Trouble Maker Posted November 11, 2005 Report Share Posted November 11, 2005 Sorry bud, I don't think you handled the situation horribly, but definitely not correctly. I was pretty pissed at first because you put me in a pretty bad spot by not making a phone call and/or checking what you should have. Now I’m ok but I think other people should know about this. So he made a thread about wanting to do some work on the side for people. I PMed him and asked him if he would be “interested in doing a timing belt, timing idler pulley, timing tensioner (just the roller/pulley I think), water pump, thermostat, and accessories belt in my Audi S4.” PMs me back and says “most likely” and ask “what engine and manual or auto tranny” so he can get me a correct quote. I PM him back with the info. He PMs me back and says ‘he can do it’, ‘8.5hours=$225” I’m thinking to myself, great, I’ve been putting this off for a little bit to save up the cash to have a shop do it (~$700 in labor+$300 in parts=$1000) or to get my Talon up and running reliable so I can do it and have a second car while it’s down. Honestly I'm not %100 comfortable doing this on my DD with such and expensive engine so having someone else do it would be ideal. I can almost justify doing it myself for $700, for $500 that line starts to get blury. But for ~300 in parts plus $225 in labor, I can’t pass this up and can just drop cash on it right now. But for $1000 I’d have to wait a little bit and save up a little more money, so I should do it now. PM him back and say ‘Ok, let’s do this. We can figure out details for timing of the job later, but I will order parts on MONDAY morning and they should be here on Tuesday afternoon. As soon as they get in I will call you and we can set something up’ These PM’s all took place on the evening of Thursday the 4th and the morning of Friday the 5th. I order the parts on Monday morning just like I said I was going to. I get home from work around 6 and see a PM that says “Because of x, y, z I don’t feel comfortable/can’t do this job.” The PM was at 5:55. I called him and he said when he original gave me the quote he wasn’t at work and just had someone look up the times. When he finally got to work/and talked to some people about the job, he found these things out. 1)Don’t fucking say your going to do a job and don’t do it. I understand why you don’t want to do it. And as I stated on the phone, no offense, but if someone doesn’t feel comfortable doing a job I don’t want them doing it anyways. 2)If you do agree to a job, know what the fuck you say you are really getting into. 3)Use the god damn phone. I gave you my phone number in the very first PM in case you needed to get a hold of me, oh maybe for something like this. Worst part of this is I get this nagging feeling the technical reasons were just excuses and he saw the ‘real’ labor involved and didn’t feel he would make enough money off of the job. It’s a water pump/t-stat that calls for 6.5 hours, it’s not going to be an easy job. Doing some pretty simple research, as I'm sure he did, without the tool but following the service manual procedure, you can get it close, but might be 1/2 a tooth off on timing, making the car down on power, get worse gas mileage. There is no real chance of damaging the motor if you do everything right. Now I have these parts that can either sit around, or I just have a shop do it now on the good old credit card? Sorry, maybe I am still a little pissed. I just love going into credit card debt to pay it off later when I didn’t have to. Wait, I didn’t do anything wrong, I’m not sorry. Karma’s a bitch, I’m sure you’ll have some $500 hit that will set you back worse than this is going to me. Cliff's Notes: Derek agreed to do a job without looking at what was involved, I ordered the parts, Derek backs out of his agreement to do the job once he sees the complexity of a DOHC V-engine t-belt and a 6.5hour water pump job. God forbid either of those be 'hard' things to do. I have $300+ in parts sitting here with my thumb up my arse trying to figure out what to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRN96WS6 Posted November 11, 2005 Report Share Posted November 11, 2005 That sucks I'd be pissed to and a timing belt isn't something to put off unless you are under the month/mileage recommendations. If you are over your on borrowed time I'd pop it on the CC and pay it off next month if feasible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trouble Maker Posted November 11, 2005 Author Report Share Posted November 11, 2005 ...I'd pop it on the CC and pay it off next month if feasible. I’m pretty sure that’s what I’m going to do. Waiting to hear back from a ‘friend’ who works at a local shop about what it will cost/what they can do for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NTHER91 Posted November 11, 2005 Report Share Posted November 11, 2005 im sure hes good at what he does but firestone dosnt get that envolved or exotic dont trust them to do much but tires and changing light bulbs thats everyone at firestone not just him or anyone else Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crash1647545504 Posted November 11, 2005 Report Share Posted November 11, 2005 Jesse, I am PMing you with a Labor Quote now at my dads shop. About the parts, if you come in, I am sure we can figure somthing out since you are a good friend, and we normally don't use parts that the customer has purchased. I need the year of you car though to give you an acurate quote. