As a professional technician for 15 years, I can relate. Labor times nowadays suck. Also, no one wants to pay for time. There is a story to which happened to me that strengthens this:

This is a well written article. Based on facts with no opinion or outrage added in.

Great article. I’ve been paying attention to it for a few weeks now. I will add that the same is true for auto body shops (at least it was when I worked in them). Cars would come in with damage and the insurance company would dictate how long it would take to repair. On top of the hours shrinking yearly, they also…

Didn’t have time to read the whole article, but my input thus far is flat rate is a cancer in my industry. It encourages spite and cut-throat competition amongst the techs and writers to the point where a “green” tech won’t ask questions if they aren’t sure of something because they don’t wanna be taking food off of…

Colorado resident here. We have plenty of people with non stock exhaust and no tickets, including my self on nearly every car I have had.

Well, it’s RWD car AND doesn’t look like this...

Crucify me for this, but honestly this isn’t as crazy as it sounds. With space becoming easier and cheaper to reach by the month, it’s only a matter of time before space combat becomes a reality, and not just something we see in the movies.

The guy has one ofthe nicest, cleanest garages I’ve ever seen AND he would invite me over to help with whatever I needed done to my car? I would take a neighbor like that in a hot minute!

I’m not going to lie, Jalopnik membership not withstanding, I would rather an amateur auto shop than nosy religious zealot assholes any day. It really doesn’t matter what you are into, those are the kinds of people that make neighborhoods awful and negatively impact property values long-term.

Community typically grows…

Serious? WTF are you doing on this website?

Then don’t move to a rural area. Stay in your shitty urban apartment instead, thank you very much. I have a neighbor kinda like Williams. He’s retired, in his 80's, and is the one NICE local resident in the neighborhood. I even let him park cars along my property because he IS a nice guy, and knows more about cars…

Then live in a neighborhood with zoning or HOA regulations that ban amateur auto shops. It’s not difficult to figure that out.

I do have an amateur garage next to my house. The guy who rents it has two Gen 2 RX-7 drift cars that he works on. Nobody minds as long as he’s not revving the heavily modified, unmuffled monsters all night long. Really, nobody cares.

Please sit in your car with the engine running, in your garage with the garage doors closed, and think for as long as your tiny shitbrain is capable of doing so, about the very stupid thing you’ve posted.

....You realize you posted this comment on a website dedicated to reporting the news to the exact type of people who would open such a garage, right?

The Rusty Cactus would be a great saloon name.

Those neighbors are awfully righteous for people whose fences are made out of dildos.

LOL rusty cactus

This is awesome! Hopefully Williams’ idiotic neighbors will finally get their heads out of the asses and stop bothering him. But who are we kidding? They fought Williams for six freaking years, so what are the odds they’ll come up with some other stupid reason to hassle him for another six years?

I generally don’t wish personal injury on people, but wow, fuck those neighbors with a rusty cactus.