It is a throw away world.

If my father could see what is happening today he would roll over in his grave.  From the youngest of ages, he instilled in his children that it is cheaper to repair than to replace.  And he lived by that motto.

If he hit a rock while plowing and broke a blade he did not buy a new plow.  If possible he would fire up his welder and fix the broken parts.  If that was not possible he would go to the local feed and tack store and order a new blade which he installed himself.

When I had a fender bender with my old car, he went with me to the local salvage yard, found a new fender, showed me how to remove it and then helped me put it back on.  Then we sanded it down and painted it ourselves.

We finally got a television when I was 9 or 10 years old.  When I malfunctioned, as electronics are bound to do, he opened the back, found the tube that was no longer working, bought the part and replaced it.  No thought was given to buying a new set.

And of course he did not believe in hiring people to do things you could do yourself.  When the oil in the car, tractor or truck needed changing, he bought the oil and filters, got out a catch pan and did the work himself.  The same went for changing spark plugs, points, brake pads or almost any other maintenance.

And for the most part of my life I followed his example.  I never gave thought to taking a car to the garage and paying four or five hundred dollars for a brake job.  For less than 40 dollars at AutoZone I could get the parts and do the job myself.  And rarely did I need to have the rotors turned.

But today, you not only need to replace the pads but the rotors as well since they no longer make the rotors out of steel.  To save weight and a miniscule amount of gasoline over the vehicles life they have began making the rotors out of cheap lightweight material that wears out at the same rate as the brake pads.

And don’t even think about changing your own spark plugs.  I doubt that unless you went to auto mechanics school you could even find them.  Of course modern cars do not have points, they have electronic ignitions that most of us know little if anything about.