A good mechanic is beyond price.
I have been through a few mechanics and am back to the one that came to me as part of my wife's dowry.
I had issues with the other guys.
-One was so gifted that he did not ever need a torque wrench. I found that out after I hit a pot-hole in Flint, Michigan at 4:00 AM and snapped the (new) ball-stud off a tie rod. Flint is approximately 80 miles from home.
-One who was in psychic communication with the engine and 'fixed' them by replacing parts he "knew" were either bad or about to go bad. Needless to say it took several expensive trips to the shop to make the original problem go away.
-The mechanics who would bust things and then charge to replace them.
The people at Holt Auto Clinic saved me a bunch of money over the years. They even told me when to get a shade-tree mechanic to do work. I had a part wear out on Mr Green Jeans. They told me that they had an obligation to do things by the book which can get pretty expensive when disassembling parts held together by corroded fasteners that are run into weldnuts. But... Mr Shade Tree could cut through the bed of the truck to access the parts, perform the work and then cut a piece of exterior grade plywood to fit the entire top of the bed.
The lead mechanic teaches classes at the local community college and everybody who works there is extremely personable. Auto mechanics seem to have a lot of turn-over. It speaks well of a shop when the "new guy" has been there seven years.
Yes indeed. A mechanic these days that doesn't have a diagnostic computer on his bench is lost in the woods. There was once a time when a good mechanic could listen to an engine and tell you what was wrong with it. Those days are over. Today's engines are much too complicated for that.
ReplyDeleteI once had a shade-tree mechanic with some body work experience put a gas-flap-door in the bed of a truck, in case we ever needed to change that part again. This guy was fairly inventive and loved working with sheet metal. Surprisingly, I never needed that little door, but it was nice to know it was there.