All posts by Joshua

I am more of a man

Just Life, ,

I am more of man now, for I have changed my own brake pads.

We recently took our car in for an oil change and safety and emissions, and several hundred dollars later we finally got the car to pass. Now we like our mechanic, and we feel that he is an honest guy (if a bit proactive) but he is a little pricey. The rear brakes didn’t pass safety inspection (who knew? not us), so those were taken care of at the shop, but he also recommended doing the front brakes too, as they wouldn’t last until the next oil change with only 1/32″ left on the pads. His quote? $280. I was in no mood to spend that as well.

So I embarked on a journey through the wonderful thing we call the Internet and Youtube videos, and found that changing your own brake pads is actually quite simple. It’s just a process of removing your wheel, unscrewing the caliper, and switching out the old pads for new ones. There are several other things that you could do while in there too (resurface or replace your rotors, etc.), but the mechanic had said that the rotors were in good shape, and just the pads needed to be replaced. I decided to take on the challenge.

Compressing caliper piston with c-clamp

Saturday was the first nice and sunny day we’ve had in a while, and so I went to AutoZone and picked up new ceramic pads for a whopping $54.99. Came home, put the car up on a jack, and went to work on one of the wheels. I took it slow, since this was the first time I’ve done brakes, but it actually went quite well. The one snafu I had was when trying to get the caliper piston to go back in to make room for the new pads, and I couldn’t do it with my sheer, amazing strength alone, and found that everyone online was using a C-clamp to get the job done. Luckily, AutoZone had one of those too, and we were back in business.

Overall, the whole endeavor took a little bit longer than any experienced person would have taken, but it only cost us about $70 in all, saving a couple Benjamins, and seriously boosting my pride in my mechanical skills. ;) Paige was really nice and thought that I was pretty cool, probably just because my fingers were all dirty, which is the sign of a good job well done. Everything seems to be going well with the brakes and we’re quite happy to have done it ourselves and to have saved some money in the process. Thank you Internet!

Resources I found helpful:

Going Private

Other

Hello friends and family!

We just wanted you all to know that we are making our blog private. From now on, when you come to our blog it will simply ask you for your email address to check that you’re on our “In” list (and you really, really want to be on the In list!) and then you can browse our exciting lives away. You’re probably already on the list, but if not, please send us your address, we want you to still be able to read the blog!

For those of you who follow us via RSS like in Google Reader, we will also be making the RSS feeds private. However, don’t despair! There will be a new, customized RSS feed link that you will find on the blog after you’ve logged in. Just use that one in place of the old one, and you’ll be set!

We hope this doesn’t inconvenience anyone too much, but we want to keep everyone updated as well as keep our family a little less than fully public. Thanks so much for following our blog, and look forward to seeing you in the future!

Paige and Josh

A Braaaaand Neeeew Caaaar!

Big Events, ,

Hooray, we finally have it! Yes, we decided to grow up and buy our own car, instead of having to rely on the charity of our families (thank you families!), and we are excited! So here’s the details.

We were looking for some sort of used family sedan, like a Civic or Camry. After doing some research, we also added the Nissan Altima to the target list because it got good reviews and was less expensive than some of the more household brands like Honda and Toyota. We came across a listing for an Altima on the good ol’ Wilk Board at BYU from a man named Peter, a car broker. We didn’t end up getting that particular car, but we did like what Peter was doing and decided to use him to help us find a car. For those who may not be familiar with the idea (like us when we started), a car broker is an individual who will take requests from clients and go out and find that type of car for the client, usually saving money in the process. There is a trade-off because you lose a little bit of control in the final selection, but it makes it much easier on the client.

Well fast forward a few weeks and Peter managed to find us a 2005 Nissan Altima 2.5S in really good shape, a year newer than we were looking for, and… we took it! It’s silver (check out the photos below) and drives very nicely. Because we went through a car broker, we also saved a good chunk of change on it too. So hooray, we hope to have it for many years to come. Thanks to all who helped make it possible!

P.S. – If any of you have good ideas for what to name it, we’re open to ideas so let us know in the comments below!

Look Up! A Photo Adventure

Just Life, ,

We went on a real fun date this week; it was Josh’s idea. He said he was walking around campus and started looking up and noticed how many amazing things there are to see if you just look up. So we grabbed our cameras and headed to campus to look up and take some pictures. It was fun; you really do notice so many more things if you just look up. There were all sorts of ceilings and trees and things I had never noticed, and I went to BYU for four years! (But now I’m not, of course, because I’m graduated.) ;-)

Anyway, we hope you enjoy our pictures! Don’t forget to look up every once in a while!