Following a current transfer to a metropolis residence with no storage, I discover myself in an identical predicament to many different car-owning apartment-dwelling Individuals; The place the fuck do I work on my automobile? I nonetheless have all of my instruments and jacks, and I’ve positively completed upkeep (as much as and together with engine swaps) jobs out within the open earlier than, however I’m outdated and it’s sizzling. So I booked some rental time at an area DIY auto restore store known as Wingman Storage. This place guidelines, and I’ll positively use them once more sooner or later.
Our Porsche Cayenne Diesel was overdue for an oil change, and the dealership fees over $500 for that job alone. It additionally had some squeaky entrance brakes that I needed to switch and figured I’d purchase the rears anyway. We’ve had this automobile since December, and I needed to offer it a look-over myself, so I wanted a method to get it up on a raise. Fortunately a good friend really helpful Wingman, and I received myself booked in for a much-needed wrench session.
Armed with an oil change equipment and a contemporary Powerstop pad-and-rotor set from ECS Tuning, I headed right down to Wingman on a Wednesday morning to get beneath the truck and get it again in tip-top form. I rolled in because the store opened and marveled in any respect the area I’d be borrowing. There are three lifts within the store up for grabs, every outfitted with its personal toolbox, workbench, air provide, vacuum, and mini fabrication station. With additional units of just about each automotive instrument you may consider, Wingman is best geared up than any house storage I’ve ever labored in.
The one factor you may’t do by yourself is function the lifts, presumably for insurance coverage functions, however that’s a brief activity that Wingman does for you. As soon as the automobile was up within the air I used to be given free rein, kind of, of the area. The oil change went like a breeze, and even higher than regular as a result of I didn’t have to discover a place to get rid of the outdated oil afterward.
I used to be a little bit stunned to see the brake calipers have been held on with a beefy triple sq. bolt. I hadn’t seemed into what instruments can be wanted for this job earlier than digging in, but when I’d completed this job at house, I’d have been caught working to the ironmongery store for a instrument I’d use as soon as and possibly lose earlier than I received round to changing these pads once more. Fortunately Wingman had a full set of huge triple sq. sockets, and it didn’t sluggish me down for even a minute.
The entrance brakes hadn’t worn right down to the factory-equipped brake pad put on sensors but, however the rotors have been fairly severely grooved (as you may see), and the pads have been fairly low, so I swapped all the brand new stuff on. Whereas the automobile was within the air, I inspected the rear brakes they usually nonetheless had loads of materials and confirmed little indicators of damage at almost 90,000 miles, so I left them alone. I’ll shelve the rear brakes for a future job, saving me some money and time in the long term.
I accomplished the whole lot I wanted to do, and checked out after two and a half hours. The store area rents by the hour, so my partial hour nonetheless counted as a complete hour, however they gave me a first-timers low cost due to the good friend’s referral, and it labored out to only $99 for a three-hour slot.
Was it value it? Effectively, contemplating I spent about $600 for the oil change equipment and brakes, and $99 for the area, my invoice on the Porsche vendor for a similar work would have been considerably larger. Shopping for the components aftermarket as an alternative of by means of the vendor saved me various money, however doing the work myself positively made a financial influence. Was it nonetheless costly as hell? Yeah, it’s a Porsche. It was completely value it for me to do the work myself.
Should you’re within the Cleveland/Akron/Canton space, and also you want a raise for a number of hours, name up Wingman. What an incredible area!
