A friend of mine in Britain recently had to replace a headlight on her Honda. It was hit by a rock and there was no choice but to replace it. Her description of the headlight was "an LED Matrix" unit, and since I don't keep up with terminology in modern cars, this was something new to me. The cost of the light was £729.99 and to make matters worse, it had to be aligned and linked to the computer in the car, which could only be done at the Honda dealership. Their labor charge was £350. That comes to over $1400 US dollars to replace a damn headlight.

I want nothing to do with modern vehicles. I own an old Toyota Tacoma, and I can replace any part on it by myself. Shoot, if you've got 10 and 12mm wrenches, you can virtually disassemble the truck.

For those who like to tinker with their cars, I suspect there is a cut-off point in time, where it is no longer easily done, and it may be ten years past by now.

Anyone have any stories about absurd costs with their vehicles these days?

My wooden privacy fence was blown over in a storm (Houston, TX), any recommendations for the best way to rebuild?

Currently thinking of Shadowbox, fence hanger brackets, three rails, with a rot/kick board.

Hey all,

Bought a house 2 years ago, and have had a handful of issues where I had to call someone out to take a look. Whether its plumbing/HVAC/whatever, sometimes they are clearly things I couldn't do myself, but other times, it feels like something I could probably do if I put aside the time.

Most recently, our sump failed resulting in some flooding and we had to get it replaced, which ended up costing $700 USD. I know pumps only cost around $300 and generally understand what work needs to go into replacing it, but was worried I may miss something crucial, especially when replacing the piping and screw the whole thing up. On the flip side, I've had a lot issues with our furnace, so the last time an issue came up, I spent an hour on Youtube and just figured it out myself.

Sometimes it just feels silly spending a bunch of money on labor, when its something you could spend an afternoon doing yourself. It just feels hard to gauge when its worth investing the time to figure it out myself or not. I also never know what to do in the situation when the person who took the time to come out gives me a price, it feels like your essentially trapped at that point.

Anyone with more home ownership experience have any advice?

I have two Macbook Airs that don't work. One is a A1932 (bad motherboard) and the other is a A2337 (I think a bad screen - it's cracked). Is it possible to take the motherboard from the 2337 and use it in the case of the 1932 (connected to that screen)? I understand the 1932 is an Intel Chipset and the 2337 is an M1 chipset, but would that really matter for what I'd like to do?