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trouble Maker Posted November 11, 2005 Author Report Share Posted November 11, 2005 It's a 2000 S4 Manual. I'm sure you're dad has All Data (or something to that effect) but I ordered the "Bentley" manual for my car, factory service manual, on CD, if it may help at all. My only concern is if he has the special tools needed. The issue is, there is a (set of) tool(s) that are required to lock some stuff in place (cam gears, maybe more?). There are no marks for timing so you have to have these tools, if you don't, the timing can (and probably will) be off. The other shop that a friend is in the middle of getting me a quote for has these tools. We can talk more about it later, I will probably go to my rents house tonight and pick that CD up. I ordered it with this order and haven't been by their house yet to pick that shipment up. I will be reading the whole procedure so I can better convey what is involved. I'm doing Water Pump, T-Stat, timing belt, timing belt idler, and timing belt tensioner pulley (just the pulley, not the tensioner). Along with a very easy mount on the front of the engine once you are in there (almost not even worth mentioning, but have to say it). Also the acessories belt, but that needs to come off anyways just to get to the timing/water pump stuff. I also already have the coolant needed for a flush and fill. I should have all of the parts needed. Thanks man, I really appreciate it. I will definitely get you back out in Colorado for the hookup! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trouble Maker Posted November 11, 2005 Author Report Share Posted November 11, 2005 im sure hes good at what he does but firestone dosnt get that envolved or exotic dont trust them to do much but tires and changing light bulbs thats everyone at firestone not just him or anyone else That's fine, when I PM him about a timing belt/water pump change on a cramped engine bay of a 2000 Audi he shouldn't accept the job until he knows what he's really getting into. Or should just flat out say "I'm not interested and/or I don't feel I have the compentencey/tools to do this job". There would be absoutley nothing wrong with doing that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crash1647545504 Posted November 11, 2005 Report Share Posted November 11, 2005 I looked at several labor guides most say 5-6 hours. Aparently the front pump has to come off. PM sent Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TurboRust Posted November 11, 2005 Report Share Posted November 11, 2005 wow I'm getting to this thread late.. you have every reason to be pissed about have a few hundred dolllars of parts sitting around in your house, but in my defense the way you motor is set up is not like most out there, I'm not unexperienced when it comes to these things just your certain set up. excuse the fuck out of me to trying to save people labor costs by 1/3 of most shops out there today. Once again I'm doing this out of my garage and have to offer my own warranty, which means if you car blows up I made 300 dollars and now have to buy you a couple thousand dollar motor. If you can't see it from that angle, then fine there are plenty of other people on here that trust me to do work for them. the fact remains that the book says to either remove the nose of the car or lift up the motor for acess, it also requires a special tool to hold the camshafts (which are unmarked)that costs a few hundred dollars. in most setups cams are marked or splined so you don't have to worry about this like that. anyways possibly in the future just take you 60k dollar car to the dealership and have them charge you 1500 bux for the job. my bad for trying to help. I'm not all about making money talk to shawn jones I just installed 2 bearings on his car for free. if anyone else wants to question my integrity fine do it I'll be a little more straight up next time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TurboRust Posted November 11, 2005 Report Share Posted November 11, 2005 im sure hes good at what he does but firestone dosnt get that envolved or exotic dont trust them to do much but tires and changing light bulbs thats everyone at firestone not just him or anyone else wrong we do a couple timign belts a week, headgaskets and anything else, but its firestone, THE largest auto comany int he US with great insurance... if we blow up a motor then we have insurance to cover that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TurboRust Posted November 11, 2005 Report Share Posted November 11, 2005 TOr should just flat out say "I'm not interested and/or I don't feel I have the compentencey/tools to do this job". There would be absoutley nothing wrong with doing that. I called you that night after going to work and looking at our manual and told you being I dont have that tool I wouldnt feel confident tearing apart your motor and putting it back together correctly. So here you say you wouldnt mind if I did this, then I did and you still jump at the chance to bash me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trouble Maker Posted November 12, 2005 Author Report Share Posted November 12, 2005 I called you that night after going to work and looking at our manual and told you being I dont have that tool I wouldnt feel confident tearing apart your motor and putting it back together correctly. So here you say you wouldnt mind if I did this, then I did and you still jump at the chance to bash me. You should have done that in the first place and not told me you could do the job if you really couldn't do it/didn't know about it yet. I wouldn't have minded if you did it in the first place instead of telling me you could do the job in the first place not knowing that you could. You obviously knew something was up when