im sick of mechanics that talk all about how its not worth doing such and such to fix my 88 coug.. im sick of em sayin they dont like it.. or its not worth the money to fix it.. Had 3 different shops say similar things. its gettin on my nerves
Then maybe they are right!
James
Time to stock up on some tools.
do it yourself, save money and learn something. Everyone told/tells me the same thing about my t-bird but i'm not out to please them. After spending 5 hours today wrenching on it I still love to start it up and go for a cruise so they can shove it :flip:
Same thing here project. Im hoping to figure out what im doing before i wanna start on it myself tho :-p. That would save alot of money, shop charged me $360 to put an oil pan and balancer in, i bought the parts myself, that was all labor :-/
you guys all realize you could probley take a night class for mechanics for about the caust of labor on something with your car rite? and if you know somebody that works for one of the schools that does it, you may be able to audit the program for free, just not recieve credit. have you checked out your state colleges and vocational schools? you dont nessisarly need the entire program, but a class or 2 will do ya good. and hell, if you do take the entire program, youll graduate something like a class b tech or better. most now have it so you graduate with almost all your ASE's and souch. most of these places also let you ocasionaly work on your car their, or use it as an example after they teach you how to do an alignment, tire rotate, ect...
I guess some people think putting an oil pan in is easy :dunno: I think if it was that easy you would have done it yourself, right?
As for mechanics (seeing as I am one) don't let a few idiots give you a bad opinion about all of us, some of us care about vehicles in general, just look at the butload of cash I've thrown at my 86.
:evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin:
Did that butt load of cash come from overcharging customers? :flip: I'm just messin' with ya.
An honest mechanic is few and far in between.
Either take classes, or get yourself in there and do it.
I taught myself to work on cars (being the only car guy in the family....) and from doing, reading, asking questions and listening the only things I don't do right now are machine work (for the obvious reason as I don't have a machine shop in my garage) and major body work (as I don't have enough room at this point in time to do it "properly" (at least in my eyes)).
I also keep my focus pretty narrow as I don't need to be everyone's mechanic...I just want to take care of my stuff. Most of the general knowledge will carry over.
These cars aren't that hard to work on....buy some tools and get dirty....
Thats the problem, those mechanics look at it from a logical standpoint. Is it worth their time and yours to repair these 17-20 year old cars? They think not. We, being car lovers, think it is totally worth it and will throw large sums of cash at our cars because we enjoy them.
But not everyone can or wants to work on their own car. Everyone has the right to take a car somewhere and have it serviced. Even I do that. Sometimes it's not worth getting your hands dirty for the amount of money involved!
I went through this same my friend. The classic is how some mechanics said, "You'll never get dual exahust to fit. The passenger side tailpipe won't clear around the gas tank." Yeah....right. Back in tha day--1992-ish--I had pipe dreams (ha!) of getting my new exhaust kit installed on my old black '86 (back then, Summit Racing had this sweet Mustang aluminized dual cat-back kit for a measly $99). I took the car and kit to like a dozen shops...nobody wanted to touch it. Keep in mind the car was only 6 years old at the time. It's not like it was that old. Finally as a last resort, I stopped by a shop where an acquaintance worked. He put the car up on a lift, did some measuring, test fitted some of the kit, and said, "I can do it". And he did.
It takes someone with a little sympathy and faith to work on your car. If a mechanic is worth his salt, he'll find a way to help you. Is there also some age discrimination going on? You bet. And you'll find that a lot too. I sure as hell did, with my long hippie hair and all. I find it ironic that some mechanics won't help these "young punks" with their cars today, while they themselves were the punks not so long ago! And they most likely did way more stupid things to their old cars. All I can suggest is to keep searching for someone that's willing to help. You need someone to say, "I can do it". Once you find that person, you keep him/her on retainer. ;)
ive never had my cars touched by a mechanic, not because i dont have faith in any (well...one reason), but id much rather do it myself, the only thing a mechanic has ever touched on my car since i owned it was my wheels and tires, because i cant mount and balance at my house
the only time a "professional" will touch my car, will be body work/paint, and alignments, even being 20 years old, i have enough confidence in being able to fix anything
find a new mechanic. try several, drive around and see if they have any older stuff in the bay to be worked on. As far as "it's not worth their time" i've never gotten a discount becuase of the age of my car. my money spends the same as the money from a guy with a 2003 or 2004 car. Basically the work ethic isn't there any more, a lot of the guys in the trades have a similar atitude, buy a new fridge don't fix this one, new tv's are so much more advanced, don't fix this one. i got my mitsubishi 27" with pnp and stereo out of trash can, spent $78.00 for a power something and have had it for 6 years now.
