help me with a HG replacement on my 230K 98 OBW. It eventually worked but when we pushed up on the tranny pan, a wire snipped and I was getting a code.

 

Again it was this site that solved the problem. Since then there has been numerous times where I thought I could ask him for advice and ended up telling him what I learned off of here.

I know there is better mechanics at the stealership but...

let's keep the message positive.

 

 

This site is great.

[idosubaru]

sweet, glad it's helped, that's awesome.

 

this board is orders of magnitude more competent than any mechanic. but...to be fair, if you pulled any one person off of a subaru forum and made the same comparison the statement would still hold true. the value in places like this is the vast experience from multiple people, ability to specialize (i know who I'd ask about trans stuff, wiring stuff, engine rebuilds, body work, etc), and the very important willingness of folks to donate their time. dealers don't play, try new and different things and tinker either, so that gives a different kind of learning curve that has some advantages over the "do everything by protocol" methodology - which is also very powerful in it's own right.

[bulwnkl]

I, too, love this site. Even though I haven't very much need to be here at this point (fairly late model trucklet, and the group has most of what I could contribute covered already), the general wonderfulness of the USMB is why I am now a donor.

 

I agree with Gary about the group having vastly more & better expertise than any individual, and with how great it is that so many will donate their time, which are particular reasons I think the site is so great.