Who saved who?

Have you ever seen those bumper stickers that say "who rescued who?"  It's a reference to an adopted pet and what it brings to the relationship with it's human benefactor. It implies that you would get more from the exchange than even the adopted pet would.

It has happened to me many times with pets I adopted. But this one time it happened to me with another human being. Not with an adoption, but merely with the interaction.

The third Friday of every month, here in the city of Ventura, we have a food truck extravaganza. Twelve to fifteen truck come to the parking lot of the local mall and serve food  to all the available hungry patrons that day. I was on my way to the adjacent grocery store and decided to stop by and get myself some food from the oyster truck.
As I got my food, I looked for a place I could use to sit down and enjoy my meal. Most of the tables had more than one person and it was obvious they were busy. I found one table with only one person and I asked him if he minded some company. He smiled warmly and said "okay"
I soon realized he was a homeless person. He had a bicycle next to him and along with it, most if not all of his life possessions.
We begun to talk, and I asked him if he liked oysters. He said yes and I gave him a couple of oysters from my half dozen.
He thank me. Then he asked if I had a cell phone (who doesn't?)
He asked to borrow it. Until then, I had never realized how personal of an item they had become.  I hesitated with my reply and I'm sure he noticed.

He made a phone call to his son. I could tell it was a voice message he was leaving. He finished with " I love you and I miss you, I wish I could call more often, take care"
He handed me the phone back and I headed for the grocery store nearby.
I needed ice cream and milk, some cheeses and a few other perishables. Also bread, some nuts and the obligatory bottle of wine for Friday night.

In the middle of the shopping, I got a phone call. It was the son calling his father back. I told him what had happened and he said it was too bad he had missed him. He asked me to tell him he loved him if I ever saw him again.  I said "okay, I will"

I don't recall feeling as empty as I did that time. I said I would tell him next time I saw him, but I also knew I was probably never to see that homeless person again.

The heck with the groceries!   I paid at the cashier and headed back to the truck extravaganza. I didn't know if I could find him again but it was worth the try.
Still sitting in the same place, I found him. I called his son back (dial the last number) and he came on the line. Then I handed the phone back to the homeless man.
I don't know for how long they talked and I made every attempt not to look anxious. I would wait until he was done.
Once done, he handed me the phone back and thanked me.
I don't know who helped who the most. All I know is that I felt really good when I left. But before I did, I pulled the first bill out of my wallet and handed it to him. He hadn't asked for it but it felt like the right thing to do.

The few times I've told the story, I have to catch myself from choking with emotion.
All in all, it was a great day!

I Saab story

"You have a new voice mail" said the message.

Hi, my name is ----------- and I'm the one with the Saab that you broke the "convertible top" five months ago. Can you call me back and give me the part number I need so I can get the part since you cannot find it. I'm so frustrated with you that I'm contemplating legal action (we are in California after all).

As you know, Saab ceased to exist in the US some time back.  Prior to that General Motors purchased it and stopped supporting it's parts distribution as of 2010.
Good luck finding anything for those vehicles!
Question...
How many "auto repair shops" do you know that have the native Saab scanners and software to diagnose those vehicles?
If you said ABC Auto Care, you guessed right.
Through some strange circumstance we ended up with all the factory stuff for Saab.

Back to five months ago. A 2004 Saab 9-3 convertible comes to the shop with a broken convertible top. The complaint was that upon activation, they owner got a hydraulic fluid bath and the unit has not worked since. They manually put it back up to cover the vehicle so they could drive it. And made an appointment with us. Lucky us!

The hydraulic actuator had busted a seal. We checked the system to find out where the leak was and gave them a quote. The actuator was approved along with replacing a noisy blower motor and two bulbs in the head lamp assemblies.
We also started to test for an air condition intermittent issue but further work was declined.

The problem started once we replaced the actuator. Once the unit was replaced, we noticed the system still would not work. The computer would not command the convertible top to work due to the fact it had a message stored in memory for an out of position sensor (convertible top circuit). We cleared the code but came back immediately.
Further "free diagnosis" revealed a broken cable for the convertible sequencing mechanism.
That's when things turned ugly.  Somehow they couldn't comprehend that on a modern convertible vehicle, when something fails on the open/close sequence, all kinds of things break. It's s carefully choreographed sequence that requires a whole bunch of things working together in conjunction.

