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Yes, I'll tackle anything
Yes, but only minor repairs.
No
To answer the OP's question - I do most wrench jobs myself due to cost.
I find it very difficult to justify the cost of paying a mechanic 3-4x the cost of doing it myself.
I have to do my timing belt again and also need to replace a leaky cam seal - found I needed a special cam lock tool for the job - found a used one on Ebay for $35 - TB kit from RockAuto was just over a $100 - a day in the garage to save me several hundred dollars is well worth it to me.
As an example - we've had intermittent ac issues where the compressor would stop when it got hot - shop wanted $540 for a Volvo compressor and $400 R&R - some searching and youtube video allowed me to fix my compressor with 3 tie wraps for a total cost of about .10
Just takes the right amount of diligence to search and troubleshoot a bit........
after the plastic tie wraps melt or the rig falls out use a puller to remove the outer pulley, (after moving the compressor back to make room for the puller) and remove the shims underneath the center hub to set the clutch gap back to .2-.5 mm (from the larger size the gap is due to clutch wear) - a more permanent fix
Its not that I dont agree with your permanent solution, its obviously correct, but my "rig" cant fall out - they're actually zipped into place.
And I'll certainly keep an eye on it, but I just cant imagine theres enough heat right there to melt a tie wrap.
Robert - youtube volvo expert - had tie wraps on his for 3 years before the gap was off again, but he had to cut the tie wraps off.
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