handiwork | Smart Money MD

Category: handiwork

How often do I need to inspect my brakes?

Posted on April 10, 2015April 4, 2015 by SmartMoneyMD

Brake maintenance is a critical part of keeping your car functioning. After all, no brakes = bad. In general, you should inspect the brake pads on a routine schedule (or have your car guy do it). the maintenance schedule for every vehicle is listed in the owner’s manual of your car—you can often find the charts posted online. Usually this depends on how hard you abuse your brakes—they may last up to 35k miles or as little as 10k miles. As a rule of thumb, brake pads on a manual transmission car tend to last slightly longer than those on an automatic transmission.

How brakes work is no mystery; most brakes consist of a rotor that spins along with your wheels:

There are also brake pads contained within a housing that makes contact with the rotor when you depress the brakes:

After many years of use, the brake pads eventually become worn out and will start to scrape on the rotor. This is bad. It is recommended that you replace your brake pads before your rotors become destroyed.

Since brake changes are relatively time consuming, I have been putting off brake maintenance. I only have less than 70,000 miles on my 9 year old vehicle, but it looks like my brakes are worn:

Obviously I had been so negligent that my brake rotors have pretty bad scratches. In general, brake pads can cost less than $50 for a pair of generic ceramics while rotors cost around $100. If there is still enough tread on the rotors, then they can be polished for $10-$15 apiece. Your neighborhood dealer will charge upwards of $600 for replacement of four brakes depending on how fancy your car is. In my experience, it’s about a 2 hour job if you know what you’re doing. How about that for an hourly rate?

Be smart about where you put your money!

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How to replace the headlight bulbs on a 2006 Subaru Impreza

Posted on April 3, 2015March 29, 2015 by SmartMoneyMD

Welcome to installment #2 on basic handiwork tips that any professional (day trader, neurosurgeon, or even business analyst) can learn to do! The previous tutorial discussed how to replace the rear bulbs on the same car.

It turns out that my low beams on my 2006 Subaru Impreza wagon decided to burn out on the way to work one early morning. I stopped by AutoZone on the way home to pick up replacement bulbs and made the repair that evening. An upgraded pair of Xenon-like bulbs could be found on eBay for less than $20. Unfortunately I could not wait for the shipping and ended up picking a set of standard Halogen bulbs for $31 at the store. The dealer and typical garage would have charged around $50 for parts and another $70 for labor. The job took me approximately 10-15 minutes. This roughly translated to a “net gain” of $90 for 15 minutes of my time. That brings things to an untaxed hourly rate of $360. Not bad!

The headlights of the car look like this:

Subaru Impreza 2006 headlights — The high beam is medial to the low beam

The low and high beams are divided into separate housing compartments with a washer seal to keep moisture out. Access to the passenger side lights is easier than the driver’s side because the battery is situated adjacent to the lights on the driver’s side. I was fortunately able to replace the driver’s side bulb without removing the battery.

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For the passenger side, you will have to remove the air filter exhaust to gain access to the lights. There is a hex bolt that holds the housing in place:

Subaru Impreza Air Exhaust bolt — Size 10 hex bolt

On the driver’s side, there is a plastic fastener that holds the windshield washer fluid reservoir tube in place:

Subaru Impreza Windshield fluid fastener — Use a Phillips head screwdriver to unscrew and then a flat head screw driver to remove the plastic

The plastic screw with fastener can be removed by unscrewing the screw and then prying the fastener up with a offset spatula or a flat screwdriver. Be careful to pry gently to prevent snapping any of the plastic thread on the fastener.

The low beam housing assembly is then directly behind the bulb:

It can be removed by turning the cover counterclockwise:

Subaru Impreza headlight bulb assembly — Turn counterclockwise to unscrew

Underneath there is a bulb connector that also needs to be unscrewed counterclockwise:

Subaru Impreza 2006 headlight bulb connector — turn counterclockwise to loosen

The bulb itself is then held in place by a spring mechanism. This the the trickiest part of the disassembly because you don’t have a clear view of the spring, especially on the driver’s side. The spring is removed by squeezing the prongs together and unthreading it from the retaining ridge:

Subaru Impreza 2006 headlight spring thread

After you remove the spring, you will have clear access to the low beam bulb. The bulb is a 12V – 55W unit. The Subaru Impreza 2006-2007 low beam bulb is a sized H7 bulb.

