After a recent move a city apartment without a garageI find myself in a similar situation to many other Americans who own cars and live in apartments; Where do I work on my car?? I still have all my tools and jacks, and I’ve maintenance is definitely done (including engine swap) work go outside firstbut i’m old and it’s hot. so i booked some rental time at a local DIY auto repair shop called Wingman GarageThis place is awesome and I will definitely use this service again in the future.
Our Porsche Cayenne Diesel was overdue for an oil change, and the dealer charged over $500 for that job alone. It also had some squeaky front brakes that I wanted to replace, and I figured I’d get the rears anyway. We’d had the car since December, and I wanted to check it out myself, so I needed a way to lift it. Thankfully, a friend recommended Wingman, and I booked myself in for a much-needed wrench repair.
Equiped an oil change kit And a new set of Powerstop brake pads and rotors From ECS Tuning, I headed to Wingman on Wednesday morning to get under the truck and get it back to tip-top shape. I rolled in when the shop opened and was amazed at all the space I would be borrowing. There were three lifts in the shop for pickup, each equipped with its own toolbox, workbench, air supply, vacuum, and mini fabrication station. With an automotive tool kit that included just about every tool you could think of, Wingman was better equipped than any home garage I’d ever worked in.
The only thing you can’t do yourself is operate the lift, presumably for insurance purposes, but that’s a short task that Wingman does for you. Once the car is airborne, I’m more or less free in that space. The oil change was a breeze, and even better than usual because I didn’t have to find a place to dump the old oil afterwards.
I was a little surprised to see that the brake calipers were held in place with large square sockets. I hadn’t considered what tools I would need for this job before digging in, but if I were doing this at home, I would have to run to the hardware store to buy a tool that I would use once and probably lose before I replaced these pads again. Thankfully, Wingman has a full set of large square sockets, and it didn’t slow me down for a minute.
The front brakes weren’t worn to the point where the factory-fitted brake pad wear sensors were, but the rotors were pretty badly grooved (as you can see), and the pads were pretty low, so I put all new ones in. While the car was in the air, I checked the rear brakes and they still had plenty of material and showed little wear at almost 90,000 miles, so I left them alone. I’ll save the rear brakes for a future job, which will save me time and money in the long run.
I finished everything I needed to do and checked out after two and a half hours. The store space is rented by the hour, so my partial hour still counted as an hour, but they gave me a newbie discount because my friend referred me, and it was only $99 for a three-hour slot.
Was it worth it? Well, considering I spent about $600 on the oil and brake change kit, and $99 on the space, my bill at the Porsche dealership for the same job would have been significantly higher. Buying the parts instead of going through the dealership saved me a lot of money, but doing the work myself definitely made a financial impact. Was it still insanely expensive? Well, it’s a Porsche. It was definitely worth it to do the work myself.
If you are in the Cleveland/Akron/Canton area and need a ride for a few hours, give Wingman a call. What a great space!
