YUK!!! and YUK!!!
I noticed my neighbor across the street having trouble starting the 1977 Ford LTD he had given his kids to drive. I offered my help. He had replaced the battery and starter. No crank. I opened the hood and had him try again. Smoke and sparks from the + terminal clamp. I was able to lift the clamp off of the terminal. The screw was tightened all the way but the clamp was as far as it would go. I have solved that by filing metal away but had new clamps in by toolbox. After replacing both clamps it was Vroom! Vroom! time. He was very, very grateful.
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Good morning. Iâm a little late to this. Letâs not talk about groups of people as bottom-feeders. Living in subsidized housing isnât a character flaw. For all we know, some of the folks who come here and ask questions because theyâre in hard times live in such arrangements. What are they supposed to think about this place if they read stuff like this?
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Bravo! Good move, very wise, looking under the hood while it was cranked! Extra points for stocking the parts!
Not all the time, of course, but I am often amazed at how careful observation of a seemingly potentially troublesome diagnosis can locate the problem so easily.
I wonder how many of those âIâve replaced the engine, transmission, windshield wiper shafts, and spare tire, and the #$@% thing still wonât start,â posts we see here could have been simplified by slowing down, observing, and becoming more pensive.
Working on broken things in the house or on cars, I have to catch myself from assuming the worst case scenario when often times thatâs not the case.
I think some folks assume the worst and run with it. I guess thatâs why Iâve always been fond of the methodical easiest, cheapest things first approach when another diagnosis is not easy or possible.
CSA
You can observe a lot by just watching.
[Yogi Berra]
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I sympathize with mechanics when a customer wants something for nothing. When I was a graduate student back in the early 1970s, another graduate student came to me and was desperate. The computer (a Control Data 6600) was down due to a failed bearing in the drum(the drum did the function of a disk drive). I worked for a day on the data doing the calculations for an analysis of variance on a Monroe mechanical calculator. I charged her $50 for my work. She refused to pay our agreed upon price. She claimed the computer could have done the analysis in microseconds. That was true, but the computer was down and she needed the data analysis for a scheduled meeting with her committee. I gave her the analysis because there was nothing I could do with it.
A couple of days later, another doctoral candidate came to see me. He had a population of 3000 and had randomly drawn a sample of 1000. He had a member on his committee who claimed he needed an even larger sample for his analysis. I proved to him and gave him the citation that his random sample was more than sufficient. In fact, a random sample of 100 would have been sufficient. After I proved to him that he didnât need to collect more data, he immediately wrote me a check for $50. I didnât want to take the money for just 5 minutes of my time, but he insisted.
I really donât like getting something for nothing. A couple of days ago, I was waiting behind another car at the gas pump. The motorist ahead of me had prepaid $25 for his gasoline, but his car only took $21. He didnât want to go back into the station and offered to give me $4 worth of gasoline. He didnât have change for a $20 bill and all I had was three one dollar bills. I did manage to come up with 65¢ worth of change. I still came out 35¢ ahead, but I could have had $4 worth of gasoline free. I still feel guilty about the 35¢.
You are to be commended. You could have had a weekâs worth of coffee and cinnamon rolls and Mrs. wouldnât have known the difference. Sometimes choices are not easy.
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I have come to a similar conclusion. My personal statement is probably not quite correct but I say âThe bottom feeders make up 5% of my profits and 95% of my problems.â The 80/20 deal is probably more like it.
Basically, when you are in business, you need to weed out the parasitic loads. I think a lot of it was growing pains starting out. You HAVE to cut out certain demographics, otherwise your business will die. I have been in new places with my GF. When we walk out I tell her that place wonât last a year. It will be closed within a couple months.
The time of day you market your business plays a huge role. I find that morning advertising captures the audience I want. These are people with jobs at work, driving to work, or getting ready for work. I once talked to the local radio station about ONLY advertising in the morning. They were like âIt costs 3x as much to only put your ads in the morning. You would be better off just advertising with more ads throughout the day and you would get your placement at the times you want just by random chance.â That is how I have done it and deal with the good and the bad.
There are people who want to bring me what in the automotive world would be classified as a âtotal loss.â We are talking a no-name TV from Wal-Mart that fell flat on its face and cracked. Finding parts for these things is a nightmare and having a cracked panel is pretty much the end of any TV. It doesnât matter if it is a high end Samsung, Sony, or LG but the part will cost as much or more than the TV, then there is labor. I pretty much tell people it isnât worth fixing over the phone but they insist on bringing it in. Why? When I tell them money is required upfront, their attitude just changes. I always love it when they ask âCan we just pay you at the end?â I always tell them NO.
