Re: Here's what's going on w/my Scout/Help in the Bay Area?

["J. Michael Shaw, II" <MikeIIDC@domain.elided>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Farmer <pharmer@domain.elided>
To: J. Michael Shaw, II <MikeIIDC@domain.elided>; Tom Harais
<tjhemh@domain.elided>; Heather & Bryan Faldalen <bryheath@domain.elided>;
ihc-digest@domain.elided <ihc-digest@domain.elided>
Date: Saturday, April 17, 1999 6:07 AM
Subject: RE: Here's what's going on w/my Scout/Help in the Bay Area?


><Michael's painful repair story removed for the sake of the children>
>
>Man, you have had some bad luck!  Glad to see you had the persistence to
>keep the truck!  Most folks would have sold the vehicle after that,
>regardless of the fact that the real problem was a $20 part.
>
>I don't know, but the mechanics in your situation didn't sound competant -
>like Tom said, they were experimenting with your money instead of
>diagnosing.  And,you don't really need to know about IHs to track a problem
>down to a distributor.  You need to be a diagnostian.


I would not lay this on the mechanics.  When the truck would, as I said,
sometimes only do this every few weeks.  And I NEEDED it fixed; they could
not possibly drive it until the truck malfunctioned.  Once again, if you
know a mechanic that is willing to drive my vehicle for about 600 miles to
find the problem, refer me to them PLEASE!  In this instance, I would go in
to them, describe what had happened, and all four of them, including the one
who solved it, said it was something in the fuel supply.  With these being
the two most reputable mechanics in town, and the guy I later found was a
Northern New Mexcio IH guru, I cannot say that they were not competent.
Because they were all shooting the same direction, I think that they were
doing absolutely the best they could under the circumstances.  And once
again, if you can find me a mechanic that will let me take their work out
for weeks at a time and come back and say that it was wrong, and they will
give me my money back or try something completely different to fix the
problem for free, please refer me to them.  I would probably drive all the
way to CO to use them!
Jesse ended up looking at the dist because he claims that IH's are tough on
them. He had seen this before, and I have had it happen three times since.
Once in that same truck within a year, and twice in another truck with a 345
within about two years.  His IH experience saved me here.

>I spoke to a bunch of mechanics about my very low oil pressure in the
>Travelall's 392.  They all asked, "how many miles?"; I replied 160k, they
>all responded, "it needs to be rebuilt".  But when I asked folks on the
>digest, they assured me it didn't.  I finally found an honest mechanic
who's
>a little more scientific in his methods.  Rather than just assume it needed
>a rebuild, he put a mechanical oil pressure guage on the engine - and
>discovered that I simply needed a new sender.

On the other hand, I had the nightmare with the IH mechanic in New Mexico
after Jesse finished doing some stuff on my truck who told me my oil
pressure was too low to drive it (even after putting a mechanical guage on
it), my whole brake system needed replaced, and my exhaust was shot.  I bled
the brakes, drove the thing to San Francisco from his garage in Santa Fe,
and crawled under it to find that the exhaust problem was because he/his
employees had forgotten to re-attach the exhaust pipe to the exhaust
manifold!  He was an IH mechanic that came highly recommended to me through
this list, and I still would rather dive into a filthy toilet from a hundred
feet than ever let him near my truck again.
I look at it like I have been pretty lucky in finding the guys that I have.
I paid my dues, but most of the people I have dealt with I believe are very
honest and very competent.  The two garages that are MOST reputable in that
town both told me going in,  "If we can't reproduce the symptoms, we can't
promise you anything, but it sounds like ____."  I have no problem with
this.  Once again, equating everything to bartending, a lot of people want
the world and expect even more-I am VERY proud not to be one of those
people.  If you tell me what you are going to do, I agree to it, and you do
it, I will pay for it-period.  If it doesn't work and I come back, I
certainly appreciate it if you give me a break on the next round, but
certainly won't demand it.  However, I have no problem letting someone know
when they have done something I didn't ask, or they have done something
different than what they said.
A common example:

Customer:  "Yeah, I want this shot and it is sweet and red and has Southern
Comfort in it, but I can't remember what it is called."

Bartender:  "Sounds like an Alabama Slammer."

Customer:  "Yeah, I'll take one!"

Bartender:  "I mean, it could be something else, but that's waht comes to
mind."

Customer:  "Yeah, give me one."

Bartender makes it, serves it, charges for it, customer drinks it.

Customer:  "No, that's not what I want after all."

Sorry-he ain't getting his money back.  And I have had to deal with similar,
and often MUCH worse, more innane situations enough that I will never be the
"Customer" in this instance, whether it is over a $3.50 drink, or a $350.00
repair.
Simply the way I choose to be.
So anyway, I guess the bottom line is that each of us shall pick and judge
our mechanics in our own ways.  Just looked back and saw how long this got
to be!  Sorry for wasted space!

Peace!

Michael