Demolition Derby at Safety Inspection Station

[Midorikawa]

I took my car to the guy my only semi trusted non-family mechanic recommended for safety inspection and emissions. First year I went, the guy was nice, did a good job, and everything was fine. Next year, he seemed crabby, but still didn't break anything major. This year...

I walk in, he's busy talking to another customer. I patiently wait for him to finish.

IA: Inspection asshat
Me: ohai!

IA: What can I do for you?
Me: I need my yearly safety/emissions inspection.
IA: It'll be a minute! *walks off hurriedly*
Me: ??? *wanders to waiting area*

A few kids with an inattentive father come in to this small echoy room and start screeching. I can feel my head throbbing with each blood curdling scream. FINALLY, they leave, then.

IA: You need a safety/emissions? I'm ready! Let's go let's go let's go! Hurry!
Me: ...da fuck...*drives car up* (I really should have left right then and there, but I was thrown off by his rudeness and the flashback to high school)
IA: Go sit in the waiting area. It'll be a bit.
Me: O_o *walks off*

While watching him through the window of the waiting area, I watch him hunt around for the washer fluid pump. My car has a manual foot pump that you manually pump to pump fluid onto the windshield. This is normally not something anyone knows to look for as it's not common.
IA: *yanks on my turn signal lever (no wonder it's not locking into place any more.)*
IA: *curses, then RIPS the knob for my wipers off the dashboard*
Me: fucking a...I swear he's going to demolish the poor girl *cowers under glare from middle aged lady nearby*

from in the inspection area: *SLAM**BANG**SLAM*"ARRGH!"
I glance up, and IA has somehow thrown the driver's side door alignment off, so it won't close. He's trying to figure out how to fix it.

I'm seeing red and cursing loudly, and don't give a damn about the lady nearby's deathglare. He eventually fixes it (mostly) and I'm able to somewhat close the door if I lift the handle slightly. I have no idea how he threw it off in the first place or what he did, but since I failed emissions for forgetting to set the timing to "pass emissions" mode from "engine will drive the vehicle" mode, it failed CO emissions at idle.

I think I'm going to pay a second time at a different shop instead of going for the free retest.

[Sparky]

Oh goody. And get the second shop to repair the damage he did as well. Then send him a copy of the bill by registered mail. Tuck a letter from your lawyer inside.

[Jay 2K Winger]

You were more polite than I would have been, if I'd been in your shoes.

If it had been me, watching Mr. Asshat causing ACTUAL DAMAGE to my car like that, I would have been in that bay, yelling at him. It'd start at "What the fuck are you doing to my car?!" and from there degenerate into random curses and probably physical violence.

Okay, I exaggerate slightly. But I certainly would have marched in there, halted the inspection and demanded my keys so I could take my car elsewhere for its inspection.

[LillFilly]

Ohhhh, he would have been dead after ripping the knob off. I would have ended the 'inspection' right there.

[Midorikawa]

I really thought about it too, but all of the damage he caused, aside from the turn signal, are annoying to fix at best. I don't like to let other people touch my car for this reason alone, so I do all my own maintenance when possible, and refer to my semi trusted mechanic for stuff I don't have tools for in my condo. I completely rebuilt the car when I first got it and have fixed the vast majority of it already. The door has an adjustment that I used to get it back to where it was, and the knob was more obnoxious than anything else.

The turn signal is just a plastic bit inside the steering column, and at that, takes 3 minutes to replace, not including pulling the steering wheel off.

I think I'm just going to vote with my wallet and take my 3 cars elsewhere from now on. I have a friend up north that will do the inspection and do a good job of it, so that's where I'm going from now on.

[Jay 2K Winger]

It's cool that you can do all that maintenance stuff, and if I were more car-savvy, I might try to do that myself. But I'm more of a computer nerd than a car geek, so nah.

Even so, the mere fact that he was causing damage to my car-- even minor, irritant stuff instead of major, expensive repairs-- would be enough for me to scream for him to stop and take my business elsewhere. Who knows what other damage he might do if he weren't stopped?

[Shalom]

Years ago, the state inspection stations had a machine that bounced your car up and down violently for about ten seconds, then stopped and checked how long the car kept rocking. The idea was to check for worn-out shock absorbers. Well after going on this machine, maybe 8 years back, the truck started making a clattering noise on bumps. Several mechanics over the years couldn't find out what was making that noise. One of them finally noticed, when trying (unsuccessfully) to replace a fuel filter that had been rusted in place since 2001, that they'd busted one of these: This is the mount for the left end of the torsion bar carrier; the rubber is apparently just glued to the metal, and the violent jouncing had broken it loose. I lived with that damn noise for all those years, and it finally cost me less than $120 to fix it.

They don't use that machine any more. I wonder why...

[protege]

Tuck a letter from your lawyer inside.

Seconded, and yes, I've done it. When I picked up a certain vehicle, it had a few things wrong with it. Either the job wasn't done correctly...or not at all! Most of that stuff could be fixed. However, what caused me to hit the ceiling, was the large dent that they'd put in my hood! Seems that the shop claimed to know all about MGs, but forgot how to close the fucking hood! If you try to close it like a modern car, you're asking for trouble. Not only will it not latch correctly if you 'drop' it, but if you try to push on the panel (over the latch), you'll crease the panel Proper way is to lower the hood down, and then press on the corners. When I saw that, I hit the fucking ceiling--I'd just had the car repainted

Anyway, the 'garage' responsible wouldn't answer phone calls, and the owner was always mysteriously "out" when I'd stop over there. Mysterious, because his Mercedes was in the damn parking lot! But, rather than go over there with a bat, I took the civil approach. That is, I drew up a sternly worded letter, with all the things that they'd fucked up, plus copies of the invoices. While I was at it, I let them know that *I* knew that they'd slapped a state inspection sticker on the car...without doing the proper test. Final touch, was CC-ing a local lawyer...who happened to be one of my dad's friends

I should mention that even though I was I stayed calm. Why? First, flipping out on the shop probably wouldn't have done much. Second, why play that trump card unless you have to? No sense in doing that just yet. At the time, if they'd said something like "Yeah, we fucked up. Bring the car over and we'll fix it" I probably wouldn't have wanted to strangle them. But, I couldn't let them know that just yet.

When the letter was ready, my dad offered to drop it off, since I had to work. He said that when the shop owner was reading it...the color literally ran out of his face. He'd fucked up, and not only could I *prove* it, but I could get them into some serious shit with the state--Pennsylvania doesn't take things like inspection fraud lightly. They could have lost their right to perform inspections, not to mention the local media would have had a field day with that.

In the end, they had to fix the hood, and all of the other stuff too.

[Jay 2K Winger]

He said that when the shop owner was reading it...the color literally ran out of his face.

This makes me grin for two reasons.

One, the sheer, sweet pwnage involved.

Two, I'm picturing the melanin actually sprouting legs and running away while making little "Aaaaaahhhh!" noises.