It's an 80's fox body. Of course it's not worth the effort and cash. That doesn't mean it's the wrong thing to do. :)
Several weeks ago, someone I know had backed into my Cougar and cracked the headlight bezel, crumpled the fender a bit, cracked the header panel, scuffed up the bumper cover, cracked the turn signal assembly. The "perpetrator" offered to pay for all the damages. I got an estimate for over $1000 in damages. The guy doing the bodywork (also a friend) didnt care about the work. But the owner of the bodyshop was totally blown away that someone would put $1000 of bodywork into a car that isnt worth that much. They wanted to total the car, but since it wasnt insurance work, they cant do that. :deal:
To me, the car runs great, looks decent, is comfortable and only has 50,000 miles on it. Its worth it. :flip:
50,000.... are you missing a zero in there? hell yeah its worth it with that few 0's
No, it has the correct amount of zeros.
Well i usually do all the work myself.. The last time it was in was because of my destroyed shift linkage. (thanks to a bad driveway and a bad crossover from old exaust) Then yesterday i went to a real good place around here. they know what their doing and dont try and rip you off or anytthing so i went there.. Reason being is i have a leak from my timeing chain and i dont mess with that. So yeah when it comes to my leaks from my valve covers..yeah ill do that myself.. but not anythign with the timeing chain.
Timing chain isn't really too involved. If you can pull all the accessories off the front of the engine, you can do a timing cover gasket. However, if it's coming from another part of the oil pan, it might be best to take it somewhere, as an oil pain job involve lifint or completely pulling the motor.
myself im a c tech took 2 years of a vocational school and i am certefyed to do inspections here in new york state. so that gives me some leway for a job. plus ive been out in shops for a total of a year now and im still loving every muinuite of it. and still do my own work on my car. oh and trying to teach the fiancee a thing ot 2.
Along this line, I'm at a point to change the cam on my '83 Bird. Do I really have to pull the oil pan to get the timing cover off? Can I not get it loose enough or is the sealing of it, afterwards, too hard. If I have to pull the engine to replace the cam, I'll just wait until I freshen it and add the cam at the sametime. Thoughts? Fred
Jobs on these vehicles can be demanding at times. But until you have actually performed some of these (trying tasks) don't bitch about how expensive they can get.
Just as BAYLENSMAN said try a couple different shops if you need to to find a good mechanic but not all of us are bad just the few that give us a bad rap. After all I work on school buses, so you should hope that I spend as much time and money on these vehicles because "children ride them"
:evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin:
I can understand the whole mechanic not wanting to do work you want them to do. Luckily my mechanics will still do the work irregardless of what they suggest. I think a lot of the time that they don't realize that other people can know nearly as much as they do. In all honesty my mechanics have given me excellent advice over all on things to do and not to do with my car. I still respect their opinion, but I also know when to step up and make them understand that I actually have a clue.
I think it's a tad unrealistic to come to a place like this and expect everyone to have the most cheerful and positive attitude towards mechanics.
That's like being a PC repairman and going to a PC modding forum and expecting to be treated like royalty. It ain't gonna happen. In the case of that example, many of the PC modders think they know everything, and that anyone who builds/repairs PCs for an actual living is a talentless hack. They think their lone PC is the best PC on the planet because they use X brand of cooling fan and Y brand power supply. Nevermind that X and Y cost three times what your average commercial system builder would use with maybe a tiny bit better performance and reliability.. and that X and Y brands are not used commercially exactly for that reason. But oh yes, they ALWAYS think they know better than someone who might put together a few systems a day.