From that point on, the only thing they could say was that we broke it. We must have since it wasn't that way when they brought the vehicle. The top was working perfectly until it failed. We must have broken it!

That in itself wouldn't  have been a problem. You see, all repair shops often give away a ton of stuff they know they are not responsible for. We do it to keep the relationship. It's easier and cheaper for a repair shop to maintain a relationship that it is to acquire a new one. I would have gladly just give them the cable and install it for free in hopes to keep them as a client (I know, I ask myself the same question, WHY?)

The real problem is the part is on national back order. And with Saab out of business in America, it's a likelihood the part may never be produced. But they have chosen to make me the source of their frustration when it really is the fact the part can not be found. They should be angry at Saab.

It's not may fault GM decided to dump Saab and not support your car! Now leave me alone!
#convertible top, #autorepairshop, #freediagnosis

To know thine client.

First time client.
 I put my best face forward.  I'm all smiles as I do my best to welcome her to our repair family.
She proceeded to explain to me (before telling me what the problem with the vehicle was) that up to this point, everyone (and I mean everyone) had, in her own words, screwed her royally!
Every mechanic she encountered had managed to disappoint her. Some through incompetence, some through outright larceny, some through apathy and finally some through outright meanness.
What started out as small shoes to fill, soon became very large shoes, some would say impossible to fill.
Truth is, I didn't want to work with her or her car. Some say that first impressions are made within the very first few seconds you meet a person, but it takes eons to change it.
She made a very quick first impression with me, and it wasn't a good one.
I wouldn't have worked with her but I remembered the time I flat out refused to work with a new client (they were just too angry and damaged) and they posted one of my worst reviews. Can you imagine that, I got trashed and didn't even do any work for that client!
They said I was too uppity, that I thought I was too good for them.
So, with that in the back of my mind, I decided that I was going to be the next poor sucker in that long list of shops and mechanics that had disappointed her.
But I wasn't going to go there without trying.  See, I happen to think that all people are basically good, and that sometimes you have to go through a labyrinth to find that goodness.  I was willing to go through it.
She proceeded to explain what the problem was. The local dealer had diagnosed a faulty clock spring (a device to connect the horn and air bag through the steering column). She asked what our cost to do the job would be. A quote was given and it was accepted.
Okay, you may say... "Isn't already a prescription to fail to do anything that someone else had diagnosed"
One turn of the steering wheel and I could tell the diagnosis was correct. The dealer had been right.
But it turns that they couldn't work with her anymore and referred her to us.
Beware of your competitors referrals!
Along the way she added that her driver's side window didn't work.  We quoted to test the circuit and she agreed.
The clock spring was replaced and the testing on the power window was done.  It required roughly two hours of my time to explain the work done, to put her mind at ease and to continue to make her fill good about her decision. The explanation took longer than the work on the vehicle!
Fast forward to five months later...
We get an angry phone call and it's HER!  Yep!  The same one who said every mechanic before us had messed up. Now we were in that group.
She said very angrily that her ABS was continuing to engage on a sweeping turns, just like before. In addition, since we had the window motor apart to test (we never had it out), her alarm would engage randomly.  All our fault! and we better take care of it under warranty.
I tried to explain we had not been hired to fix any ABS problem, and that we never had the door panel off - that the power window motor testing takes place at the fuse box.
Finally, when things got to yelling, I agreed to take a look at the vehicle, and at a minimum recheck all the work I had done. I was going to back up that 24/24 warranty as it was stated in the repair order.
Oh, I forgot to mention, Our long discussion on the phone was partially over the fact that I wouldn't loan her a vehicle to drive while we were working on hers. I was however, willing to rent a car for her at our cost for any time needed.
My rationale was, I don't want an angry client driving one of our vehicles.  I wouldn't want them to take their anger out on our car.
One and a half hours of unrecoverable time was spent in inspecting the vehicle. The clock spring installed was working properly.  It took another hour and a half to explain everything.  YES, it took that long!
I swear, we repair shop owners are getting to be paranoid and schizophrenic. We hear voices in our heads of the bad reviews that angry or misguided clients are going to post. It doesn't matter if they are right or if they are wrong. All bad reviews hurt small businesses and as such, the economy!
Long story short (it's too late for that), she probably has had the ABS problem for quite some time. There was a piece of black electrical  tape over the ABS light. Who knows how long it had been there.
As for the alarm issue... she had the battery replaced just recently and the system had reverted to default. We reprogrammed it to fit the client's desire (as a courtesy of course).
" So, as long as I have the car here, can I get an oil change?"
I must have had the word "sucker" written on my forehead. This time I said we were too busy but I would be glad to set up an appointment 2 weeks in the future.  By that time my prescription for Xanax will be available!!!

