Gonzo

That's generally what I do, it's amazing how fast they come up with the cash when you tell them a storage charge is going to be added. Oh, and one more thing.... these are usually not repeat customers, so don't be surprised if they feel its neccessary to unload a mouthful on ya when they finally get by to pick their car up. (You should check out a few of my articles... LOL or my book... done it, had it happen, and wrote a book about it)

Parts, Prices, and People There’s one thing that never changes in the world of auto repair, and that’s change. Every model, every year has some slight difference from the previous one. Even though functionally, the same results are achieved, the newer version will undoubtedly accomplish it with a slightly modified or different component than the older version. The big issue is usually cost of those replacement parts, and sometimes that’s a real shocker to the consumer when they get the estimate for repairs. One rather hectic morning a lady came in with a headlight problem. The diagnostics came to an abrupt halt when the dimmer switch lever was found dangling from the steering column. A pretty straight forward repair, tear down the steering column and replace the switch, then see if there was any other problems down the line. But, it wouldn’t be much of a story if that’s all it was, now would it? The part in question was not just a dimmer switch, but the entire combination switch: turn signals, cruise, etc… and the part, oh boy, was it outrageously expensive. I’ve had many of these seemingly insignificant components that you would think wouldn’t break the bank turn out to be so expensive. Some people can’t cope with the reality of the cost, and take their anger out at the front desk. This was no exception. When the parts supplier quoted me the price on the phone I was already shaking my head, knowing what was going to happen next. I said to the parts guy, “You know, the price of this part is going to be the deal breaker on this one. How in the world am I going to sell this gold plated dimmer switch to this lady? I know it’s not your fault, and I know you’re just the messenger… but you probably know what I’m going to be dealing with next.” He laughingly answered, “Yea, I know. I get the same reaction from shops all the time… sorry bud, but you know how it goes.” I realize the cost of some of these parts and components is enough to sink a battle ship; it’s just something you have to deal with as the mechanic.. or the consumer. Just to be on the safe side I called all my other suppliers and the dealer parts department to compare prices. Everybody had about the same price, give or take a little. I’d like to think that I’m very sympathetic to the unknowing consumer’s pocket book. I really feel sorry for them, but I just can’t do anything about the cost of some of these parts. At this point, it’s out of my hands, it is what it is. Now the fun part, I have to break the news to this lady. “This is highway robbery. You’re gouging me! It shouldn’t cost that much for a dimmer switch! I had one changed on a car I had several years ago, and it didn’t cost this much! I’m not paying that, I’ll take it elsewhere, and I’m never coming back here again!” said the lady. (You know, I actually expected that kind of response.) Stands to reason when a customer has a thought in their head as to how much something should cost, and you throw a number at them that is completely off the charts, they’re going to go ballistic. Calming this lady down wasn’t going to work, she had made up her mind that this wasn’t right, and was bound and determined to let me know just what she thought of the whole thing. The more I explained, the angrier she got. It’s not like this lady was a new customer, quite the opposite. She had been in several times for other repairs, and I never had a problem before, but now I’ve got a situation that isn’t going to end happily no matter what I do. Customer reaction to the cost of parts is nothing new, typically they’ll make a few calls and find out it’s pretty much the same anywhere they go. Sometimes, they’re so ticked off at the thought of spending that much they won’t come back. Pride I guess. They’ll go to another shop just so they can avoid a face to face confrontation with the original shop that gave them the quote. I totally understand that, even though it does seem a bit foolish. I may diagnose it, find the problem, and write the estimate up, only to have the cost of the part become the dagger that kills the deal. The sad part of it is, there are lots of components on today’s cars that are quite frankly… way overpriced. (We all know it, but again…we can’t do anything about that.) Try explaining the cost of replacing HID headlights and ballast to someone who just came in thinking they needed a new bulb. YIKES! Comparing one car to the next doesn’t work anymore either, and if for some reason a customer calls a parts store and the right information isn’t passed to the counterperson by the caller, chances are the quoted price will be for the wrong application. Nine chances out of ten when that happens the price is likely to be for a cheaper component that doesn’t fit, or is the wrong part all together. Now my job at the service counter becomes even more difficult. As the lady stormed out of the lobby full of other customers she had to spout off one more time about how much of a crook I was, and how she was never coming back. She made it a point to tell all the other customers waiting on their cars that they should think twice about having me work on their cars. Seriously lady, ya made your point… now leave. The next day I got a call from a shop on the other side of town. He said he just had a very disturbing, very demanding lady show up to his shop. (This particular shop is one that I’ve done business with for more than a decade.) He told the lady that he doesn’t do electrical work, but refers that type of problem to my shop. The lady sternly told him, “Well, I just left there. They are way too expensive, and I’m never going back there. So you fix it instead!” He promptly told her, “Well, ma’am, he’s the best in town, and I don’t do that kind of repair. That’s why we send everything there.” “Who else would you recommend?” she asked. “Nobody,” he replied. “Well I need it done, and I’m not having them do it.” “I guess then, if you’re not going to have them do it, it ain’t getting done… you’re on your own lady.” I got a laugh out of that one. (Thanks for sticking up for me partner… appreciate that.) Of course, I haven’t seen the lady again. I’m sure she found somebody to change out the dimmer switch by now. But, I doubt it was any cheaper. Parts and their prices will constantly change, and will always challenge our perception of what things should cost. On the other hand, some people’s perception about the prices of car repair… may never change. View full article

