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Post by 2stroked on May 19, 2020 19:01:47 GMT -5
Oh. My. Gawd. I have never, repeat, NEVER paid another person to work on my vehicles. Well,this time I stupidly decided it would be easier, safer and likely better to pay the local legend to swap the transmission, rack, and steering pump in my Monte Carlo SS. 345$ down he takes the car away.
17 Mother effing days later and he finally brings the car back. Well,almost. He got the serpentine belt soaked in oil of one kind or another, and it kicked off,letting the battery drain to flat enough it could no longer run, and it died. So he pulls up in one of his employee's cars and tells me mine is out of gas, barely off the road in a BLIND curve. So I grab a Jerry Can and get a ride to the station back to the car only to be the one to discover the battery is flat and the belt is off. And it had a ½ tank of gas....
His highly trained worker tries for 30 m-effing minutes to get it back on. I get pissed off and tell them in a rather unpleasant way to remove his ass from my engine bay. I get the belt back on, get it boosted and then drive it the mile and a half or so home. All seems well. I clean the belt and all pulleys with real brake kleen and decide to take a.proper test drive. After all,dude now has 840$ of my hard earned cash so I figure my car is done.
Aside from the steering pump being DEAD the belt kicks again,car over heats, and starts shifting funny. I put my old belt back on since it's bone dry and not slick as a minnow dick, again get a jump and limp home. I now find it's leaking trans fluid and I can hear noises eminating from the bell housing that can only mean the trans is toast or my car has been possessed by demonic entities. I'm inclined to believe the first, although with my luck the later could be true as well ...
So here I sit after being without a car for six months,now with my car home after 17days of delays and wrong parts ( dude had the car back together, only to discover the rack was the wrong part and wouldn't align by 3/4 of an inch, then went through three power steering oumps looking for a good one even though I authorized the purchase of a NEW unit.
Dude is coming out tomorrow to fix whatever he has do e, he did give me a written 30 warranty on parts and labor. He damn well gonna earn his 840 bucks. I told him this evening I hadn't known he was a prostitute. He looked at me oddly and I said to him "I didn't realize I was paying you to fuck me."
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Post by fuzzyruttin on May 19, 2020 19:54:54 GMT -5
I've fixated on "local legend" ... does the guy really have a good reputation or is that a rip on him? How did you decide to go with his service to begin with?
Sucks man, hopefully your car is in better shape than when it left.
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Post by aeroxbud on May 19, 2020 19:55:01 GMT -5
Oh man you really can't catch a break.
I sure hope the warranty is something he will honour.
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Post by jackrides on May 19, 2020 23:40:54 GMT -5
Kentucky does have a state office of consumer protection. The legend will not like them.
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Post by FrankenMech on May 20, 2020 2:54:25 GMT -5
I can sympathize, It has been horrible and costly to let anyone else mess with any vehicle of mine. It seems like there is an extreme lack of competent repair persons. Not all of it is their fault, some systems are really just unserviceable by nature. I could talk for hours on why.
Once oil is on a serpentine belt it must be replaced and the pulleys thoroughly cleaned and/or replaced.
Finding a replacement power steering pump seems to be impossible. PS pumps seem to be kicked around on a shop floor somewhere, sprayed with solvent, then black paint, then put in a new box and sold as-is. They are never re-manufactured properly and new ones are impossible to find. If you do install a pump the whole PS system must be flushed and a return line filter installed, then maybe the replacement will work (probably not). The wear particles hidden in system components will destroy the new pump and other components. The whole PS system is a one-shot OEM installed deal. Any tampering with the OEM system destroys everything even on a new car. They are totally unserviceable systems from the factory. When you hear the first whisper of a howl from the pump buy a new car. Unfortunately the same thing goes for auto transmissions... |
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Post by 2stroked on May 20, 2020 6:16:27 GMT -5
I've fixated on "local legend" ... does the guy really have a good reputation or is that a rip on him? How did you decide to go with his service to begin with? Sucks man, hopefully your car is in better shape than when it left. Nah, dudes reputation is stellar. For real. That's one of the reasons we went with him. |
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Post by 90GTVert on May 20, 2020 8:42:02 GMT -5
My father was a mechanic and service manager for a long time and I've heard enough from him to know that a lot of mechanics aren't all they're cracked up to be and reviews only mean so much. One guy that he worked with had customers that loved him, but he would sell people things they didn't need regularly. Most customers don't know any better, so they're happy that he caught a problem before it got worse... even though it was never a problem. The service manager didn't openly encourage it, but told others that they should try as hard to sell parts. The same shop ignored a hydraulic lift that bucked and jumped for a long time. Eventually it tossed a van off on it's side. They told the customer and the insurance co that it had never done that before and the customer was satisfied with it and continued to go there. If they knew that the owner and manager were well aware of the issue and decided to just use it till it quit anyway, they may have felt differently.