you went into work on monday or you wouldn't have looked at the procedure for it. When did Nate tell you about having to pull of the nose, over the weekend? You could have called me before that and said "Look, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do this because of x, y, and z. Hold off on buying the parts until I can do more research." Lesson learned by you, don't assume what a job entails. You NEVER called me, I had to call you. You sent me a PM telling me that you couldn't do it, but that was too late, I had already ordered the parts (about 8 hours prior to your PM). I ordered the parts exactly when I told you I was going to. Some research prior to Monday morning on your part, or a phone call as soon as you knew about this issue would have made this issue non-existent for me. I understand why you don't want to/can't do it, I stated that over the phone and in the first post in this thread. I just wish you would have researched and found that out just a few hours earlier and I could have postponed ordering the parts until I had the cash to do it outright. I'm not coming on here trying to say you are a horrible person or fucked me over. I also stated that in my first post. Just wanted to let them know about the situation and my take on it. I'm sure anyone else here would have been pissed too if this happened to them. I'm trying to save others from this possible situation. You have every right to say your side, but don't come on here and lie about what happened (saying you called me). Lesson learned for me too, don't trust people you've never dealt with and do some research about a job before you ask someone to do it Although I don't think knowning how to do a job is my responsibility if I'm paying someone to do it, it could have saved me this headache. It should cost me around $700 at a number of reputable, large shops. Just waiting to hear back from a few of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trouble Maker Posted November 12, 2005 Author Report Share Posted November 12, 2005 I answered this comment in his thread no need to copy and paste it here and clog up this thread. The reason I ever posted this was to let people know about the situation that were considering using you for work. Therefore I only thought it appropriate to let people looking at that thread know about this one. That did nothing to clog up that thread. You posting a reply to it clogged it up more than I did. If I were trying to be a dick and clog up your thread I would have posted all of this in that thread. If I were trying to be a dick and clog up your other thread I would post in that one and say "Don't ask this guy to do anyting complicated *cough*headers on mustang/tranny*cough". But this thread isn't about me being pissed, it's about informing others. Yeah, I blew a little steam in my first post, but that's only to be expected. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Jones Posted November 12, 2005 Report Share Posted November 12, 2005 Jesse, While I can certainly understand why you would be upset. IE: spending the money on the parts. I am glad he told you ahead of time rather than try and go and try and do it and possibly run into a problem. I've had Derek perform many tasks on multiple cars and always been 110% satisfied with the work. I'm sorry you felt the need to make this post, I just dont' want anyone to think twice about going to Derek for work as a result. PS: Derek give me a call about that other bearing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trouble Maker Posted November 12, 2005 Author Report Share Posted November 12, 2005 I'm sorry you felt the need to make this post, I just dont' want anyone to think twice about going to Derek for work as a result. Don't be sorry for anyone that I felt the need to make this post. I think if he's offering up his services people need to hear what happened so they can weigh this, and any good stories, in on their decisions. Feel sorry for the people on this board that would use him not knowing my story if I hadn't done this. I hope that this post in no way effects anyones judgment as to whether he can do good work or not. I had him do no work so I can't comment. If anything it shows he can do good work because he knows when he can't do the work. My criticisms are on his 'business sense' and timing. Also, if you understand why I'm upset, then what would you have done about it? Maybe handheld it a little differently but this is how I saw fit to handle the situation that I was put in. So please, don't feel sorry that I felt the need to post this. There were numerous people (friends) whom when I told them about this story, just venting, suggested that I let this be known, so I'm not alone in this thinking. I can surely tell you that I'm not just going to sit here and feel sorry for myself about it. BTW, we need to play some pool sometime. :woowoo: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate1647545505 Posted November 12, 2005 Report Share Posted November 12, 2005 Don't be sorry for anyone that I felt the need to make this post. I think if he's offering up his services people need to hear what happened so they can weigh this, and any good stories, in on their decisions. Feel sorry for the people on this board that would use him not knowing my story if I hadn't done this. I hope that this post in no way effects anyones judgment as to whether he can do good work or not. I had him do no work so I can't comment. If anything it shows he can do good work because he knows when he can't do the work. My criticisms are on his 'business sense' and timing. Also, if you understand why I'm upset, then what would