[user removed]

Not really a pissing match Ford Man, and you are living proof of how much you can get out of a car (600k yet?) if you take interest in it's proper maintenance and how to stay ahead of it to the point where you don't react to the damage after the fact. With cars apporaching an average age of close to 11 years good mechanics and smart owners are both an essential component. I think the average age today is even higher than in WW2 when you couldn't buy new car for over 3 years.

It's also good to hear both sides of the coin in repair shop encounters as well as advice from those in the trade on how to tell who might give you the best service for your hard earned money.

Almost every trade or profession has its bad apples, Doctors that are drug addicts, lawyers who are criminals, the list goes on forever. With age comes experience and the subtle signs of integrity are increasingly difficult to determine with the charlatans learning and practicing their art deception to perfection.

I just told those who patronized my shop that it was easier for me to tell the truth. It might hurt a little more today, but it will always be the truth and I was just too lazy to try to use lies in communication. When you lie, you condemn yourself to perpetuating the lie, every interaction requires you to maintain that lie and compound it with more lies.

Most deceptive relationships depend on one key component. They don't last long because they inevitably trip up on the truth, and repair shop customers who are treated deceptively are your worst advertising nightmare.

My best tool was pure knuckleheaded determination. No machine was going to beat me, the real question was how long would it take to figure out what was actually wrong, instead of just throwing parts at a problem, until you lucked out a got it fixed.

regards
Mech