I complained here back in October about how expensive tire pressure monitoring sensors for my 2008 Nissan Frontier pickup truck are. They are expensive, but it turns out it’s worse than that. The dealer I had repair the truck marked up the parts by something like 30-35% over what the same dealer charges at retail for the same part at their parts counter in the same building. I told the service manager that’s the reason I will never do business with them again.
If I go to a local garage, they mark up the parts above what I can buy them for. It makes sense. They can’t carry a lot of parts for every vehicle they might have to repair. They have to pay someone to order them. They have to deal with a parts supplier who will deliver them the same day, and there are a couple of other reasons as well. But if I go to a parts store and buy the part myself, they don’t charge me more than retail. For an auto dealer parts department, the ancillary costs are built into what they sell the parts for at retail. So, for me anyway, a dealer service department charging me 30-35% for walking back and forth to the parts counter is outrageous. I won’t pay it again.
I was right about Ben Carson’s chances of becoming the Republican Party’s nominee for President this year. It looks like I was wrong, very wrong, about Donald Trump’s prospects though.
Nominations to the US Supreme Court are very political. Depending on who’s confirmed, the current vacancy can turn the majority on the court from relatively conservative to much more liberal. I don’t think it’s right to obstruct any president’s nominations for the U.S. Supreme Court, not a Democratic president and not a Republican president either. But what’s going on now over a replacement for Justice Scalia isn’t new. In fact, a previous Republican president’s nominee who was scuttled by a Democratic majority in the Senate had his last name turned into a word in the dictionary. Three lefts make a right. Two wrongs don’t.
As I write this, I’m watching a Spring Training baseball game on TV. You should watch or listen to baseball in March as often as possible. Baseball causes warm weather and observing it here in the north will help to warm things up. Just wait and see.
