Still here, and still alive....

^^The part had to be bought from a local auto shop like Auto Zone. My brother in law is a car mechanic 4 hours away in another state, and he referred us to Rock Auto website, but the local mechanic refused to use a part from there. The part at Auto Zone was almost $300 but the "aftermarket" was about $125. I think it took 2-3 hours of labor, which is $90/hr (American). She had it a week amd heard a noise and they told her back rotors/brakes and it was $395 so in 2.5 weeks it was a $1000 basically. Could be because she does have a 2010 pt cruiser but it just hit 100,000 miles last week. The gas mileage sucks but she doesn't want a car payment since she's out of work for 6 weeks and in school. The only good thing is her schooling is paid for with grants, loans and tuition reimbursement thru her employer each semester.
Is it bad where you live for costs of anything?

These are the manuals i use to maintain my car.
https://haynes.com/en-us/
They also might have your car or there should be local publishers that have these kind of manuals.

Even if you are not technical it helps to know if you are charged a fair price.
I keep mine in the glove compartment so that in a extreme case if i need road-side breakdown assistance the mechanic has all the data he needs.

But if you are able to take a cox engine apart, clean it, change the gaskets, assemble it again and run it then you can do many simpler repairs already.
$90 an hour is a reasonable rate for a mechanic since it also has to cover the cost of the workshop and tools.
But you can save that when you do it yourself.

Ireland is diferent then the states.
To put it bluntly if your measure of succes is a number on a bank account or the items you own then this is not the place for you.
Taxes are higher vat for example is 23%.
If you check the links to the example parts then you see that the price already includes that tax.
They also show the price without in case you buy for a company.

Employees here have 21 payed vacantion days by law.
In adition to those there are 10 "bank holydays" on set dates those include Saint Patrick's Day (obviously), easter monday, christmas and Saint Stephen's Day (notice the theme here...) and new years day.

Compaired to the states education is either free or relative cheap (people do not end up with big debts here)
If your income is below a treshold then heathcare is free though there are issues with waiting lists.
Payed sickleave by law though after a few days you do need to be signed off by your famely doctor to claim this to avoid abuse.
Crime is relative low and the regulair police is not armed.
There is a armed responce unit with trained people but they only are active a few times a year.

There are much less "ultra rich" people here (bono from U2 would be in that list) but also much less really poor people.

Better or worse? that totaly depends on what you value.
I like it here.