A $168 gizmo can be fixed for a sawbuck

Paul Carpenter

July 23, 2008

The two steel brackets for the motorcycle's carrying rack were not designed for the weight of a big Givi luggage box and, in the middle of Kentucky, one of the brackets broke.

It took bungee cords, rope and prodigious amounts of duct tape to get me and my Givi box home.

I bought new brackets and they broke, too, so I went to the FabTech welding shop in Center Valley to get them reinforced. When I picked them up, Brian Pollinger had welded a dinky piece of round steel on each bracket. Obviously, that would never last, so I wound up getting two extra sets to keep on the bike for the next time they broke.

That was more than a year ago, and when I returned to Center Valley the other day with another problem, Pollinger said hi.

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''How are your brackets doing?'' he asked. I told him I could not believe it, but the ones he fixed first were still working just fine.

''I knew they would be,'' he laughed. ''You're the writer. I'm the welder.''

I'll get back to FabTech, but motorcycle accessories are not the only things I break. I have an Infiniti coupe and the trunk hinges are augmented by little hydraulic gizmos called support cylinders, each about 8 inches long. It's too embarrassing to admit how I did it, but I snapped off the end of the shaft on one.

When I went to the Bennett Infiniti parts section in South Whitehall Township, the parts guy looked genuinely shocked by what came up on his computer.

''It's $168,'' he told me.

I began a rant about how this would be the last Infiniti I ever bought, but I did not think I had any choice in the matter, so I ordered a replacement. I stewed and stewed over that $168 price tag, however, and finally decided to return to Center Valley for another try.

I'll skip a few details and go to the part where another FabTech guy, Todd Daniel, handed over the repaired cylinder gizmo and said ''10 bucks.'' It looked new; I could not see where he'd welded it. He said he once had to replace a similar hydraulic cylinder on his pickup truck's camper, and he found it in a McMaster-Carr catalog for $22.

After I cancelled my order for a new $168 gizmo, I checked the McMaster-Carr Web site and found hydraulic support cylinders, similar to the one I broke, that ran around $13 to $17.

I have no problem with the people at Bennett Infiniti. It's not their fault what the Nissan Corp. (which makes the Infiniti) puts in a parts computer, but I did wonder how Nissan explains a $168 price tag for a $17 gizmo. Is the version in their computer gold-plated?

Their corporate press office in Tennessee never got back to me on that.

Speaking of Center Valley, not everything there is a bargain. For example, you can pay $4.25 for a medium Cokeat the Rave movie theater concession stand.

The Rave is not the closest theater for us, but we go there because it's in the Promenade Shops at Saucon Valley, which has this region's only Cosi restaurant.

My wife had grilled wild Alaska salmon and I had alpine chicken ($9.99 each). Then it took just a minute to walk to the Rave for the 10:10 p.m. advertised starting time of ''Mamma Mia.''

As long as I am in a complaining mood, it did not start at 10:10. We sat through 22 minutes of commercials, one after another.

At home, you can switch channels or hit a mute button if anything as cheesy as a Geico commercial comes on. At the Rave, you're a helpless captive for 22 solid minutes of torment by Geico and other hucksters who seem to target low IQs.

Anyway, 10:32 p.m. finally arrived and so did the fun of ''Mamma Mia.''

While the critics were right about Pierce Brosnan being miscast (he can't sing a lick), Julie Walters was worse; she's about as attractive as Ma Kettle, but lacks Ma Kettle's charm and wit.

The Brosnan-Walters embarrassment was eased every time Meryl Streep or Amanda Seyfried appeared. Streep has been knocking me out for decades and was great, but this was the only time she was ever upstaged.

Seyfried stole the movie and -- as you know unless you've been living on Mars -- she is from Allentown.

The Lehigh Valley should throw her a parade.

paul.carpenter@mcall.com 610-820-6176

Paul Carpenter's commentary appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.