LOL, my wife used to work in the office..actually for about 15 years. She used to call her job "Damage Control" cause if I got pissed at something she was there to smooth it out, me included. Being the manager, or the boss... takes a whole different set of values....something we all learn with years of experience.

A wheel fall off...since I've been in business...ah, no...BUT back when I was young and dumb (got thru the young part) I was changing the wheels on a Triumph for a used car lot I was working for and had to take it down to get it aligned next. I left the lot turned onto a busy street and in the middle of the intersection the right front took off down the street leaving me blocking traffic. I managed to get it to the corner and called the boss. He was more concerned about the car, me...I was scared shtttless. LOL These days, it's torque sticks and a torque wrench. Safe instead of sorry...besides, getting stuck in an interescetion isn't high on my list of things I want to do again.

Nothing like helping someone with their car and then fit it a little person to person involvement into it. This is far beyond the little "extra" we all do when we have a car in the shop, you know, like... "I saw your tire was low so I added some air to it." or "That door handle was loose so after I finished the brake job I tightened it up for you... no charge BTW." The "sandwich" represents that we see our customers as more than our next paycheck. Wish we all could offer a chicken sandwich to our customers. Sometimes, it's just the right thing to do. And, to do it...shows we care. Great story Joe

Gas is sold by the liter. But to calculate it to a gallon its about 4.00 per. Mexican straight gas has a high impurity rating so you want to buy the premium level. Its more refined.

The video says it all...

I've watched "Scanner Danner" for quite some time. He's got some great methods of teaching scope reading. A good guy (a big health nut BTW) He's been teaching for about 14 years now. Good stuff.

Too funny... yea that was one of the first videos I did for them. That's actually my shop in the background. It took the better part of the afternoon to shoot it. Look closely... the cars change...LOL Got my big fat hands down in the car and wouldn't ya know it... we had to reshoot the seen again. LOL It's a fun project, I'm supposed to be doing a few mores... haven't yet... but I'm sure I will...just a matter of timing.