Some guys would start bolts with an impact because it was fast and they didn't care. If something stripped, you just tell the customer that it was damaged already and you had to repair it for them and end up making more money for something that you ruined. Lots of stories over the years about all sorts of mechanic damaged things that get passed off as issues that the customer needed to pay for.
My great aunt was in her late 80s and early 90s and took her car to the dealer and they'd rip her off every time. They saw her coming. She'd go in for an oil change and come out with a list of repairs that she'd have them do right away. My father and I offered to go down there with her or look over their list of repairs before they were done, but she took that as getting involved in her business... that she told us about... rather than trying to look out for her. The dealer was the only option for her car because she figured no one could be better than the dealer. She'd take the thing in 2 months after it just had a bunch of work done and somehow it would need $500-1000 of work again. She was still happy with them though.
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Post by 2stroked on May 20, 2020 16:22:56 GMT -5
Some places just suuuccckkkk....
I've known this guy for over a decade. Worked for him. Worked with him. He actually taught me a lot about diesel equipment. but this was ten or twelve years ago. Not sure if he's getting senile, lazy or just has no shits left to give.
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Post by 2stroked on May 22, 2020 14:22:15 GMT -5
Well, it wasn't a gasket. The ignorant bastard broke the main case if the trans with a floor jack while putting it in. New garage sent me pics, it's obvious what happened.
So, now I am out $845 for what that piece of shit did, plus $75 for having the new gym come get it. I'll just sign the title and give the dude the piece of shit. Out a grand. No car.
Oh... And my scoot will not start. Great compression, good sparkno air leaks gets fuel. Won't start. So I'm out on that too. I just give up on it all. I am so done with everything.
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Post by aeroxbud on May 22, 2020 14:31:10 GMT -5
You really are not having any luck at all. Won't the original garage pay for the repairs? It's their fault.
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Post by geoffh on May 22, 2020 14:56:38 GMT -5
Kentucky does have a state office of consumer protection. The legend will not like them. Just in case your understandable anger and despair missed this,probably a ball buster but always worth a shot.,my kids keep telling me that social media is a powerful tool for us wronged folk. Geoff |
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Post by FrankenMech on May 22, 2020 18:32:29 GMT -5
Seems like small claims court may be an option also.
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Post by 2stroked on May 23, 2020 12:31:18 GMT -5
The piece of shit is smart. He knows enough to skate just Alon the edge of the law. He offered to trade the current trans for another one he has. The problem as I see it is this,the day before he took my car he said he had **1** trans that would fit. Now suddenly he has another....
Thing is I do not want him to touch my car again, so the way it stands I either pay another garage to put in the next trans, get a different unit somewhere else and pay another garage to install it. Or let that bastard monkey fuck around with my ride again. By state law all he has to do is off to replace it, and offer to do labor. If I refuse the labor, I cannot sue him for the cost of install, so I eat that..... This whole mess has me feeling....empty.
If anyone reading g this has ever been arrested, that feeling you get when the cuffs close and you realize there is NO hope for you.... That's how I feel all day everyday lately.
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Post by geoffh on May 23, 2020 15:21:05 GMT -5
Yea I,ve seen some troubles!!but most of it was embarrassment not pain,I still suffer that 25years later,but you have got to get on with life,have a look round for stuff you have and enjoy it,it,s a bit silly but that song in Monty pythons "life of Brian" always cheers me up.
Geof
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Post by fuzzyruttin on May 24, 2020 9:08:47 GMT -5
Just caught this on someone else's sig and couldn't help but post: "If you think a good mechanic is expensive, try hiring a bad one"
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