That is an honest opinion. I can see that, too.

Ah, the USCGC James. Built in Pascagoula when we were stationed in Mobile. Have a friend that served on it.

Prominent wheel arches. They can take nice flowing character lines and turn them into characture lampoons of themselves.

No Firestones. That’s the reason that rollover wasn’t worse.

What a damn good article, David. Explanation that wasn’t superfluous, informative, and well researched.

Easy. Radiator cap.

So when my second child was due to be delivered, I had the following conversation with my employers. Keep in mind that my baby was scheduled to be delivered by Cesarean on January 2nd.

You made a response that is concise and well thought out. That is a rarity today.

Either work for free or don’t work.

No kidding. One of the places I worked at, the service director always had me work on his pastor’s van. I did a metric fuckload on that thing. And never got a dime. Whatever.

It can make and break you. The system is a great motivator for getting more work done. You got 10 hours flagged in for the day but can stay a little late to wrap up a 5 hour job? Yes please. If the work is there, you can make as much as you can handle.

I know. It’s insane. Someone once told me that since the manufacturer is paying, it should only be 75% of the time. So if job X pays 10 hours, then factory is inclined to pay 7.5 hours. My response was that if they were gonna pay me 75% of the job, then I should only do 75% of the work.

I’ll refer to another reply in this thread. You are absolutely correct about the aggressiveness on the sales. But I do not believe in that. My motto sticks true: I’d rather be an honest mechanic than a rich one.

That mother-frakking WANKER!!!!

If you sold 7 cars in a day, you should absolutely get all the commissions. Common sense rules apply, though. None of those 7 better be stolen sales, etc.

No! That was the thing! She still believed that practice was justified. We “compromised” on paper. The whole thing was negotiated down to being charged warranty time on the labor. But my service manager altered the labor rate so I got paid my 7.2 hours at a lower per hour rate. The dollar amount was the same at the…

It was. The thing that genuinely chaps my arse is the fact that I pride myself on being an honest mechanic. I don’t recommend shit that does not need being done. When I suggested that you do something, it was because it needed to be done. I do not believe in gouging a customer. I loved what I did and was damn good at…

10 years ago. Acura. 3.2TL, 3.2CL, MDX. The CL and TL would have third gear clutch pack explode inside the case. They eventually settled on a warranty extension to 93 months past the original in-service date or 109,000 miles. Fun times.

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:

Ha! I know, right?! I saw the later article about the new names, and I thought how wonderfully apropos.