I have a 72 custom Vette thats been setting for yrs and have been trying to get it road worthy again. I work 2 jobs so my free time I like to have to myself. I towed my car to a mechanic to get it back in shape. This guy seemed to be an alright guy and he seemed to need the money. I thought wtf I'll give him some work on an easy car to work on for the basic stuff I needed done.

It needed a brake line repaired, a master cyl, old fuel taken out and carb cleaned, oil changed. I wanted the plugs pulled and oil put into each cyl for its 1st start up. I also wanted him to install some new plugs and shocks too along with just about anything he seen wrong. I gave the guy $300 cash to start off so on so he could pick up a few parts.

Well to make a long story short after a month there I finally got a master cyl and brake line. He kept saying parts were back ordered or it was the wrong part. I had thought the guy had drained my oil day one but he just did that after about 3 1/2 weeks of tinkering with. MY CAR RAN ON 10 YR OLD DIRTY OIL AND I BET HE NEVER PULLED MY PLUGS. Now I'm getting pissed. :mad I went by the other day and he had just got the brake line fixed and installed a master cyl. Gee thats about a whole 2 hrs work done to my car in over 30 days.

I asked him if my shocks had come in and he said yes they did and he said he installed them and they didn't raise my car up any at all and he took them back. WTF? I never said I wanted my car jacked up I said I wanted a set of new shocks. Well after hearing that and all the slow work on anything at all I looked at my old shocks and guess what? Yep they had never been taken off. Not a nut turned on them. Lied to! :mad

I went by yesterday to see if he had brakes bled YET and when I got there the guys front door was open but he didn't answer the door. I went to my car that was setting out and got in to see if I had breaks. Nope! The guy had put a letter on my steering wheel saying he was real busy (he's out in the country and has maybe 1 or 2 super small jobs a week) and that if I wanted my car worked on faster I'd have to take it somewhere else.

Lol after reading the note I heard his front door close and he never walked out to say squat. He defiantly knew I was there but wasn't going to show his face.

I knew what I was going to do. This morning I got a friend and we went over to try to hobble the car home with halfarse brakes. The guy took my fuel filter off and ran it straight to carb. I have a funny feeling he never drained my tank with 10 yr old gas in it. The carb plugged up and wouldn't pump.

I said screw it and called a rollback tow truck and got it back home. I got the car home about 1pm and my 6 had the majority of the work done. I need to rebuild my 650 dbl pumper tomorrow and have the car running Sat.

Moral of this story is if you want something done DO IT YOURSELF. I am. :mad

 

Lots of truth there. NO ONE is going to treat "your baby" like you would. Sorry you had to learn this lesson the hard way.

Lots of good luck with it.

 

Yeah I know. I'll get it pretty much by myself. Only 2 things I can't do is paint and I want a 370 gear put into rearend. The 308 isn't what I want at all.

 

I've taken my car to a mechanic (I use the term loosely) once. It was to get the AC running after it had been out of commision for maybe 10 years or so (compressor out of the car), but all the parts were there. Also wanted him to install a radiator as it sprung a leak on the way to the shop. Told the guy to install new expansion valve, hoses, flush and fill. Not that hard... Well the guy tinkers with it for weeks, then tells me he filled it with freon and it blew a hose. Wants me to pay him $180 for the lost freon. I tell him no way, I told oyu to replace all hoses. He mutters and grumbles but promises to replace the hoses. Several weeks later he finally got the radiator in but says the AC won't hold a charge and the evaporator is leaking. Oh, and the engine won't start!

I get there and take a close look at the car. The so called mechanic is not there. The drivers seat frame is broken. The MSD box is fried. The wires for the electric fans have been cut and TWISTED back together and then wrapped in tape. I quickly re-wire the ignition to by-pass the MSD and take my car home. After spending 3 evenings repairing all the damaged wiring and seat frame I take a close look at the AC. No wonder it is leaking... he never installed any o-rings!!! Also didn't replace the POA valve which was needed. New valve, o-rings and a charge later the AC was working just fine. Never was a leak in the evaporator.