Here's a little more on how the independent shops seems to operate down there. Most of the shops are converted houses that have been gutted out and a wall knocked down to allow the cars to enter. The floors are dirt and not even close to being even. Lots of rocks and what not sticking out of ground. Lifts are set on a slab of concrete big enough for the post, however, it's only a couple of concrete blocks buried with about 3 inches of concrete to hold the whole mess together. No tools, no scanners, no wiring diagrams.... and practically no idea what the heck their doing....but their doing it. LOL They seem to do a lot of clutches, brakes, and engine work. About 75% of the cars are standard shift. (Less electronics of course) Most of the parts stores are not "box" stores. There was an Auto Zone in one part of town, and a BF Goodrich tire shop, but other than that the mom and pop part stores are about the size of a small apartment. The customer area is only big enough for one person to stand there while you wait on them to find the parts. Most all the parts are old NOS stuff... nothing new, nothing up to date. I did see some old Chevy's around. 55, 56 model... looked a bit rough but it was all there. Most of the cars are Nissan, Toyota, a few Jeeps, a couple of Hondas, Fords, Chevys..etc... I even saw a Lincoln SUV... seemed out of place. There were a lot of cars that I couldn't name... some off brand...looked Russian or Chec. Couldn't tell for sure. Well, I could go on, but I think ya get the idea. Pretty cool trip, and to see things from a different perspective makes me appreciate the good old USA even more.

Glad to be home, glad to be able to take the time off to see the other side of the world. Back on schedule... Love your comments and thoughts. Keep them coming

Mechanic Culture Shock When you go to another country with their own set of values and way of doing things, you soon find yourself making comparisons to your own surroundings, and how much things are different than you’re used to. Being there yourself you’ll see things the way they really are, and not how the evening news or the documentary channels portrays it. Recently my wife and I took some time off for a trip to Mexico. We enjoyed the beautiful ocean breezes, the spectacular palms and other tropical vegetation. We spent the days lounging around the pool, and then watched the beautiful sunsets every night at a little cabana café while sipping on the local brew. Even though we had other reasons for being there, and work wasn’t one of them, I still was interested in checking out how the local mechanic operated. Puerto Vallarta, Mexico thrives on tourism. Large ocean cruise ships dock near the downtown area daily. Taxis are waiting everywhere to take the tourist to all the hot spots in town. Cars zoom past each other on the main thoroughfare with just inches to spare. (You can always tell who’s the new arrivals are by the death grip they’ll have on the back of the seat in the taxi.) After a while though, you get pretty used to the zipping between cars and the sudden lane changes or the odd stop light arrangements, just sit back and enjoy the views. On one of our hair raising taxi adventures the driver asked, “Donde es usted?” (Where are you from?) and then he asked, “A que se dedica?” (What do you do for a living?). I told him where I was from, and that I was a mechanic. He replied in perfect English, “Are you a good one?” (Wouldn’t ya know it, I go miles and miles from home and ya still get the same responses when you tell someone you’re a mechanic.) Apparently, good mechanics are hard to find everywhere, Mexico included. One morning we decided to take in some of the local sites, but we also wanted to see some of the local areas that generally are off the usual tourist spots. We found an understanding taxi driver who spoke very good English who understood what we wanted. I told him that I was interested in seeing a few mechanic shops as well. Not a problem, since his uncle owned a small shop here in PV. We drove by a few new car dealers on the main street areas where all the service bays are open air; you could see every inch of floor space, the lifts, tools, etc... The floors, walls, and the mechanics were spotless. Our taxi driver said that he doesn’t get his vehicles fixed at the dealer, because they were so much higher than the local independent shops. (Sounds familiar doesn’t it.) He went on to tell me that most locals don’t go to the dealer either. It’s just too expensive for them. Very few independent shops are visible from the main thoroughfare, so it was time to venture into the local scenes. As we turned off the neatly hand laid brick main streets, we soon reached the uneven and bumpy cobblestone roads that are common throughout this part of the world. These are teeth jarring, bone rattling, and suspension beating roads that require the dexterity of a surgeon to navigate them without bouncing your passengers around like rag dolls. Our driver definitely was up to the task. Formula one speed when needed, and then back to tiptoeing around like a butterfly with sore feet. Amazing driving skills to say the least. The streets twist and turn or gain attitude so quickly you think the cab is getting ready to launch into space sometimes, and without any type of emission standards in place the fumes in certain areas, or in the two main tunnels in town can be a bit much for someone not used to it. There’s not a lot of room for error with the streets so narrow but with a soft toot on the horn or a simple wave, a non-spoken language is communicated between drivers and they all manage to avoid tangling bumpers. (amazing…) Most of the independent shops were dirt floor, with one or two lifts. Parking is hard to come by because every available space is used, front parking is rare and you can forget about anything you might call a waiting area … it just doesn’t exist. Part stores aren’t big or elaborate either. They are very small, and I mean small! Parts are hard to come by, so a lot of mechanics spend hours repairing the original parts as best as possible. (Try that in the states.) From what I was told, every effort is made to repair things (no matter what it takes), rather than to replace parts. A carburetor that would be considered unbuildable in the states is nothing for the crafty Mexican mechanic. They’ll tinker on the thing for days or weeks if needed, just to get it to work again. Our taxi driver said it is very rare that anyone ever gets upset that it takes so long to get their car repaired. “It’s just the way things are here,” he said. Scanners and modern tools are not very common place; if possible, electrical related problems are generally pushed off to the side, while more effort is concentrated on getting the cars running and rolling again. There are a lot of electrical repair shops, though. They’ll spend the time to change a single bearing out of an alternator and put it back together, even if the brushes and other components are barely reusable… but being still usable, means they still work. Nothing is wasted. The whole atmosphere of the shops and the customers is more of a carefree attitude, and not so much the hustle and bustle like in the states. (OK, except for when they’re behind the wheel of a car… yikes watch out then.) And after spending the day driving around observing the work habits and conditions these shops owners and mechanics go through on a daily basis it got me to thinking. “What was more important today, the car or the customer?” Now if I have to explain that one to you… you definitely need a vacation. This attitude goes both ways; from the customer’s anticipation of getting their car repaired to the mechanic trying to make the repairs, our hurried society puts a lot of pressure on solving things quickly and efficiently just so we can all stay on that fast paced life style we seemed to have become accustomed too. Here in the USA it seems to me that if we stopped long enough to see the fading sunset, or took a moment to witness the last rays of sunlight to disappear, the second after it disappears over the horizon somebody will be in a hurry to go somewhere else and ruin the moment. Yea, it was a culture shock to see how the other side of the world handles auto repair… but, after a few cervezas, a few more of those beautiful sunsets, I think I could get used to the local pace and learn how to slow down and enjoy life too. View full article