Can't afford you!

Its Friday around 1:30 pm and I get a frantic phone call.   "Do you work on motor homes?   I need to have the alternator and the power steering pump replaced and also the brake system flushed.  Can you do it today?"

Mind you, it's a Friday and late in a busy work day.
We don't work on motor homes. I should have said that and it all would have ended right then. The caller would have had to find some other shop to take care of those urgent Friday needs. But they were passing through town when they found themselves needing this much work in such a short period of time.  Having realized they must have been huge procrastinators for them to find themselves in this precarious position, I felt pity and then said, yes, we can help you.
That's when it all went downhill!

"How much is the total going to be?"
 I guess I must be a magician, where I know all the answers immediately in my head.  And this on a 33 ft long, yet to be seen, motor home.  I dare anyone to give an accurate quote off the top of their head without the help of at least seeing the vehicle.   You can put a guesstimate together, but under the circumstances,  why put yourself in that position.
Obviously I resisted giving the quote, which I knew would be woefully inaccurate. Back and forth and back and forth we went, until he bugged me about it enough that I caved in. Ugh!
"Listen, if you just need a ballpark figure, then it's probably around $400 for the alternator, about the same for the power steering pump and around $150 to perform the brake fluid exchange."

The response was "I CAN'T AFFORD YOU!" and the phone went dead.
I wonder what would have happened if I had said "it'll be about $250 for all that work". He probably would have rushed to the shop and try and get the work done. At which point, upon properly inspecting the vehicle, I would have adjusted the quote to the appropriate price (which probably would have been about $950 bucks)

So I'm perplexed!  I know this person will continue to call other repair shops until he finds one that will give him a quote so low that he will jump on it. That doesn't mean the quoted price is going to be the final one. All it means is someone was willing to play the "quote the low price game" in order to get the vehicle in. So, is that what it has come to?
I keep being told time after time to never quote anything over the phone to a stranger. Maybe now I will just do that!  I can't afford not to!

#alternator #powersteering #brakeservice

The "Best of Ventura County"

It's that time of the year folks!
Sweepstakes!
The newspaper and magazines are  trying to drum up business. Now that the internet is killing them, they have to try harder and find new revenue streams.
Hence "the best of........"
Ironically, I got a phone call today, the second in less than a week. The opening line is always... "We would like to feature you in the best of Ventura County, We are only taking one repair shop for this prestigious spot, and we would like for that to be you!"
Wow!!! Wow!! Wow!!
I remember having a conversation with my daughter long ago, I said, "You don't have to be the best at everything or anything for that matter.  You just have to be consistently good."
You see, the best is not real. That's right, it is not real. It's concocted and paid for. Yep, you read that right!
Okay, say a divorce attorney gets the "best of" nod.  I think that the only people that could vote should be the ones with (minimum) of two divorces, handled by two different attorneys. Then, and only then, can they compare the differences and decide who is the better or best for them.
You see what I'm getting at?  Most of this voting is being done by people who should have no opinion due to the fact that don't have a good reference. All they have is the fact they like the salon, restaurant, repair shop, attorney, etc so why not vote for them.
I've gone to the same dentist for 30 years, Dr. Satnik. Would I say he is the best?  I haven't been to another dentist  in close to a lifetime so I have no basis for comparison. Would I go to another dentist?   HELL NO!
A good measure of an opinion should be to try a minimum of five different sources and then make a decision. Other than that, you just casted a vote for someone you like, but possibly not necessarily the best.
And no, I didn't signed up with the paper or the magazine, which means I won't be "The best of Ventura County"
But I'm sure I will read who did and wish them the "best".