Dyson service

 I have been owning Dyson Vacuum cleaners for a decade or so now for they are amongst the best in Vacuums out there. And we own 2 of them, one corded and one cordless. Off late our work horse corded one was having issues and I being a "DIY person" I looked up on YouTube and did some cleanup to get performance back or at least I thought so.

A few days later I was told it is still broken or rather not up to mark. Now a quick visual inspection showed few more things broken and it seemed more involved than my simple DIY to replace them let alone finding the required parts.

There were 2 options, spend money and get a new one or see if there is an appliance repair person to fix this. The conservationist in me could not fathom throwing away such a powerful motor.

Thus began the search, I was hoping to find a local mom and pop shop who can repair vacuum cleaners and to my pleasant surprise I found an official Dyson repair shop here in Austin. The reviews seemed encouraging and hence took a chance and did the drive across the river to the shop.

There was another surprise waiting for me when I found 3 other people waiting before me 😊. The service definitely was courteous and cost was also not too much and service was very quick. They even had the spare filters which I couldn’t find anywhere else on the web. All in all a win and win and our beloved Dyson lived to see another day or lived to do more vacuum. 

How old is too old for a car

My beloved Volkswagen Passat just completed her 14.5 years of life with me and has been a great and very reliable car to drive around. Now with 140K+ miles on the car there is always the thought that lurks in my brain, how many more days with the same old car? the question became even more relevant couple of months ago when the mechanic told me that the solution to fix a check engine light would cost $1000 to fix (it ended up being ~$1600) to fix. Can I not keep the money and dump the VW and buy a different one? my mind said may be but my heart said vehemently no. 

My problem was 2 fold, I need to spend the money to fix the check engine light on the car or else whoever willing to buy the car would negotiate the price of the car as though it would be sold for parts. Secondly, since I am already paying for a car loan I didn’t want to add one more car payment (if I can avoid it). I guess this is the first time in the 14 years I have owned the car I did a compilation of how much I have spent over the years (last 5-6) in maintaining/up keeping the car, turned out in the last 6 years on an average I have spent $1,200/year on maintenance including brakes, tires and battery. So, technically the costs were in favor of keeping the car.   

I pretty much discussed with every one I can think of about the car (to fix it or not to) and I think the best answer came from a colleague of mine. Its not the money spent alone but also the time the car needs to spend in the mechanic shop and the inconvenience it would cause and how much of it can you bear and endure, there are advantages of keeping the old car for you don’t have to worry about car payments and if the car is sufficiently old enough you can save on the insurance too and in the end if you can find a good mechanic you can trust and bear with the car’s absence for a few days in a year then longer you keep the better off you are financially.

After going through 3 different mechanics in last 7 or so years, I think I have found a good mechanic in Brink Motorsports and true to their ratings on all websites (Google, Yelp etc), I recommend them in a heart beat for VW/Audi repairs.

Yes I did make my car street legal and have to decided to run it for another 2 to 3 years or longer if possible :).    

Dean TV, don’t bother to call them

For the last couple of weeks our Samsung LCD TV was exhibiting strobe light flickering pattern. I tried some googling for the solution but was unsuccessful.  Since the TV is over a year old and Samsung website does not believe in taking complaints online, I thought of trying some local repair shop.

I called this company Dean TV and they were pretty responsive and scheduled an appointment for the same day (Sunday), I was pretty impressed then. When they came in, I was expecting 1 but 3 showed up. The lead guy saw the problem and immediately concluded they cannot fix it but have to haul it to the shop for they need to run some diagnostics on the same and it could take a couple of hours. Thanks to Sandhya’s instincts, we decided against and told them we will call back. To earn his wage, the lead guy decided to open the TV at home and checked a couple of voltages on the power board and concluded that the problem is either in the panel (costs $900+) or in the main board ($375+) and they need to take it to the shop to figure this. We paid them their consulting fee and bid them good bye.

I still had to get the TV fixed and hence called Samsung. To my surprise the call went through in no time and the person on the other side took down the complaint and said somebody will call me in a day or so. They called the very next day and gave an appointment for the same day and the technician came over right at the beginning of the scheduled time (1.5hr slot and not 3 or 4hr). Unlike the other guys, this guy was only 1. He said the problem is the bad power supply board (which the other guys had certified as good) and he replaced the same. The problem is gone for now and TV is back in shape.

On the whole it would have cost me $250 for the repair but I spent an additional $50 in the process.But I learnt a few things, it is good to call the official guys first before making an attempt to call the local repair shops and It is good to call in the repair instead of trying to submit ticket online. If the number of people showing up to repair a TV is more than 1 then know that they do not know what they are doing :). Reviews on Yelp alone are not enough to call a repair shop good.