My Mechanic <3

[Gaki]

My family has this friend who works on cars out of his own garage. When I have a problem with my car it's rate that I even have to tell him what's going on with it. He remembers all the things he's ever done to it, put in it, and charged me for it. My car is...sadly memorable. He will diagnose the problem easily and in no time and will fix it as fast as humanly possible with a fair price tag.

Now as this all sounds CRAZY for a mechanic (as most people end up not liking mechanics) but the best part was what happened today.

It was a known issue that my fuel pump needed to be fixed and I decided that I would like to do that before my little vacation in June. I was also starting to hear some squeaking coming from the back end and my poor Blazer is no stranger to odd squeaks, and squeals and the occasional whirring sounds. But what unnerved me was this unique "clunk" sound that would occur from the back of my car every time I made a right turn.

I got my car in to see him and today I get the call (all things in quotation marks are his words): Gonna get the fuel pump done but good heavens it was "God's miracle" that I got my Blazer in to see him before something "happened to me." Praise heaven I was able to get it to see him before I "got into some real trouble." Why? Because there was shit just free-swinging back there because an essential piece of my car had rusted completely through and if I had "taken any right turn too sharp" I could have "rolled it right over."

ROLLED IT RIGHT OVER!!!!??!?!?!

Ahem. So here we are. It's a good thing I saved a thousand bucks to fix my car. 'Cause that's what we're lookin' at. Hahaha. He explained the whole situation to me over the phone in great detail and I feel informed and happy despite being a thousand dollars poorer. I can handle it and my car needs this. I love him not just because he's professional, detail-oriented and wonderfully fair but that he's informative and really nice and he actually cares about my personal well-being. He even went out of his way to call my parents to let them know about it because I was at work. Talk about awesome mechanic friends!

[bean]

I used the same shop for 13 years - the only reason I stopped is they only work on Honda/Acura, and my last car wound up being a Nissan (... never ever again). I was on a first name basis with everyone there, and I know if I walked in today, they'd still remember me even though I haven't been by in nearly 4 years.

Turns out the owner's son in law - who worked in that shop for 12 years - had opened his own shop. In the city I was living in at the time (college town about an hour outside of Dallas). I was looking for a shop on Yelp, saw one with a 5 star rating, clicked on it, and "waitaminute that's Jason's picture in the profile, WTH?!". Called him up.. sure enough, he'd opened his own shop the year before.

He did a lot of work on that pile of crap. And offered to let me make payments a couple of times, cut me huge discounts other times, and I've dropped by while bored (or while waiting on my car to get fixed) and wound up helping him out a bit (and drinking beer with him when it's after hours).

Fantastic guy all around, I'm still friends with him even though I no longer live in Denton - and unfortunately for me, he only works on imports anyway... I'm now driving a GM (which requires a bunch of tools he doesn't have - though it's new enough that it - hopefully - won't need much outside of normal maintenance for a few years).

[Mer-Mer]

I've been so lucky to have not one, but three great mechanic shops. Although I suppose four now, if you count the place I get my oil and tires done. My first mechanic worked on "my" truck, that was actually my uncle's. My family has been going to school with their family for generations. At one point I was home on break and my uncle had forgotten to get my inspected. I was only home for a week and our mechanic told us that he was completely booked, but if I drove it there, he would try to work on it when he had time. He drove it back to me completely inspected by the end of the day. Unfortunately they don't work on Vw's.
But they knew this other mechanic who worked on nothing but vw's! And I'm pretty sure that my new mechanic knew I couldn't afford to fix my car, and cut me a huge break. The actual price he charged me for my clutch was lower than his initial quote by about $100, which his initial quote was about $100 less than all of the other quotes I had gotten. Then his garage burnt down right before he was supposed to replace my alternator. I was so upset.