My very terrible experience

[Frank <fca@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Back in January of this year (1998) I overheated my =9287 Milano Gold and
caused what I believe to be head gasket failure.  I contacted a very
well-known Alfa Romeo specialist mechanic about it and he asked me to
bring the car in for repair.  I delivered the car to him on February 2
with the clear expression that I needed it back pretty quickly, as it
was my daily driver.  After almost one full year of constantly calling
his shop, pleading as patiently as is possible for anyone, getting the
run-around from him, it was not until December 16, 1988 that I finally
got my car back =96 still in its damaged state despite having paid
$2,038.02 for work he had supposedly done.

What do you do when a mechanic arrests your car like this?  The obvious
answer is you remove it from them.  But what do you do when they claim
to have done work costing almost twice the original estimate you agreed
to and the car is still as dead as it was when you delivered it?  To get
your car back you must agree to more work estimated at $1195 or pay for
=93work already done=94 and walk away with practically nothing.  I think
that is what is meant by =93caught between a rock and a hard place.=94

I had intended to publish the details of what happened to me as a
warning to others.  I have no doubt many on this list will suffer the
same fate as I, this mechanic, as I have learned in the past few months,
is legendary for this sort of thing.  Mine is not an isolated case.

I have struggled this past weekend trying to balance my feeling of
obligation to warn others as I wish I had been warned, and my hesitance
to publicly disgrace another person.  I feel nothing for this man but
disgust and something close to hatred for the financial and emotional
rape I suffered in his hands, but I wonder if it justifies exposing him
to humiliation and ridicule.

I wish one of the many that have suffered before me had said something.
Someone in the near future will wish the same, of that I have no doubt.
Would I be doing a great service to fellow digesters by revealing the
identity of this mechanic?  Or a terrible thing by subjecting a man to
the disdain of thousands.

Frank (Cape Cod)

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