So just how long do you give your mechanic a pass before getting irritated?

[b5blue]

Go see the car 

[ZSmithersCharges]

Bottom line.....no work no money. Don't learn the hard way. You guys need to get your cars before someting hideous happens. Who cares what else they have going on it's your car and they are stringing you guys along. it's like either shit or get off the pot.......or maybe quit smoking it too.

+1

No mercy or understanding for these people because they obviously didnt understand you when you said you wanted your car done in a timely manner.  I'm sick of people dressing it up to be anything more than what it is.  And what it is is him not doing the work, which correct me if im wrong... is what you paid him to do? And now he doesnt even have the courtesy to let you know whats going on if there is a hold up? Avoiding is what it sounds like.  This guy is NOT trustworthy, what will you do if you get your car back and he did shotty work or messed something bigger up doing it? Get a lawyer? Good luck getting your money out of him you have no receipt and no contract.  Get your car as I said earlier before he decides that your parts would look better or should I say pay better on another customers car. 

[Silver R/T]

when having someone work on your car you need to have timeframe when it'll get done

[68charger383]

Go down in person at closing. Talk to the guy and without whining and ask about why its taking so long, remind him its been 5 months and going on 6.

Tell him you brought him the car right before the summer to fix the overheating issue so you could hit the car show/cruising season. However, that will be over in two months and you will need to put the car back in the garage until next year.

[elanmars]

I've learned the hard way and lost a lot of money. Well-it's a lot of money for ME, who is still in school and has a child. I took the car to another shop, a reputable one around here and they pointed out a lot of shoddy work. DAMMIT.

the easy way out is just to sell the car but I just can't do it. After all this crap, I'm going to soldier on and not give up on this. I don't know why I had to be so stupid and not do a contract, I kept thinking for once, be positive and not so negative, this guy has a decent reputation blah blah blah...WRONG. Always assume the worst and expect the worst.

[RusTy/SE]

I tell ya, I searched high and low, talked to many folks locally here about getting just the right 'mopar' guy to work on my charger. He is a one man operation that does full blown restorations out in his shop out back and does repair work in between the big restos. Well, I have an overheating issue with my charger, and took it to him. He found out I have a hot spot and tore it down. (left head 100 degrees hotter than right head). Well, Ive called a few times, emailed a few times, etc and just get weird responses. How long do you let it go before you get irritated? (because I think im at that point) Should I just point blank ask him to give me a firm date of completion or how would you handle it?

One sentence in your original post gives me a bad feeling. It's very much time for a face to face discussion.

[resq302]

Sometimes dealing with a one man operation is good.  With our 70 el camino SS 396, we had to have the engine rebuilt and this guy came highly recommended by our friend who has been using him for 25 yrs.  Well, dad and I went down to him with the engine and our friend who intruduced the two of us and dad and I were blown away by Nicks shop.  All he does is rebuild engines to your specs that you want or to the horsepower you want out of the motor.  If I remember correctly, our engine was done in like 1-2 weeks.  Super fast turn around and the elky's engine runs better than my charger and has more power even with a stock resto/rebuild on the elkys engine. 

I have also learned the hard way too about going through friends.  The engine that is in my charger took almost 4 mos or so to get done from what I remember.  Granted, this guy did it on the side and knows Mopars in and out which is why I went to him.  He also farmed out the machine work and such to different people as opposed to the guy who rebuilt our elky engine.  Nick did everything in house at his shop.  Hell, he even designed a machine so you set the block up in a jig and the one machine was able to bore, deck, and align bore everything without having to set the block back up in another machine.  To me, that in itself is huge because this way there is no room for error as it is all perfectly lined up with each other since you don't need to be moving the block from machine to machine.  All I know is that when my engine needs to be done, its going to to Nicks machine down in the Brunswick area in NJ!