The shop was in the same building as the guy that painted the car. A year or so later I was visiting the painter and the mechanic stormed over yelling I never paid him. Now I'm a calm and quiet person but this day was the exception. I laid into the guy real hard and shared my feelings. Felt good.

 

I do all work on my car myself, that way, I can get f%$k ups for free instead of having to pay for them

Seriously, when you own a 30 year old car you have to either have deep pockets or learn how to do things yourself if you want things done right. My short block, tranny and differential were all professionally built back when I could afford such things but in my present situation, I would tackle doing those things as well. Bargain repairs can be found, but you get what you pay for.

Craig

 

I honestly feel that there is nothing on my car I cannot do and at some point in my life whether it was on this car or another there is no component I haven't touched, diagnosed or replaced. Simple fact of the matter is there are many things I just have no inclination to tackle given time constraints, the simple nastiness of doing it without a lift or the requirement for specialized tools to do it correctly. This makes me occassionally depend upon others with which I have had some very BAD experiences. Such as the time before last, had a week to go prior to a track day in Portland and wanted to get a new set of springs installed, a dyno run performed to check some recurving changes I made and an oil change. After getting stuck at work for 2 days and three nights contigeous there is just no way I had time to do it and my trusted mechanic as usual is booked solid 2 weeks out. So, there is this corvette shop near my home with an owner who has a reputation for being a complete @#hole but hey, I'm getting desperate and jerk or not this is all the guy works on, I mean how bad can he screw it up and there is nothing to be done on the engine mechanically? I call him and he promises he can have it all done in a day and for less than $300! Awesome, so I take it down, one day becomes 2 which stretches to 3. By the end of the third day he has seized my engine after airchiseling off the old filter then test driving the car when the new was ejected. Claimed it wasn't his fault and that I still owed him $1700 for labor even though the springs he installed he elected to cut so short the car was riding on the stops with the springs rattling in their pockets. I guess maybe the alignment did look good as it left on a flatbed. Just amazing, this moron has been in business for probably more than 20 YEARS. After I was victimized people were coming out of the woodwork asking me what happemed, what did I do etc as many many others share the same experiences. To get my car fixed as I just didn't have the time and insurance companies, lawyers etc are involved it then had to be repaired elsewhere and to get trusted people to get it done took a YEAR! Just got it back on the road yesterday, Wahoooooooo!!!!!!!!!!! I am back to turning wrenches myself from now on unless I encounter some very unusual circumstance.

Point is, it could have just as easily happened in a professional appearing established business. At least you damage was only limited to $300, I wish I could have been so lucky. But in the end the car is now better than it ever was

Good luck
-Andre

 

Yeah, you're right. You gotta do it yourself. I've been messing with cars a long time ovewr the years, but when I got my Vette I really didn't have time to spend getting her road worthy. (or so I thought)

I think it might have been an omen, when after driving home about a 1/4 mile (right after I bought the Vette) there was a loud POPING sound coming from the engine! The engine still ran and I managed to nurse it home another mile. It turned out that the carb needed to be rebuilt! And I only owned the car 15 minutes! Was this a sign of things to come? Not having the time to spend diagnosing the problem, I took the '70 to a local garage and after a couple days, a mechanic called back to tell me the carb needs rebuilt and that this would cost about $400-500!! A new one I asked him? Well that would be about $500-600 if he could still find one, this being a 30 year old car! Well it was at that point I decided that I would perform as much repair and restoration work as possible. For I had already priced a suitable replacement carburetor for less than $250! That's when I realized that the only way I could be assured of quality work would be if I fixed my Vette myself.

Persevere.

 

Amen to all of your Forum Brothers and Sisters ! Me thinks a big part of the problems is that there aren't many real mechanics around anymore. Most today are just parts replacer with limited mechanical knowledge and only want quick bucks. For tougher jobs, they either don't know how or don't want the hassle.

