Honest Car Mechanic - another oxymoron.

They say the biggest stress comes with moving house. I disagree; it comes with moving house and then having to find a new mechanic for the car. Not all of us can afford new cars and the prices that main dealers charge for servicing and repairs are just too outrageous. Some of us, I know it’s hard to believe, have to run second-hand cars that are a few years old with a few thousand (with mine read 100,000) miles on the clock.

Where I live at the moment Chris is my local mechanic, it’s his own business and it is always choc-a-bloc with customers’ cars. Why? Because Chris is as honest as the day he was born. I’ll just repeat that for the hard of reading and the unbelievers. I said ‘Chris, my mechanic and owner of the garage, is honest’. He will always fit you in. Always does the job he says he will do. Never overcharges and bills you 30 days later with another 30 days to pay! I can leave my car with him and tell him to fix it and go away in the secure knowledge that he will not find that the Scruton flange is not attached to the Foucault sprocket and that it will (sharp intake of breath followed by head shaking) cost me an arm and a leg.

Now I have to move to sunny Plymouth where I have lived before and have experienced mechanics. Now in Hollywood/Gangsta parlance a ‘Mechanic’ is slang for an assassin. This is a good enough analogy because the mechanics I’ve had dealings with in Plymouth have attempted to assassinate the contents of my wallet, do to death my bank account and strangle my cash flow.

Some examples:

My ex wife, when she was the wife, had some problems with the Car (she was in Plymouth studying I was in Bridgwater being househusband and kiddy sitter) She rang me, I said take it to a garage, one of the big chains. She did, she rang me back telling me that the steering rack was broken and the car needed a new one.

‘O’ I said ‘How much’?

‘Lots’ she said

‘Ring the AA and get them to tow it home’ I said

I took it to the local garage over the road (not Chris unfortunately), it was a Renault Dealer and they showed me where one of the engine brackets had lost its rubber.

It cost me about £3 and half an hour to fix!

Another time, I had lost the MOT certificate to my car, I needed to Tax the car. So the quickest way, I thought was to put it through another test as It had only been tested one month before (this was a new car I had bought with 12 months MOT). The FORD garage I took it to rang me with the bad news.

‘Can’t MOT this mate’
‘Why Not’
‘It’s a wreck’
‘What do you mean I just bought it with 12 months MOT’?
‘Nah looks like its been in a smack and the Baudrillard joints are all out’
‘How much to fix it then’?
‘O (swift intake of breath and probably shaking of head) about a 1000 quid’
Given that I’d only just spent about £800 on it (a Fiesta) it seemed a bit unreasonable
‘I’ll come and get it’
‘OK but it’s dangerous we should fix the Hume brackets at least’
‘No Thanks’

So I got the car, took it to a local garage that had done some reasonable work for me, where it flew through the MOT except for a bulb that needed replacing and a little bit of welding underneath. The mechanic there could find no evidence of it being in a crash, the guy I bought it off checked back with the auction house he got it from and no, it hadn’t been listed as crashed.

So they were all a bunch of robbing bastards. (and I have more examples)

So what to do now? I need to find a nice honest mechanic, I would think that was an oxymoron if it wasn’t for Chris, maybe I should just drive the 30 miles every time I need something done. O the stress!

Perhaps I’ll just sell the car and walk.