Howdy! You'll find just about any topic here. Well worth to check in on a regular basis. It's about the only place to find veteran shop owners who have been around the block and know what to expect. Knowledge is the key and this is one site you'll find a lot of that. WELCOME!

Seems everytime you look at a situation and you know the cost of a replacement component is more than the car is worth or out of the customers pocket book... AND you take the initative to go the cheaper way it always bites ya in the seat of the pants. I totally agree with everybody... give them the option first! Then the decision is entirely theirs and if the patch job fails it's their problem not yours. (Considering too...that the patch job was first done well.) Been there..done that...got the chew marks on the ars to prove it.

consider it done... LOL

That is so true... in fact...I haven't seen this long time customer in the shop since. As one guy put it, "When a shop plays the "shell game" of he said, she said or tries to load the repair and then tries to scare you into it... I run!!" This is a classic situation and one of the most disturbing ones. great comments BTW I wrote this story years and years ago but I always felt it was too "bitchy" to publish. Now, I'm glad I did.

Yes, you're right Ken. But, to add to that. The battery has a 1-800 number on it and has a date, the battery was the correct battery, and the real big issue... she drove the car there with not battery issues. Why didn't somebody suggest to not change it and let her go one her way??? When a shop feels it necessary to hard sell someone by scaring the crap out of them that's when I think you've drawn the line of improper business practices. That's really the point I was trying to make with this story. Thanks for the comments