I find the comments about the scammy people who smell funny to be appropriate. We have a university here so I have had to deal with plenty of this. This country seems to be known for scamming and lots of the scams I deal with originate there. I also have goats that I sell and this country as well as others around it eat goat and want to buy a living specimen. There is always some reason I should lower the price. I finally started marking them way up and offering a âdiscountâ if they bought 4 or more at a time. It was finally not worth it. I take them to a local livestock auction which is a lot less hassle as I get rid of all at once and donât deal with the nonsense. I unload them, drive off, and a check shows up in the mail several days later.
As for my work, charging upfront seems to have eliminated my dealings with these people.
I have definitely had to deal with the people like those who accuse the mechanic of ruining a car over a dead battery. I always open laptops to check for broken screens, etc. before just taking off. Someone brought one in with a broken screen once and told me it just needed a virus removal. I opened it up later and pieces of the screen were falling out. It looked like someone took a ball bat to it. Of course I didnât do anything but was told âIt wasnât broken like that when I brought it to you and that you need to fix it now.â It was a scam and I have stopped several others like this by just giving things a quick look. Then there was a time I was working for a mechanic and got to overhear a nice call with a customers. Some lady had a car towed in because it wouldnât start. They could barely move it. It turned out that one of the brake calipers was stuck and had been stuck for quite some time. The rotor was all black and blue, warped, etc. The front-end had never been lubed so the ball joints were about to fall out of it. The list of problems from lack of maintenance just went on and on. It was an old beat up and neglected car that needed tons of work far exceeding the value of the car. The woman flipped out over the phone call and hung up. I donât know how this resolved in the end but she was trying to accuse him of making things up, he broke this car, and all I want is the starting problem fixed. There were lots of safety issues and he is like âI canât let a car with bad brakes and a front end about to fall out go back out on the road.â
The sob story customer is one where you will always get burned. They say âI need new tires on this car to visit my grandmother in the hospital.â I have had my share of stories like this and now just say no. The mechanic I was helping with IT issues was telling me he used to fall for this as well. Someone would get a new set of tires on him, promise to make payments, and then never show back up or answer their phone calls. He did use this to his advantage after some lady who had done this brought the car back in for something else. He basically held it hostage until she paid for both repairs.
I donât only cater to high end customers. Maybe is is just the ones that give me the âpoor meâ mentality that make me feel this way. I have only been screwed over by a few higher end customers that own businesses, etc. I know it goes on and many in other service businesses tell me exactly this but I havenât had to deal with this nearly as much as I would have thought. It seems these types spend their money faster than you could light it on fire and burn it. These are also the ones who bring in low-end, outdated, and abused equipment far more often than not. These are the ones where the computer will be filled with living and dead roaches and glued together with cigarette tar. These types bring in junk and want it fixed cheap. They are always a headache. Tax season can be somewhat the same way.
Like the boat story, I hear lots of home improvement type contractors try to get all their costs covered before the project is finished. Unfortunately this is definitely an issue with people.
There are other red flags as well. The âsob storyâ type is big as I mentioned but those who portray themselves as a good person are often the ones you most have to watch out for.
Yes, sizing up your potential customers is hugely important. I think there are regional variations and unfortunately where I live his been hit hard by drugs, etc. I think that is part of the problem as it didnât seem this bad a few years back. The bad news is that I have to deal with this. The good news is that I can weed this nonsense out and still have plenty of work. I have also discussed with business owners that I think new businesses are targeted by small-time grifters and they agree. We also feel the grifters network and tell each other which businesses will put up with their crap and which ones wonât. I think that helps once âword of mouthâ gets around that you donât deal with their type. These types seem to be able to fly under the radar enough to not be prosecuted for their crimes but certainly arenât a lot different than career criminals if you ask me.
There is one other shop in town that seems to do a good job. There is another that just does cheap and I see it as ripping people off. It is kinda like âcar title loansâ though in that the customers goes in for a specific reason. I donât even view this place as competition because the decent customers who have been ripped off there provide me with lots of extra work. Then the customers who keep going because it is so much cheaper are the type I donât want to deal with anyway.
(Psst⌠Iâm thinking you must have missed post #23, eh?)
CSA
@bing. It wasnât easy turning down the money that would have purchased 4 days of coffee and a cinnamon roll on the fourth day.
There are good people in the world. Our son hit a fox on the interstate about midnight. Steam was coming out of the engine compartment, so he had his Sienna towed to the nearest Toyota dealer. He called the Toyota dealer in the morning which was Saturday. The service manager said that the van needed to go to a body shop. He offered my son a discount rate of $35 a day on a rental car and called a friend who owned a body shop. My son has another vehicle, so he rented a car from Enterprise to return the 250 miles back home. My son had a friend that was going to the city where he left the Sienna the following Saturday. He called the service manager who asked the body shop to try to have the Sienna ready. All worked out. The insurance took care of the bill, the service manager drove the Sienna 25 miles to make certain all was o.k. and all worked out well (except for the fox).