Anyway, back to mechanics. I don't have much of an opinion (good or bad) on mechanics in general. I have a friend I've known since high school who runs his own repair shop.. and if there's something that's clearly beyond the scope of my growing abilities, I would not hesitate to take it to him for help if I can afford to. But even within my own family there are differing opinions on him. My mother and I both like him and would go back to him. My aunt likes him as a person but feels he ripped her off on something and would not go back to him again. So, even opinions on the same mechanic can vary from person to person.. let alone opinions on different mechanics. Of course, when some people have been screwed enough times and/or had their friends screwed by mechanics, they're going to develop an opinion that covers ALL mechanics, and is not flattering in any way. That's just how it works. We sometimes paint our pictures with brushes WAY too big, and the end result is a mess. (or art, depending on your viewpoint)
Sorry if you find the opinions of some of these people bothersome to you and your profession.. but frankly, you should know better by now than to expect universally positive opinions. You can either let it be a reason that you get out of the profession, as I did with PC repair.. (one tiny reason of several reasons I stopped) or you can shrug it off and keep workin'.
Yeah, I'll keep working, after all millions on welfare depend on me!!!!
the place i went to loved working on my 80 capri or 84 bird when i had them (so sad, only car i have now is a 05 chevy cobalt).
Then again the place ran their own pro-modified in IHRA, so they were into the 'perfomance' thing.. heheh.
edit: i know what it is like with PC repair, I am a tech for a major corp and some ppl just drive me nuts or prefer not to work with one of me or my co workers cause of extranious problems that existed when we repaired another problem on thier machine. There ARE bad mechanics, and there ARE bad pc techs, you just have to find someone you are comfortable with. And no one will really overcharge cause most places go by the SAE book with the number of hours it "takes" to do a job and charge that so you pay the same pretty much anywhere.
I've had this happen with my 83 Cat more than a few times.
Until I pretty much just got p*ssed off, and rebuilt it from the ground up myself.
Now I get regular pleasure in taking my fully re-built and re-finished 83 to the same shops and asking if they can do this or that. It amazes me how the same people who told me they wouldn't work on my car, or that it's not worth it; are now overly eager to work on it.
I happily turn them right away with a friendly reminder of their previous attitudes toward my car.
My little way of getting one back for the little guy. :)
I've since located two other shops in this area, on in mechanic's and another in autobody. Both of these shops are always available and happy to work on my vehicle when needed, and they take more of the "appreciative of a not so everyday custom car" stance on things. I've not heard a thing negative from either shop about my car, or any other car that they work on. Both are true high class shops in my book.
I still tend to do about 98% of the work myself, but it's good to know that there are decent shops out there that are ready to assist on this level.
well,, here is my .02cents worth and ill shed some light on why they dont wanna be your mechanic...................
I was told directly to my face at a Ford dealership this very quote...
"All my mechanics were in grade school when these cars were new"
Next up would be the fact that dealers dont keep the shop manuals past a certain year. Having said this,, most of them would not know how to troubleshoot the eec,, pull codes,,, or have manuals to lead them through the component level troubleshooting process. They wont have wiring diagrams and probably would have to research archive records to proplerly work on your car.
what your asking for is nothing more than a mechanic. What they actually see is too much time spent on research. Time is money and they know you are not willing to pay for thier inabilty to troubleshoot in a timely manner.
The problem is lack of documentation in the shops for the most part. Secondly would be the hands on experience.
is it fair,, not to me but that seems to be the way things are. If you are the original owner,, then you could have maintained all your dealer work up to this day today and have free labor according the the ford lifetime warrenty of the work they do. Im sure we all dont qualify for that.
I like to reflect on the one chevy dealer repair guy trying to set the timing on my buddy's regal. This guy was at such a disadvantage because of his age and experience. He was totally unaware as to why he need to plug off the vac advance prior to setting it. What bothered me is the shop forman appeared to be seasoned but did not know this either. Later on i found out the foreman was there for administrative purposes and really never turned any wrenches.
I had an exhaust shop tell me that it would be illegal to put Duals on my cougar :bs: . Went to a shop on the edge of polish town and he lifted it and quoted me about 670 or something to that sum, at least he dident blow me off and try and tell me that it would be illegal to fit my car with duals.
Well, to be fair, in some places it is illegal to outfit your car with an exhaust system that is not factory for your engine/model/year. *coughcoughcaliforniacoughcough*
However, I don't think eCheck in Ohio is concerned about that. I heard they even did away with mirrors to see if you've got converters. We've been fortunate on our ass-end of the state...air's just slightly too clean to warrant eCheck.
Nah it isent i checked the epa rules for toledo.