[Cooter]

Coming from a Mechanic/Restorer's point of view here, some of you don't understand and are throwing out strong opinions without knowing WTF is going on...FIRST thing would be to find out WHY it IS taking so long, THEN post a thread bashing this poor guy..You don't even know WHY yet...


Bottom line is this..Plain and simple..If your ass can't do this type work BY YOURSELF, then you are gonna have to go down this road sooner or later...I'm not defending this guy, as he might be a deadbeat. But to put deadlines on restoration work? You all know how restoration/engine work on the side goes...IT'S SLOW WORK...It just seems funny to me that while YOU doing the work it's ok to do it part time, but when you are paying someone else who does it part time, same as you, all of a sudden, it needs a deadline...

This guy from what I gather does this sh*t ON THE SIDE...You want professional work that is done on a timeline, then take it places like MCR where the average restoration costs like $80K...THEN, you can bi*ch when it isn't done on time...Till then, this guy don't NEED your money, you came to him....Remember that when you begin to bi*ch to him about timelines...
I'd Really like to know WHY it has taken so long...I bet apples to oranges, it is something you'd have never suspected..

Sorry for the rant, but this type of sh*t sets me off..I would work on some of your cars once and never again after some of the opinions here..

[RECHRGD]

If you choose to use people who "do it on the side" it's a crap shoot.  Just because someone knows how to perform a certain task well does not necessarily make them someone that has good business or people skills.  Bob

[elanmars]

Unfortunately for me, the guy I took my car first to, that's what he does. It's not a on-the-side thing, except I found out through his lying that he was doing work for other shops too, from that dude's dad-apparently he owes a lot of money. My car was the only one he had, before I dropped mine off he was finishing another one and he wanted to do one at a time. My last straw came when he had told me the car was all set and done and he just needed a couple of days to do the final paint. I call a few days later, no response. Txt messages, all that other stuff-ignored. It's not like I was hounding him, I was just curious how MY car was coming along after I've paid him a good amount (not all, but a good amount, at the time I didn't know he was owing money and all that) and I only gave a second call a few days after. I am way too patient. Unfortunately.

I figured, oh well, he's busy I guess, even though I had a bad feeling-what can I do if the guy isn't answering? and I didn't have a chance to swing by. After a week, I got a chance to go check it out....and the car had NOTHING done in 3 weeks. That's just BS. That was my last straw. And my biggest, most stupid mistake that I'll always regret, is not making a contract. Almost $2000 I flushed down the toilet. That's a lot of money for me and it's very frustrating and infuriating. I understand doing a bit of metal work and paint isn't done in just a few days-in fact, his initial "oh it'll be at most 3 weeks, don't worry", I thought in my head "I'll make a contingency plan for 2 months just in case". 3 weeks turned to 4 1/2 months.

I wish I had the time to learn, the space, the tools and know how to do it myself. And for 4 1/2 months, he still did a very slap dash, sloppy job according to the shop I have it at now.

[CDN72SE]

73TXRallye440 I just read through the post, so what happened in your situation? Did you pull he car out, has the work been done?

[68X426]

If you are out $2k, then it's time for small claims court.

Even without a contract, a solid documentation and date line has a reasonable chance of compensation.

[elanmars]

If you are out $2k, then it's time for small claims court.

Even without a contract, a solid documentation and date line has a reasonable chance of compensation.

yeah I really do need to see about that-I also have photo documentation of the slow process if that might help me any? and I have people that were there with me when not only did I pay him-but when we did the verbal contract and money transactions.

[HeavyFuel]

Coming from a Mechanic/Restorer's point of view here, some of you don't understand and are throwing out strong opinions without knowing WTF is going on...FIRST thing would be to find out WHY it IS taking so long, THEN post a thread bashing this poor guy..You don't even know WHY yet...