you have done about it? Maybe handheld it a little differently but this is how I saw fit to handle the situation that I was put in. So please, don't feel sorry that I felt the need to post this. There were numerous people (friends) whom when I told them about this story, just venting, suggested that I let this be known, so I'm not alone in this thinking. I can surely tell you that I'm not just going to sit here and feel sorry for myself about it. BTW, we need to play some pool sometime. :woowoo: Jesse, Did you change your tampon? I'm just kidding dude, before you kill me. I'm sure Derek will be more cautious in the future when touching exotic cars, but, just remeber hes only human, and we all make mistakes. Derek is a good guy, which im positive he didn't intentionally mean to screw you over. So now everyone call him and ask him to check all data alittle closer . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NTHER91 Posted November 12, 2005 Report Share Posted November 12, 2005 wrong we do a couple timign belts a week, headgaskets and anything else, but its firestone, THE largest auto comany int he US with great insurance... if we blow up a motor then we have insurance to cover that. quote ive had people from firestone do work on cars and its always been half assed i have no idea about your skill level or do i care jsut saying that if you were such a good mech then y arnt you working for a dealer they pay better i know this again firestone is for tires not engine swaps that my opinion though and jesse i agree whole heartedly i migh tnow a guy with that tool if you end up not being able to get it let me know Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NTHER91 Posted November 12, 2005 Report Share Posted November 12, 2005 wow not any sign of punctuation read if you want or just disregaurd im to lazy to fix Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devils Advocate Posted November 12, 2005 Report Share Posted November 12, 2005 Jesse, I'm going to poop in your coffee. :wtg: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
excell Posted November 12, 2005 Report Share Posted November 12, 2005 Derek has always taken good care of me. Thanks Derek. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TurboRust Posted November 12, 2005 Report Share Posted November 12, 2005 [quote name=NTHER91 ive had people from firestone do work on cars and its always been half assed i have no idea about your skill level or do i care jsut saying that if you were such a good mech then y arnt you working for a dealer they pay better [/quote] I'm sorry you have such a bad opinoin of firestone, but aside from that our techs top out around 23/hr which is as good as most dealerships int he area, so thats an incorrect statement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMeanGreen Posted November 12, 2005 Report Share Posted November 12, 2005 This guy really has nothing constructive to add to CR anyways, Derek. Ignorance of his meaningless posts is about the only salvation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NTHER91 Posted November 13, 2005 Report Share Posted November 13, 2005 This guy really has nothing constructive to add to CR anyways, Derek. Ignorance of his meaningless posts is about the only salvation. : offtopic : :bs: I was not attacking derek at all, i'm sure he dosnt need you to stand up for him, he has never done me wrong i've never met him. I was sharing with a pal my opinion. Which you also did about me (which was also a meaningless post) To wrap up Derek if i have offended you at all it was not my intention, Im sure you have taken care of all you the cars that you have worked on. All the dealers that i know of pay more than 23/hr not that thats chump change either, but it does speak well of you to have so much employer loyalty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TurboRust Posted November 13, 2005 Report Share Posted November 13, 2005 wrong we do a couple timign belts a week, headgaskets and anything else, but its firestone, THE largest auto comany int he US with great insurance... if we blow up a motor then we have insurance to cover that. quote ive had people from firestone do work on cars and its always been half assed i have no idea about your skill level or do i care jsut saying that if you were such a good mech then y arnt you working for a dealer they pay better i know this again firestone is for tires not engine swaps that my opinion though and jesse i agree whole heartedly i migh tnow a guy with that tool if you end up not being able to get it let me know As illegible as this slop is, I personally find it rather humorous. For the pure and simple fact that the author of this slam on discount/ non-dealer qualified mechanic's could not even cut it at the very place where he is slamming. I know for a fact that Nther91 was !!!FIRED!!! from not only Firestone, but also Andy's Garage (formerly located in Canal Winchester). The reason's for being FIRED ranged from not being able to mount a tire with out ruining it to not being able to install a power window motor in a drivers door with out BREAKING the customer's window. So Shut up! Just because all they let you do was change light bulbs, mess with tires, and sweep the floor. Doesn't mean that's all they do. It was just all YOU could do with out completely fucking it up. NOT Derek:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TurboRust Posted November 13, 2005 Report Share Posted November 13, 2005 wow..meagan was on under my name, let it be known that last statement was hers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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