So yesterday i got the bad news that my 99' Saturn SL did not pass inspection becasue the horn doesnt work, and i gave the mechanic the ok go ahead and diagnose it. well i just got a call back today saying that i need to replace the whole damnsteering column and that it would cost me about 650-700 dollars to replace it. so im fuckin angry atm cuz im not fuckin made of money, while i was on the phone with him he also rambled off a few other things that were wrong with the car but wouldnt hold it back from passing such as ; a leaking head gasket, bad belts, engine coolant levels were at 0 when they want to be at -34, and some other bullshit that is stock on the car that wants to be replaced every 50K miles but havnt. so this leads me to the main question of, should i cut my losses and try to sell the car, or should i pay for the repairs and hope something elsse doesnt fuck up? also i just put a new clutch in , in january
For that money you could probably buy another throw away car. Not worth it. Maybe take the car for a second opinion somewhere else maybe just trying to rip you off. No offense but the car is 11 years old and it's a saturn. They are cheap and IMO a throw away car. Sell it buy something else if you can.
They are probably trying to rip you off. Hell it may just be a loose wire. Take it to another mechanic.
i didnt consider this a throw away car tho, it got real good gas mileage and it rode real smooth, ive only had it for a year but its become apart of me,
Go get a second opinion there are alot of underhanded mechanics out there that pull bullshit like this.
so i asked around some car savy people i know, and apparently i can bypass the horn by buying an extension for the horn button and rewireing it so that the button the sound the horn is on the dash, and this costs about $100 part/installation much cheaper than the 700 bullshit the first mechanic tried to feed me, ...fuck him
I drive an '01 SL1 (virtually the same model mechanically) that's at 142k miles, and I've never had these problems. I tend to drive my car like a rally racer every weekend, and the only notable work I've done is replace the pressure control solenoid and intake manifold gasket. It's possible that a low coolant level overheated your engine, increasing the engine compartment pressure, leading to a rippled/burnt gasket, but your idle speed would be something in the realm of 850-950rpm after warm up if that's true. Either way, replacing a steering rack assembly, repairing a horn and everything else you listed should cost you well over $1200 with labor even from a cheap mechanic. I would purchase a Haynes manual and make this a DIY project if I were you. If perchance these problems do exist, you should be able to do everything but the steering rack (which is always a bitch to deal with).
Please either fix it yourself or have an honest mechanic do it and DEF get a second opinion. Whatever you do though go back to that mechanic and call him out on feeding you bs. I cannot stand underhanded mechanics that take advantage of peoples ignorance, i understand that anyone can learn the workings of their car if they put themselves to it but price gouging and listing repairs that are unnecessary just grind my gears (hehe didnt even intend that joke there)
the horn system is very simple..all it contains is a button a power wire and a relay thats it you deffininetly do not have to replace the whol steering column..should of found someone that really knows what there doing
If you have an airbag, there are often specialized tools you need to dismantle the steering column without damaging this system. For instance, if you handle the inflater module incorrectly and don't wait 2 minutes for the capacitor to discharge, you could end up with an airbag in your face even if you disable the relay. I do agree that the steering column didn't need to be replaced though. That's excessive and wasteful.
you dont need to do a damn thing about the steering column, that mechanics retarded. its to do with your wiring, relay, horn button, or horn itself.
if you know something about cars you would know saturns are junk, just like alot of other little cars like that, geo's, ect.. you probably just have a bad horn relay and that isnt gonna be more then 50$ for your car. if i were you i would just save up some cash and buy something else that is reliable, i.e a Honda Accord, my dads accord has 274k on the clock and the only thing we have ever replaced was the starter. and that was at 250k. reliable as all hell. EDIT: agree with everyone else, your mechanic is a dumb ass. why would you need to replace your steering column for a horn? thats just fucking ridiculous, take it to a real mechanic, not someone the state hired to get as much money out of you as possible.