Bottom line is this..Plain and simple..If your ass can't do this type work BY YOURSELF, then you are gonna have to go down this road sooner or later...I'm not defending this guy, as he might be a deadbeat. But to put deadlines on restoration work? You all know how restoration/engine work on the side goes...IT'S SLOW WORK...It just seems funny to me that while YOU doing the work it's ok to do it part time, but when you are paying someone else who does it part time, same as you, all of a sudden, it needs a deadline...

This guy from what I gather does this sh*t ON THE SIDE...You want professional work that is done on a timeline, then take it places like MCR where the average restoration costs like $80K...THEN, you can bi*ch when it isn't done on time...Till then, this guy don't NEED your money, you came to him....Remember that when you begin to bi*ch to him about timelines...
I'd Really like to know WHY it has taken so long...I bet apples to oranges, it is something you'd have never suspected..

Sorry for the rant, but this type of sh*t sets me off..I would work on some of your cars once and never again after some of the opinions here..

Are you serious?

Restorations, or any other kind of work, do need deadlines.

My car has been at a guy's shop since June 2006 getting body and paint.    If a guy doing work can't get the job done in an agreed upon time, he shouldn't except the work.  Why in God's green earth should a guy have an open end on time, just because he's doing it "on the side".  That's BS.  Yeah, we need people to do some work on our cars because we can't do it ourselves, but if the "shop" can't get it done, they can always refuse the work.  To accept the job and then take forever to complete it is crap. 

I'm not getting any younger, and my car has been getting body work and paint for 3.5 years.  And it wasn't a basket case.  It's MY car, what gives him the right keep it, without working on it? 

Shame on me for giving the guy this long, but every time I go to talk to the guy, it's always, "Yeah, we're getting on it, just need to get this one other thing done, then yours is getting lots of attention.  Hey, trust me, it'll be worth the wait and super nice when I get done"

So I leave the car with him, like an idiot.  In June it'll be 4 years.

I'm not getting on you, Cooter.  But people need to be accountable.

[b5blue]

4 years to paint!  Are you crapping me? You are a very level headed guy......I'd have blown all gaskets before 1 year! 

[RECHRGD]

Are you serious?

Restorations, or any other kind of work, do need deadlines.

My car has been at a guy's shop since June 2006 getting body and paint.    If a guy doing work can't get the job done in an agreed upon time, he shouldn't except the work.  Why in God's green earth should a guy have an open end on time, just because he's doing it "on the side".  That's BS.  Yeah, we need people to do some work on our cars because we can't do it ourselves, but if the "shop" can't get it done, they can always refuse the work.  To accept the job and then take forever to complete it is crap. 

I'm not getting any younger, and my car has been getting body work and paint for 3.5 years.  And it wasn't a basket case.  It's MY car, what gives him the right keep it, without working on it? 

Shame on me for giving the guy this long, but every time I go to talk to the guy, it's always, "Yeah, we're getting on it, just need to get this one other thing done, then yours is getting lots of attention.  Hey, trust me, it'll be worth the wait and super nice when I get done"

So I leave the car with him, like an idiot.  In June it'll be 4 years.

I'm not getting on you, Cooter.  But people need to be accountable.

HeavyFuel----Get your car out of there!!!!  I hope you didn't give this guy a bunch of up front money.  Didn't you get some type of time estimate when you were negotiating with him?  Four years is just ridicules.  Almost half of a decade!  You could have gone to a trade school and learned how to do it yourself in half that time.  Bob

[HeavyFuel]

Rechrgd....yeah, I know I should get it out of there.  But it's not too easy to find places in my area to do good work.  And the work he's gotten done is nice.....it's just taking forever.  Plus I would owe him $$ for what he's done so far, and then I'd just have to turn around and have somebody else finish it for more $$.  He said that he would stick to the price that we talked about years ago...because he understands that he has been jacking me around.  I gave him a couple grand start up when I dropped off the car.

[chargergirl]

I think the time for contracts have hit...sit him down...say I understand this new revalation...now give me a date for the completion...write it down as a contract and have him sign it...if you like the work he's doing...push his hand a bit.