About a month ago, I was having a terrible time getting my car to start in the mornings when the temperature dropped below 25 deg. F. My car was also due for its annual inspection. To make a long story rather shorter, after a couple false starts and several days’ wait, I finally managed to find a mechanic who a) could work on my car’s carburetor and b) was certified to inspect my car under the more stringent NYMA requirements. (I was staying with friends in Orange County at the time, which is far enough away from NYC that most mechanics don’t have the equipment to do NYMA inspections.)
Unfortunately, I missed getting the message that my car hadn’t passed inspection until I actually got to picking it up. I’d already been away from home for over a week and was anxious to get back, so I said I would return the following week to take care of the remaining stuff. “What does it need to pass, and how much is it going to cost me,” says I. “Well, the high beam is burnt out on one headlight [that I knew], you need new wipers [that I also knew], and your front brake hoses are in dangerously poor condition. That’ll come to about $280.”
Holy crap. :eek: I’d just spent nearly $300 to get the carburetor fixed, and money was (still is) extremely tight because I hadn’t been getting my full paychecks lately. (The company I work for has been struggling mightily, and a new half-time position I got to pick up the slack hadn’t started up yet.) No way could I get the repairs done just then. I also couldn’t help but feel that as a desperate new female customer, I might be getting taken for a ride… a feeling reinforced by the fact that my car was performing only marginally better after I got it back. I was not inclined to go back to this guy again.
Fast forward to this week. Finances haven’t improved yet, but now I’ve been ticketed twice for overdue inspection (at $65 a pop) and face the prospect of getting more. So I performed triage on my bills, made arrangements to work from home for a couple of days and left the car at a local garage yesterday. I told the mechanic that the car didn’t pass inspection previously because of the brake hoses (not mentioning the headlight or wipers), and asked him to fix whatever was necessary so that the car would pass.
Today at lunchtime I picked up my car, and asked about the outcome. “Well, I looked at the hoses, and yes they are old but they seem okay otherwise. You did have some stuff clogging up the carburetor, which we cleaned out.” I held my breath as he did his calculations and came up with a figure of … $82. No mention of the headlight, or the wipers.
Damnit! The low dollar amount was a relief, but now whom do I believe about the state of the brakes? How can I trust that the second guy was right about the brakes if he didn’t catch two things I knew needed to be fixed? (I bought my own replacements and just installed them, btw.) The only mechanic I ever really trusted is nowhere near home or work these days, but it looks like I’m going to have to take a day off to let him go over the car again, once I have some more money in hand.
Why oh why is finding a trustworthy and competent mechanic so damn hard to do? 