Paradox Paradox: a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd, but in reality expresses a possible truth. That definition sounds a lot like the situations I get into at the repair shop, some absurd, some self-contradictory, and some that have a small amount truth to them, but I never know which one (or all) it’s going to be. A frequent customer of mine had bought a small car for their daughter to drive back and forth to college. It’s a nice little car, low miles, decent shape, and well-kept. The only thing it needed was a new battery. I was happy to oblige him with a new one, and off to college she went. That was last year, and then just a few weeks ago I get a call from the father that the daughter’s car is having a new problem. She could drive just a few blocks before the temperature gauge would start to climb. “I’m guessing a coolant system problem,” I told him. Since the car was out of state the dad and I both agreed that she should take it to a shop and have it checked out. It turned out to be a faulty coolant fan. You would think changing the coolant fan would be the end of it, but the technician noticed the battery that I installed earlier was leaking acid out of the positive post. Which is a problem, sure, but let’s not call it “life threating”, as they seemed to have put it to her? Not only did they scare this guy’s daughter half to death with wild claims, but they also felt it necessary to tell her that they were “the one and only shop” to perform repairs on her car and that the last shop that had installed the battery had installed the wrong one in the first place… namely me. I do take it as an insult to the trade when another repair shop finds it appropriate to scare someone into making a repair. The paradox that all shops are created equal and all mechanics are the same but perform the same repairs with the same results is no more a true statement than all cars are the same color. As I listened to the customer relay what he was told I got the feeling this was more of an attempt to “up-sell” the customer rather any kind of emergency. The dad stated to me what the service writer told him, “Obviously, the person who put the battery in doesn’t know what he’s doing. Only an idiot would put the wrong size battery in a car.” OK, now you’ve gone and done it, ya pushed my “pissed off” button. I could have put the wrong battery in, I could have installed it wrong, and I most certainly could be a complete idiot. But what part (or all) of this is the absurdness? There’s definitely a paradox here… but exactly where? “Don’t turn the old battery in. Have her bring it to the shop when she comes back into town and I’ll take care of it. I’d like to see what they are talking about,” I told him. A week or so later the car shows up at the shop, the battery was wrapped in a garbage bag in a box, inside another box. The dad was standing at the counter and I’ll have to say, with a not so happy attitude. (I could tell the “other” shop has done their damage.) There was no problem warranting the battery, I was more concerned with the story behind it all. After unwrapping the battery it was clear that it had been leaking for quite some time, although it was the correct battery for the car. We checked the car out together, and there didn’t seem to be anything pulling on the cable that could have caused it. (The cause was undetermined and probably will fall into another paradox of unexplained problems.) Should I warranty the battery? Sure, what’s a battery in the whole scheme of things? The paradox isn’t the battery; it’s the story behind it. Ok, we’ve checked the installation, we’ve checked the battery, and we’ve checked for any outstanding reasons that might have caused the problem. I guess that only leaves one thing… who’s the idiot? “Why couldn’t they just warranty the battery for you while you were up there?” I asked. “She took it to a dealership and they don’t sell that brand of battery. They have their own brand. So I had to buy that one.” he tells me. Now it’s making a little more sense: yes, it was only a cracked positive post seal and yes, it was in need of exchanging, and yes, it was quite a drive back to my shop. (But I’ll bet there was a battery dealer close by. It’s a national brand.). More to the point, she drove into their service bay with a car that was over heating, not a battery issue. She could have easily driven out that way if given the chance. Would it have been a bad thing to drive back with the battery in that condition? I don’t see why not, although when the hard sell is placed in front of a young driver and you’ve got dad on the phone miles away who’s worried about his off spring, that “hard sale” becomes another paradox. At this point, I have to go by the judgment of the tech at the dealership on this one. I, for one, would have probably suggested a new battery too. But, I think I would have also suggested finding a place that could warranty the battery instead of just selling her a new one. (If possible.) Now we add a new paradox to the story: Would it have been wiser to find a place to warranty it or would it have been wiser to sell her a new one… or would it have been wiser to find another shop to look at the car who wasn’t just trying to “up-sell” her more parts, and the real issue… bringing in the fear of automotive failure into the conversation. Then to add the part about telling good old dad and having him worried too. And where am I, oh I’m the guy standing in the lobby with a busted battery in a plastic bag, inside a box, inside a box. It’s just another one of those paradoxes in a pair of boxes. View full article