The one thing about car culture that saddens me most is the realization that, to many people, cars represent not freedom or joy or fascination, but pain. I’ve met far too many people for whom cars are a genuine burden; something breaks, they take it in to a shop, and some greasy person across the counter hands them an exorbitant bill that they have no choice but to pay. It’s a feeling of helplessness, and it has ruined cars for many, many people. It’s for this reason that good, trustworthy mechanics are so important to me, for in some ways, they hold the keys to car culture. They can make it or break it.
I remember seeing this when I was growing up; my family was on a road trip from our house in Leavenworth, KS to a campsite in Colorado Springs, and somewhere around Hays, Kansas — basically the middle of nowhere — the thing left us stranded. All eight of us stood there on the side of I-70 waiting for AAA, who towed us into town.
There, a mechanic charged my dad $1000 for the fuel pump job; given that that was about 2006, that’s equivalent to $1600 in today’s money! And that had to come out of the pocket of a Lieutenant Colonel who was the only breadwinner in a family of eight. My dad did a good job of making it seem like it wasn’t a huge deal, as the camping trip was absolutely epic, but that’s a lot of scratch!
But my dad couldn’t turn a wrench to save his life. An incredibly resourceful and smart army officer? Sure. But a mechanic he was not. In fact, I’d venture so far as to say my mom — who was usually the one taking our cars to the shop — was maybe the better mechanic of the two. But neither of them were in a position to push back on that $1000 bill. And that sucks.
So many people experience that feeling of helplessness and dread when their car breaks down; it’s something I’ve never felt before because I have the most trustworthy mechanic of them all: myself. But some folks avoid that terrible feeling without having to do the dirty work, because they have “a guy” (so to speak). They’ve got a trustworthy shop that will walk them through what broke and what needs to be done to fix it.
Do you have a trustworthy mechanic? How did you find them, and what is it that they do to make you feel that they’re trustworthy?
Top graphic image: depositphotos.com
Once again I find my life myself strangely mirroring David’s. My dad’s- who was an amazing diplomat and but not very mechanically inclined. His way of “fixing the lawnmower” was to smash it with a shovel and buy a new one. My mom’s father was a mechanic during and after WWII and a blacksmith prior to that, so I learned a lot of simple but impactful things from him, and my mom always found top notch shops to get our cars repaired when needed- which was rare because they always bought dependable cars.
While my cars are mostly dependable, I do love to modify them, and there are some jobs I can’t do myself. In the suburb where I live in Beijing, there are a surprising number of garages that build and modify race cars, so I usually go to one them, even for things like oil change. As I want to have good relationships with all of the different shops, I try to rotate my visits.
One of the shops is owned by a race car driver, his son was in my kindergarten class years ago and we’ve been friends since. Next door to his shop is a more personal. I met the owners at a track day and hang out with the guys who work there occasionally at car shows and meet ups as well. That shop is clean and sterile where it needs to be, well sorted and organized and filled with everything from GTRs, M3 and even a Shelby Cobra was there last year. Best thing is that they also don’t mind if I use their lifts on slow days or wrench along with them when working on my car.
In the US it’s a little different. My aging E85 has had a lot of the typical BMW issues and for the ones that I can’t fix myself, I just went to the shop that was closest to my house so I could walk there and back. That shop is small, dark, and disorganized, but in the parking lot are all kids of cars, collector, obscure, daily driver… they are not afraid of a challenge, do fair work and stand by their job. The other place I go to in the when I am back home is a shop that has been working on imports for more than 30 years. The main mechanic loves to share the work he does on his own cars- engineering swapping an ex-police car was the last one I heard from him.
I feel that through getting to know the people who will work on your car is the best way. If I get a strange feeling or something is off, I won’t go back. Also, I know my car inside and out, and will notice if something is a miss or not done right. Thank my mom and grandpa for that.
As for my BMW, my fix for the error trifecta was to take the dashboard out and dismantle the lights for the ABS. No warning lights, no problem!
I found my first when in college. I slowed down for a toll booth in Houston and my 1993 Grand Am stalled out. Bad torque converter. I don’t know how I found the place but the dude was great and given my background I could do the parts plus labor math GM prescribed for the repair and he hit it exactly. I had no ability to do it myself back then, but knew what it took. It gave me confidence he was honest.
Second one was after I went over my handle bars on a bike ride. Fractured my neck/back in multiple places. I could barely move. Then my 97 XJ starter went out. I ordered the part and called them to ask the cost of turning two bolts and doing it for me. They asked how I knew it was the starter and I had to tell them because when I asked my wife to crawl under it and hit it with a hammer it worked again. But she’s an attorney and had her limitations on patience, I could hear them laugh over the phone.