 

 

The only time I take something in to be fixed I make an appointment and make sure I can stay there while they work on my car. I will not let anyone touch my car unless I am there. Of course the only time I let someone else fix my car is when the tools would cost more than the labor by several times.

 

Yeah....and since there is no diagnostic port to plug into that will tell them what's wrong.....their lost!!!!
Eddie

 

I believe that many Corvette owners hold their car in high esteem, including me. There are a lot of garages and mechanics that look at it as just another car. That combination is fairly combustible, with no additional fuel needed. We tend to go overboard while the garage may be looking to get the job done and the car out the door. When working on an approximately 30-year car, other things come up while doing a task or something breaks while removing another part. The do-it-yourself vette owner/mechanic is more than likely going to let the car sit and order additional parts as needed or to repair something else while the car is apart. We all know it's better and cheaper to do the job right the first time instead of re-doing it again. Almost all my parts are factory original and never have been replaced/repaired. Now that I am doing some work, it seems I am finding little things that should be replaced such as brake hoses. I don't really want to spend more than I have to, but I feel once the car is done I should be able to get at least another 30 years of trouble-free use out of it.
I only work one job, but I am there 60 to 70 hours a week (self employed). Since I have started on my project, painting the frame, I actually look forward going home to spend a couple of hours an evening working on it. The rear suspension and differential are now out and new bushing, seals, universals, and possible bearing will be put in. I feel comfortable in knowing that this may be the first and last time the items need to be replaced in my lifetime.
If you cannot find the time or do not enjoy working on your car, then it would be wise to find a mechanic who does. Someone who is professional enough to do competent work and also understands that your wallet is only so thick. If your car is going to pay for his mortgage, food for his family, etc then he more than likely have to charge you their going shop rate. There are many mechanics that do great work at home and do it on the side. The hard part is finding these guys. Evidently the one you choose had some problems, probably the main reason why he wasn't busy.

 

While we're on the subject, I had similar dealings with someone named Mario Fiolla who was supposed to remove the interior from one car, dye it and put it in my car. He was recommended by Vanacour's and so I thought if he does their work he should be pretty credible. As I was working 7 days a week 12-16 hours a day for about three months and his shop was 1 1/2 hours away I didn't have a lot of time to check on progress. iThe end results in a nut-shell; I didn't even get all of my interior pieces, let alone have them dyed and installed. The other thing he was supposed to do was install the wiring harness out of the same car after bead-blasting connections replacing bulbs etc... Well needless to say he didn't do **** of the sort. When he brought my car back and I saw what wasn't done, he told me when I get the engine in, he'll finish the job. I told him he'd have to start the damn job before he could finish it. Anyway, I guess my point is anyone around Southeast Louisiana or Southern Miss. steer a wide path of Mr. Mario Fiolla and his company "Corvettes". After this I decided I'll do the work on my car myself if it takes 20 friggin' years, rather than get screwed by an a-hole like that again.

 

Heheheh.................Sheesh.......... .

Try and find a "mechanic" in Saudi Arabia!!!

:shocked:

 

Well, I've had a different experience. I've had my 69 and the son's 74 worked on at Bastrop Tire and Auto, and these guys spend hours researching stuff to make sure it is done correctly. I know they spent a couple of days making the oil pressure gauge read correctly after a ZZ4 was installed on the 74. They don't charge me a thing for their research, and they really try to make things right. They don't charge me for parts they try that end up not working, or the labor that went into the experiment. I can do some things, but I really don't have time to pull the dash, troubleshoot wiring problems, repair the E-brake, verify gauge readings and tach accuracy, etc. These guys do it for the love of the challenge. It also helps knowing the owner who is a freak for an electric problem. He loves figuring that stuff out. They aren't the fastest, but they like our cars as much as we do, so I am probably the luckiest guy in the world in terms of having somebody work on the Vettes who really care.

 

if you have a trusted shop that take's care of you you need to take care of them when you can