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Thereâs just no fixân vixen 
.
CSA
When I hit a raccoon for $700 damage including the radiator, my agent wanted to know if the raccoon was alive or dead. I said he was alive when I hit but then he was dead. So I have a few notches on my steering wheel: Raccoon, turkey, coyote, dog, pheasant, and a few deer in a million and a half miles.
I cut the offending parts out of the subsequent post.
As for lower end equipment and vehicles. There are several ways to look at this. Some of it isnât bad if you take it for what it is worth. It just isnât worth near as much and is much easier to be declared a total loss for what wouldnât be a big deal on something more expensive. Some of it is just junk and not worth anything more than the metal it is made from. Then there is the person who typically buys such stuff and that is a whole different story.
The junk is the Yugo and stuff like that. The Yugo was cheap and poorly made with failures common. There are others such as the early Vega, Pinto, etc. but even these probably werenât as bad as the Yugo. The sad part is these probably wouldnât have been terrible cars had GM, Ford, etc. not made engineering compromises. For example, the original Vega design called for rust-proofing that would have been more advanced than that used is most other cars of its time. Well, that cost more money so corners were cut and we all know how the Vega ended up with regards to rusting out. That was eventually fixed but the PR damage was done by that point. We all know the story of the Pinto as well with the gas tank design flaw and fires.
Then there are decent cheap cars if you can live without the creature comforts and some of the safety features of more expensive models. Think any compact or sub-compact car in basic trims. I have had several Geo Metros and am members of forums for these. The weakness in these is the rust-proofing as well. If cared for in rust-free areas like Phoenix, they will run forever. Also think Ford Festiva, etc. People may make fun of them because they are nothing by American standards but arenât inherently complete junk. They work well if taken care of.
The other issue is the owner of such cheap cars and equipment. One issue is that people who buy them are cheap and not thrifty cheap. We are talking just cheap. The oil doesnât get changed, other basic maintenance doesnât get done, etc. You find used models with blown up engines because the oil never got changed, etc. Now that I have a Mitsubishi Mirage, you hear similar stories. One guy who is a mechanic at a dealership just had one come in with a blown up engine at 63,000 miles. Apparently the owner never changed or even added any oil. I find it amazing that the engine ran 63,000 miles without any maintenance at all but it did. I guess that is a testament to modern engineering and lubricants. The timing chain or tensioner let go and the resulting failure caused interference of the valves and pistons.
I find the same with computers. Some of the budget equipment is fine for what it is but you donât repair it if anything major fails. Off to the recycling (hopefully) it goes. Other stuff is junk but with a regular name on it. We are talking a system that compares to the car that canât make it up a hill or has so many compromises on quality in the name of price that it simply doesnât last. These types of units are bought on price and nothing else so tend to end up falling short on many levels. Then there is the owner with unreasonable expectations. They expect the repairs to be cheaper on these cheaper unit but the opposite is often true. Then there is the fact these things are packed with cigarette smoke, roaches, general filth, and even urine. It is usually the lower-end units that come in smelling like a trash can, ash tray, and cat pan, all at the same time. Often the $3000 systems will come in perfectly pristine even when several years old. You wouldnât know it werenât brand new except for the fact the model isnât current.
Catering to commercial businesses that need their stuff working and working well is good business if you ask me, no matter the line of work. The person you are serving doesnât just want cheap and that is a good thing for them as well as the person providing them with service. I had a business using older equipment and I kept telling them they were throwing money down the toilet by fixing this old junk. One finally went down and it was going to take a while to get parts in. They agreed to replace that one because they couldnât go without it. It was a night and day difference between the old and new system. The new one was a quantum leap better than the old unit. Anyway, they called about a month later and told me âWe have a problem with that new computer you sold us a few weeks ago.â I was thinking âOh great, what went wrong?â Then the guy is like âIt is too stinkinâ fast and no one wants to use the other old ones. Employees are always fighting over using the new one. We need you to come out and replace all the others with the same thing.â
Seeing bottom feeders again, even after admin warning. So I call myself a bottom feeder looking at lakefront properties, hoping to be 350k or less in Brainerd MN area, so just to be fair to all being a bottom feeder is not an insult to all. And my favorite bottom feeder, smoked whitefish from Moreyâs, a little bony but wonderful!