AutoZone only had the Sylvania brand.

The disassembly process is identical for both headlights, although there is much less room to work with on the driver’s side due to the battery. Make sure that you wear gloves while removing and replacing the bulb. These bulbs run hot, and can be asymmetrically heated if there is oil or grease from your hands or grime from the engine. Oil and grease will shorten the life of the bulb.

Reassembly involves reversing the aforementioned steps. Take your time and make sure that the housing cover is screwed on appropriately and tightly. You do not want moisture getting into the electrical wiring.

Again, this is a relatively straightforward process and is low risk. If you wish to upgrade your headlights, you can even install an HID conversion kit (Xenon) to upgrade the quality of lighting. You can find plenty of videos online discussing this option.

If you have any questions, sound out below!

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How to replace the rear brake light on a 2006 Subaru Impreza wagon

Posted on March 22, 2015March 22, 2015 by SmartMoneyMD

We plan to post various handiwork tips that the authors have encountered over time. Saves money, effective, and makes you a more well-rounded professional! The following was written by Smart Money MD contributing writer (a surgeon).

One of the rear brake lights on my 2006 Subaru Impreza hatchback burned out last week. The dealer charges $98+tx for the repair. One of the other Subaru aftermarket garages was in the $40 range, but was closed on weekends and relatively far away. The bulb itself at Autozone is $6 for a pair. If you buy a box of 10, they are $1.50 apiece. If you order on eBay, they are even cheaper. The bulb model is a 7440/7443. This scenario is a prime example of your time cost of money, where DIY (you are the handyman!) will save you money. Given that I’d have to skip a half day of work to take my car to the garage, I decided to replace the bulb myself. The steps are relatively straightforward if you don’t have rusty bolts.

Access to the panel is from the rear hatch, and there are two screws:

There is a top screw and a side screw (I did not label the screws in the diagram. The Phillips head only unscrews part way.

You can use a needle nose plier to pull the screw and the fastener out vertically. Be sure to pull gently so that you don’t break the plastic fastener/seat. The plastic panel then pops out, and you see that the metal housing is fixed with two hex bolts (size 10, I believe):

These bolts can be unscrewed using a long handle bolt wrench or thin nose vise grips. The bolts in the photo above have already been removed. I ended up using WD-40 to loosen some of the rust build-up on the bolt. At this point, then entire light housing unit can be slid out.

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For the 2006-2007 Impreza hatchback models, the housing is slid out in AP (Anterior-Posterior) direction. This means that if you are standing directly behind the car, you pull the housing towards yourself. If you have an older model Impreza, the housing should be pulled laterally outward. Be sure to pull gently so you don’t break the plastic fasteners inside:

Blue plastic fastener viewed from side of car

In my case, I slid the unit towards me in the back. The photo above is viewed a four-thirds view from the side. The left of the photo is the rear of the car. You can see the direction of the blue plastic fastener that to remove the light housing, you slide the light housing posteriorly. The corresponding grip on the plastic housing looks like this:

Grey plastic seat that corresponds to the blue seat on the car

At this point, you will have access to the wires and the light bulb sockets from behind:

Subaru Impreza 2006 wagon rear bulb socket

The socket is unscrewed counterclockwise, and the bulb can be unseated from the socket by pulling vertically. Be sure to wear clean gloves when removing the bulb so that you don’t get oil smudges on the bulb. Oil and grime will result in irregular heat distribution on the bulb and can cause premature burnout. After replacing the bulb, just reverse the steps and put the bolts back in. The entire job probably took me less than five minutes. Not bad for a surgeon!

Note: If you have a sedan model, access to the socket is through the rear carpet paneling.

If you have any questions, please sound off below! I did not label the photos with arrows, but hopefully the instructions and photos are self-explanatory!