Do you trust your car at the shops you take it to??

-
Princess Valiant

Princess Valiant

A.K.A. Rainy Day Auto
FABO Gold Member
Joined
Dec 14, 2011
Messages
26,125
Reaction score
23,037
Location
Colorado
A classic mopar with a good amount of horsepower sure is a fun car to drive, are you sure that you are the only one who is enjoying?

No body touches my dart except me and this is why









 
My mechanic has a 69 Barracuda with a 383, and some crazy 170 horsepower Yamaha V-Max bike. He doesn't need my car to go fast!
 
Not to say everyone does this, but I also do all my own maintenence on all my cars.
 
One shop, two of my old customers (as a parts guy),I trust.... Googled your address listed ,Rani.. Lmfao.....
 
There's only one shop that works on my cars besides me.

It's owned by a 25 year friend that's also a Mopar head.

I'm perfectly comfortable if he or his crew want's to get lunch or step on it a bit in my car(s).
 
yea - I turn wrenches on the Scamp and no one else. My truck (a Chevy) - go ahead - stomp on it.. but ya better not break it!! - the shop I go to is good -- I trust 'em (they haven't broken anything yet....)
 
In further news; might as well never get a haircut, tons of people get bad ones, never go to a restaurant who knows how much spit (or worse) you'll eat, never go to a bar, saw a TV show where a guy goes and finds rats, roaches and fake expensive booze in there.

Most won't beat the snot out of customers cars (95% or so of mechanics I worked with wouldnt the few that may were fresh out of high-school were the ones who 'may') and if they did do anything dumb they were fired on the spot. Did I mention most 'reputable' shops(and even your disreputable shops) have insurance as a requirement of running a business. You know what happens if a tech wrecks a car? Shop pays a deductible and tech takes a walk. "Oh noes, don't drive my car, you might hurt it" every single instance I know of where a shop damaged a car (wreck, negligence, fires, fall off lift) the shop footed the bill 100% without much trouble.
 
Like many others have said, I do a lot of my own work. But there are some things don't make sense for me to do, and some times in life when I'm just too busy to do things myself.

But ultimately it comes down to trust. If I trust the guy to do the work fairly and honestly, then I should also trust him not to take the Swinger for a rip and beat on it.

And all of Rainy's examples are dealership shops. Coincidence? Probably not. The guy that does my work owns the shop, does the work, and writes up the bill. I really like the idea of supporting small business owners, because (a) they know exactly how their bread is buttered - by their customers, and (b) it keeps the money in my community.
 
Last edited:
i think you will find members have these cars because they enjoy working on them
Not many of us need or would want someone else to work on our cars.
 
Since I am the Service Writer at the shop that works on my Cuda, (when I am not wrenching it myself), I trust the techs that we have here. Other than that, no one else works on the car except me and/or my oldest son.
 
No one touches my Comet or Barracuda except me. Occasionally I need a third hand, usually a grandson or son-in-law. But the shop I take my
citizen-mobiles to (Acura and Avalanche) for service is a guy who I was his first paying customer when he was working out of a van. That was 40 years ago and I take (took) him fish and he takes very good care of my modern cars.
I did go space-shuttle on the shop across the street from my business for screwing up my wife's ML-500, told him he was unqualified to work on a Yugo and he should drug test all his employees. And to quote Ron White, I would tell the story every day until the lawsuit settles.
Guess I am feeling a little anger today------and that is after a 1.5 hour workout in the gym. Think it is residual boat capsize stress-------
DR----------------:-(
 
The only shop that works on my vehicles is owned and operated by my nephew and he is a car guy. He is a chevy guy but that's ok, he asks me how to do some of the stuff on it, like carbs. LOL He still doesn't get to drive the Demon though, it is a bear.

Jack
 
I've been using the same guy for exhaust work for years, since my BIL moved too far away! I'm always happy with his work, but my brother took his plow truck to get some exhaust work done, and they were doing burnouts in the road with it and burned out the pinion seal on the rear, then just gave it back and didn't mention it! Now I'm not so sure I'm taking my car back there, and the GTX needs some exhaust work...bad!! Sounds like it's time to take the drive up to Tony's shop!!!
 
YIKES! That's not good. Maybe you'll have to wait at the shop while they do the work. Don't give them an opportunity to de-rubberize your tires!
 
I built mine by myself. except for the trans, and a store bought dana 60. there are only 3 people I would let work on it. my ex partner on the hemi car I used to race, and his son-who did my trans., a friend I grew up w/ that has held an nhra record 18 times. of course the front end specialist that just lined it up.
 
I wish i could find someone I trust to do what I cant, like mounting and balancing tires, alignment, paint ( i can do the body work and sheet metal). Every time I take my vehicles ro a shop, they do a bad job. Even my 2013 Ram was suppose to get free oil changes for 2 years at the dealer. When it came time for me to start changing my own oil, I needed a breaker bar to loosen the pan bolt. Oil came out black. So I figure they never changed the oil. Took the Dart for an alignment. Drove worse than when I took it in. I took it to another shop that works on classic cars. It drove better, but still sucked. I checked the height of the lower control arms. One was an inch higher. How can you align a car if the torsion bar adjustment isn't set? And yes, the whole front suspension was rebuilt before I took it anywhere. So I do as much as I can. These are just a couple examples. It's been happening my whole life. It's just easier to do it myself.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top