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Some of the promotions we have seen in this business are dumb, dumb, dumb.

Gonzo, we had a car towed into us with a steering column all tore apart this spring. The gal's fiancee had tried to fix it. We decided we had to replace the column because he had lost parts. It was an 84 Cutlass Ciera and we couldn't get one locally (they've all been crushed). It took LKQ about 4 weeks to come up with one for us. We finally got it all back together and figured out the original problem was not the switch like they thought but the starter. They had a $700 bill on this piece of junk that could have been fixed originally for less than $300. So much for DIYers.

I just did one on a Dodge Charger. On the coolant system the radiator, thermostat, and quite a few components were named. However, this car had a plastic coolant outlet that runs underneath the upper intake leaking. Guess what, since the coolant outlet wasn't named it wasn't covered. Most car may not even have coolant outlets like thjis but these warranties are written to cover ever make of vehicle. Truth is a good warranty would have covered this problem because it was definitely a defect and failure in the coolant system but it was not covered,

Some of the extended warranty companies are nothing but rip off outfits. I have dealt with those like this one. It seems that a lot of the bad companies are headquarter in PA. However, there are some really good extended warranties like AUL, GE, GM, Toyota, etc.

Ditto! My mother is no longer with us but my wife is a wonderful mother and top notch grandmother. Happy Mother's day to my sweetheart.

Gonzo, thi is not as entertaining as some of your articles but this is the most educational piece I have read. Thanks!

I really don't think the shop in my story used Moog I think is was closer to 12 months ago.

Good post! Glad to have you on board! Welcome!

When did this occur?

PLease advise if any of these are near my area. St. Louis, Nashville, Cinncinnati, Indianapolis, Louisville, and Lexington are all within 4 hours or less. Would you believe from Evansville that Indianapolis is the farthest.

I fired one last week and I don't want to ever see is him at my shop again. Eight (8) months ago we install a timing belt/water pump on his 2.4L Chrysler. He had started experiencing an overheating problem and thought it might be the water pump. We checked it out and didn't find a problem with any of our work but we did find it to be low on coolant. We also found that one of the dual cooling fans was not working. After repeated drive cycles we also discovered the radiator cap was bad. We think the coolant lose was from the radiator cap coupled with the cooling fan problem and the onset of hot weather. We did not do any repair other than install a new radiator cap although we spent considerable time looking at the car. When he came to pick up the car we told him to take the car and drive it and if the problem was mostly remedied (coolant lose) to come back in and pay for the radiator cap. That would be the total charge. No diagnostics, no labor, etc. He went off on us and got real nasty. He thought because we did $600 worth of work in August that that should fix all of his cooling related problems. He got me real upset. I finally took the new radiator cap off and put the old one back on and told him to get lost. All the time he is yelling and talking better business bureau, lawyer, and such nonsense. He was a minority with a sense of entitlement and evidently bullied a lot of people to get something for nothing but it don't work with me or my Army Ranger Service Manager. He is either stupid or trying to get something for nothing in my book.

A few months ago one of our fairly faithful customers needed two hub bearing assemblies on his Chevy truck. THis is a 4x4 with big mud grip tires on it. We quoted him somewhere around $700-800 for Timken bearings. He told us his dad could get it done for him in his small hometown 70 miles away for about $500. I had the conversation with him about first line bearings and second line bearings and how on these heavy pickups a guy wants to use first line stuff. He told me this price was for the good stuff. and I left it at that. This same truck got towed in on Wednesday needing a fuel pump. When the job was sold and we put the truck on a lift to remove the gas tank my technician noticed the right front wheel drop 2-3 inches when we raised it up. What we found found was that the right front hub bearing was about to fall off of the truck. The customer later told me that the guy who did the bearings told him they were "Moog". I told my customer that as far as our area I have not saw any "Moog" hub bearing assemblies and don't know that Moog sells them but the well known brands are BCA, National, Timken, etc. Later the same day my service manager and I discussed how AZ and the other discounters have ruined this business for everyone. They have: 1)Destroyed the difference between counter price, dealer price, and jobber price. 2)Caused even the NAPAs and Carquest to have poorer quality in some lines then in the past. My general opinion is all parts quality has suffered. I don't think brands like AC Delco are what they once were. 3)Removed old parts stores that were staffed with pros who knew their stuff from A-Z and knew how to help you. Instead they gave us counter help that doesn't know how to even look things up properly. 4)Made it harder to maintain properly parts margins when dealing with our customers.

Got one of those to work with today. Some are pretty good (AUL) and others are worthless (Penn).

I want a lift that I can get parts for 10 or 15 years from now and do not want to wait to have the parts shipped in from Hong Kong. I want a lift that I have a local service guy available to work on a lift if I have a problem. Lifts are probably the most utilized item in the shop other than a tire balancer or changer and I would not economize on that item. One must not only look at the initial cost but the long term costs as well.

What's a wrench?

There should be some kind of law that forbids certain people from ever coming near a car with a wrench.

We have all Rotary Lifts. Five 2 posts and 2 four posts.

My favorite vendor is a local independent warehouse group who took on NAPA about 18 months ago. There are things I like better before they were NAPA and something I like better since they are NAPA but I would rate them #1 for our market. At various times AZ, Advanced and O'Reilly have all been good but it depends upon the store manager and the lead commercial person. The problem with the discounters is they have all replaced good people with incompetent people at times. O'Reilly bought out one of good independents a few years ago and we used OR as our #1 but after they were well established in the market they jacked prices on us and they are often our most expensive vendor now.

There should be some type of interest and aptitude test before people are allowed into technical school. Too many kids don't know what they want to do. Working on cars sound nice so they go to school when they have no aptitude for the work. My most productive tech was working for me at 17 changing oil. He went to Nashville Diesel college and came back as a tech. The problem with all the technical schools and universities is it has be came a racket to collect the student loan money. They will take anyone who has the money.

Joe, does she have a twin sister in Indiana? We refused to put a thermostat in a woman's car that we diagnosed with a blown head gasket on Monday. We told her we would be taking her money but the boyfriend was a mechanic and wanted it done.

Gonzo, you are something else:

Same here as Joe. I have never saw a form like that and we have no such requirement for Indiana.

Yes, it is for real as far as I know. Anybody that could hit that shot deserves to win.

Gonzo, have you been practicing this shot? http://martynorth.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/fw-aerial-map-of-bubba-watsons-shot-from-the-trees-in-masters-playoff-coffc/

Joe, it sounds like it was a smash success. Here are some questions: 1)Did you do it while still working on cars during shop hours? 2)How many people did it take to do the extra stuff? Did you use technicians or bring in other people to cook hotdogs, popcorn, etc. 3)What hours did you put it on? 4)Did you do it indoors or outside? 5)Did you get the cars onto a lift or just inspect from the floor or ground? 6)Do you have an estimate of the total cost?