It seems that front end work is rife with scares and abuse. I took a Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham to a Goodyear shop in Dalton, Ga for an alignment and was told it needed half a grand worth of parts first. I declined, drove it 10k more, and took it to a mom and pop shop in Clarkesville, Ga for two tires and alignment, and it needed no parts at all. (It healed itself!) I asked when paying and the guy said ‘these big ol’ things hardly ever need parts, less ya hit somethin’. I had a friend with a Toyota truck, was given the same scare (incuding the ‘tire wobble’ trick with it on the rack) at a Pep Boys. He declined, went to the dealer to buy the parts to do it himself and the counter guy asked how bad the wreck was. When he said ‘no wreck’ they offered to check it for him. It was fine except for leaking shocks. Patrick
Smokey, in Georgia, ‘that guy’ is driving a lifted Super Duty with thousands of dollars worth of accessories. If you hire him, a crew of mexicans shows up. He’ll drive by at the end of the day to check on it. Patrick
About two months ago I was at a local car show; There was a guy soliciting performance and custom car work. He had a nice display and a couple of cars showing his work. It looked good. I talked with the shop's owner and explained exactly the type of body work that I needed done. He said that they could do it, and that I should drop in so that they could look at it and give an estimate. I agreed and brought the Buchev to his shop. They looked the truck over and told me that they would be able to do the job in about two weeks; they would call with a ballpark price within two days; they even wrote up a service order. That was about six weeks ago, and I'm still waiting for the call. I'm not going to beg him to take my money. If he has decided that he doesn't want the job, I don't understand why he can't man up and call me to say so. It must be nice to have all the money that you need.
That is standard operating procedure around here. I cant find anyone to do work on my house. Called a bunch of contractors for an estimate. Two called me back. One actually showed up for the estimate. And that guy never got back to me with a price. I wound up just doing it myself.
That's par for the course around here. Neighbors had a roof done. Saw a guy in a totally tricked out 2500hd Silverado writing up an estimate, measuring, etc. A few weeks later a Rusty van fill of Mexicans shows up and does the roof. Tear off and replace in two days, did a nice job. As they we're cleaning up, fancy Silverado guy shows back up and looks it over. Came over to talk to me (soliciting neighbors since all out houses were built at the same time and are getting close to the end of the life span of the shingles) and I asked him about his operation. He told me point blank he writes them up then contracts out a crew from somewhere to actually do the work. Wife's friend just married a guy that "owns" a roofing company. I asked him about it, he said he does it the same way as do many. Apparently it's common practice.
Off topic, but on topic as well...we service corporate aircraft(Citations, King Airs, Nextants, Embraers...etc.). Right now the FAA has mandated all US aircraft have ADS-B avionics to conform with new aircraft tracking. Honeywell..a big aviation company consistently will turn down our phone calls and deny us access in leiu of the heavy iron/airlines which are utilizing 737,757,767, A320, A330,..the big ones! It must be nice to have so many customers that you can be rude and actively ignore phone calls.
There's nothing wrong with that; I know a screen guy down here that (after Irma) changed his phone message to something like " We are not taking on new customers right now, if you are an existing customer please leave a message." That's being honest. Making a customer believe that you want his work then stonewalling him is just being a child.
Well, I have dealt with the same transmission and converter company for 15-20 years. I have bought multiple transmissions and converters from them. High dollar stuff. I have directed many guys to them who have also bought transmissions and converters. I contacted them 7-8 weeks ago for a total rebuild of my Coan TH400 and 258 mm Coan converter. They said they were extremely busy, and to prepare for a 7 week turnaround. No problem. As always, I told them to spare no expense and to replace or repair anything that was needed, and that I wanted them both “as new”. They said strap them to a pallet and they would have a truck pick them up, and they would ship them back to me in one of their new shipping boxes when the work was done. See pics below of what I got back. They did not use one of their nice crates that I agreed to pay for up front. The converter was on its side with a forklift hole thru the box and yes the converter got tagged too. The corner of the box went thru one of the pallet slats so of course the forklift nailed it. The back of the trans nor the output shaft were supported during transport as they should have been. The trans was as dirty as when I sent it. My fingerprints from loading it were still on it. I blew the engine 5 years ago, and the oil and grime and grit from that is still all over the case which makes me wonder if they even flushed out the transmission or cleaned it. Sawdust from building the box I shipped it in was still stuck to the case. When I called Coan about it, I was told they clean all of the rebuilds in a vat of some sort, and that they recently hired a new, young guy in their shipping department and he must not know the procedure of shipping a transmission yet. Well, mine wasnt cleaned, and it certainly wasnt shipped professionally. They said dont worry, it was dynoed and the pressures are fine and not to worry all of the parts they charged me for were installed. I sent them pictures and they insisted the case was cleaned which means I must be imagining things. I mean, how can you clean the inside of the case, but the outside remains untouched?? But, if it would make me happy, they would send another truck to get it, take it back to their shop and they would wash off the case even though that would negate any profit they made from the rebuild. They said opening the case to inspect it would not be worth doing. But they said they would wash off the case to keep a customer. Well, thanks but no thanks. I guess if you are buying all new from Coan you might be good to go. But if you need a rebuild or service/support then your business isnt too important. They are too busy to do it right the first time.
If you wipe your hand across the case, your hand is black from the oily grime. This thing looks exactly the same as when I sent it to them. Exactly. Now I need to find someone to send it to to open it up and inspect everything to make sure its right.
Mexicans get the job done right. It don't matter what skin thier in. This guy Smokey seems like the boss, that's what Bosses do.
That's a broad statement, I must disagree, some do and some don't just as any other ethnicity/nationality has its qualified and unqualified individuals with varied skill levels and as far as a boss goes, what are his/her standards in having his employees doing a competent procedure, there's much more to it than Mexicans get the job done right......
I meant nothing derogatory when I stated their presumed nationality, but rather that the crew this guy sent didn’t seem like they were his crew, staff, or even regular employees nor were they driving a company van nor using company tools. Instead, I got the impression that he doesn’t have a roofing company but instead had one expensive truck, business cards, and the ability to outsource cheap labor. Patrick
How about a company that sends letters to current customers saying they no longer want their business. Said they were downsizing their customer base. We didn't have issues and always paid them on time so don't understand their logic. Did not waste my time contacting them for further explanation and am now using one of their competitors who was very happy to upsize the customer base.