It is crazy how certain areas can be so pricey with $350,000 being considered âbottom feedingâ. I understand this is the norm on the east and west coasts but even parts of Missouri have this. $350K will get what people on the coats would consider a castle in parts of rural Missouri such as retirees near Ft. Leonard Wood. You get near Lake of the Ozarks or Branson and lakefront property carries a premium, even for complete dumps! Then there are the boats. I have been on those lakes and can probably look around me and see a BILLION dollars in boats floating around me. I personally donât own boats like that as I think it is a waste of money.
One thing about very high end cars that I have seen is an INSANE rate of depreciation as well, kinda like high end boats. I know a guy who works at a parts store who picks up new to him cars quite frequently. He picked up a $1000 beater but the next time it was a $1000 BWM 7 series. New, this was close to a $100,000 car. 10 years old it is a $1000 car. That is just nuts! Even the cheapest piece of crap car doesnât drop in value like that.
@cwatkin. I observed the great depreciation on high end cars back in the early 1960s. In his book, âWhat You Should Know About Carsâ Tom McCahill wrote that he had two friends, one bought a new VW and the other bought a new Cadillac. Four years later, with both cars in top notch condition and with the same number of miles on the odometer, both were worth the same amount of money, even though the Cadillac cost three times as much new.
The reason is that most used car buyers are looking for transportation. When I was ready to buy my first car, a mechanic friend told me to âstick with Ford or Chevrolet. Parts are readily available and mechanics have worked on them and know the problemsâ.
My first car was a 1947 Pontiac which was all I could afford. It cost me $75. When I did get a little money, I traded the 1947 Pontiac for a 1955 Pontiac. At the time, I could have purchased a 1955 Mercury for about the same price. A 1955 Ford or Chevrolet in equivalent condition brought higher prices. I should have bought the Mercury. It had the same engine and running gear as the Ford. The 1955 Pontiac had a completely different engine than anything else in the GM line. I had all kinds of problems with the Pontiac, even though Consumer Reports indicated that the 1955 Pontiac had a good repair record. The 1955 Mercury had a worse than average record, but I think, because it was a Ford under the skin, would have been a better transportation value. A real buy back then was the 1959 Edsel as a used car. This was the second year of the Edsel and was just a Ford with a different body.
I think if my mechanic friend were alive today, he would recommend sticking with the Toyota Corolla or Honda Civic. As a used car, either of these would be a better transportation value than a used BMW which would sell for about the same price.
As I think back on the cars I have owned, the Ford Maverick was the easiest to maintain. Parts cost less than most cars for the Maverick.
If you look at cars with the highest depreciation rate, luxury brands are almost always at the top. Cadillac, BMW, Mercedes, and such do not hold their value. I suspect there are 3 main reasons.
- These are a status car. The owners want to stay up at the top. The newest model is always the most desired while the used ones area.
- As you suggested, many used car buyers want economical transport and donât care about having the bling associated with a luxury brand. A used Corolla has just as much appeal as a used Lexus for these buyers.
- Parts and repairs on a used luxury brands once the warranty ends can be quite costly. The guy I mentioned buying the used BMW had been through these before. He ended up having one die due to some issue with the variable valve timing. It basically rendered a $1000 used BMW 7 series junk value. He ended up buying one with a much better body and engine, etc. and swapping the better interior from his car to this car. He basically parted out what remained and ended up making money on the parts. The hulk got junked for scrap value and that was that. Having parts cars around for odd vehicles like this is probably not a bad idea either.
Some basic GM or Ford that had a ton made is never a bad option because parts will be available anywhere. We no live in a global economy and things can be delivered in days so this isnât as big of a problem as it was before.
Any car worth only $1000 is basically there already. Any car in that category is on the verge of being economically unrepairable. New brakes all the way around could be enough to drive it over the edgeâŚ
This is why itâs nearly impossible to find a Chevy/Geo Metro, Ford Escort, Dodge Neon, etc. that still runs. Too many people think that âmy car is only worth X amount of money, so therefore itâs not worth putting money into itâ and then proceed to run it into the ground. What they should be thinking is âIt is going to cost me X amount of money to replace this car, so I better keep the one I have in good conditionâ.
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I agree. It doesnât matter what make of car. Something more basic is considered to be a disposable car even though it may not be a bad car. Someone just barely able to afford a $1000 BMW isnât going to be able to afford some issue with the expensive variable valve timing, electronic system, etc.
I helped a lady sell a Cadillac once that had an issue with the heater blend door system. The actuator motor wasnât a nightmare to get to so replaced it for her once. It was like a $100 part. The problem is that there is often a problem with the door or linkages itself that cause the motor to go bad. Well, the problem came right back and the book time of the repair was like 22 hours. I told her this was not a DIY job and that taking it somewhere would cost her a fortune so it was time to either sell the car or live with it. Someone bought the car for $3000 or so which I thought was pretty good. He obviously had worked on a lot of these and was familiar with the problem.