Rant time and Stupid people

torinodan

torinodan

Senior Member
Ok, I went to a shop up in Irvine to see how much he would run me to put in my gears. Right away he starts on the wrong foot. He says...you sure you want to do that? I said yes. Then he goes off on a whole story about how he's done this kind of thing for 20 years, he knows best, going down the highway my RPM's are going to running around 4,000 or so, I'll have no performance, The car is going to be slower off a dead start and never get or 80 MPH.:shake:
The whole time he said up and down he knew what a Marauder was:bs: . I keep telling him that none of this was the case and he dosn't know a Marauder from a Vega. Yeah, this guy is great, he also said that when the gears are installed I can't do anything for a speed correction. Told him.. It does have a chip and I can reflash the PCM as well. To show how smart he is he bolsterd up and said that the computers in no way can have a chip installed or be flashed for 410 gears. Yes, he was trying to pick a fight with me over it. :mad: Just short of calling him a meat puppit and a few other choice words I tried to say thank you and goodby but he wanted to keep telling how bad a choice I would be makeing. yeah right!! Said he knows all about dyno tunes too. Again I went to walk off and his last words were, "don't worry, if I did ther job you would be back to get them changed again because you're not going to like them at all." I just said "thats why I'm going elsewhere, I don't think you really know whats going on". This guy got dumb for all the years experiance.

All in all I left happy knowing there are people who aren't so vain or put themselfs this highly just to argue when they are wrong and don't want to hear anything else. Thanks guys. I broke my soap box. Rant over.
 
I had the same experience with a 1995 Ford Escort.

Some friend told me that the Escorts tend to break the timing belt at 60,000 miles.
So when I got 45,000 miles on it, I decided to take it to my dealer to get the belt changed.

I got a song and a dance about how I was wasting my money, and that it would never break.
I stood my ground and told the Service Manager,
"I am paying for YOU to do this work.
I am NOT asking you to do it for free.
All I am asking you is to do what I ask you to do.
If you won't do it, I'll find someone else, WHO WANTS MY MONEY,
to do it for me.
Do you understand what I am asking you to do ?"

He look at me and said, "But..."

I replied to him,
"Replace the belt on MY DIME, or when the timing belt fails,
you can replace the ENGINE on YOUR DIME.
You decide which is CHEAPER..."

The engine ran so smoothly after the belt was replaced... :up:
 
Did you go to Goober's shop in Mayberry?

I understand where he's coming from but he should have simply understood once you told him you have done the research.
 
torinodan said:
Ok, I went to a shop up in Irvine to see how much he would run me to put in my gears. Right away he starts on the wrong foot...
Click to expand...
This is all I read, Dan, I know the rest of your story well. MENINBLK, I've been in your shoes too.

What is it with small business men today? They seem so eager to avoid new business. If I were in either situation as the businessman talking with you two, I would simply make sure you know what you want (probably more important with the gear swap than the belt change), but be sure to deliver the service you ask for. I don't know about anyone else, but I love money, and I'd hate to see it drive away.

Perhaps this is the end result of the flood of '70s-80s consumer law suits? Maybe these guys have been through the "you cheated me, you supposed to know better" mill in small claims court? Well, could be...We do that crap too.

If I ask for something mechanical to get done to my MM, and it gets done the way I asked, I won't say a word to anyone but myself in the mirror, when it disappoints me. Zack and I are lucky here, we know this top notch race car wrench who loves exploring all of our ideas. Sometimes, it's just a phone call about jet-coating something, while other times we're digging out the plasma cutter and going to town. Still, what ever it is we want to explore, Mike Lopez gives us a hand and for that, he gets paid by the minute to come out and play with us. Straight up clean business, he'll try anything we want, as long as he's on the clock.

I think there's a lot of Mike Lopez/pro shop type dudes out there, we just have to keep looking. When you find one, best watch your step. You'll get what you ask for.
 
If he started on the wrong foot with me I wouldn't bother explaining anything, I'd be in my car and out of there - ya think I want him tinkering with my car at that point?? nuh uh. Great story and get those gears in soon, great mod!
 
Rider90;

You have the greatest pic's. I use them as my background, hope they are not copywrited. Keep 'em coming.
 
pat said:
Rider90;

You have the greatest pic's. I use them as my background, hope they are not copywrited. Keep 'em coming.
Click to expand...

lol, signatures or car pics? Car pics I have at full size so if you want a higher quality background I'll send some over for ya. As far as the sigs, thanks :D This was one of the longer ones...
:hijack:
 
Jason captures the best pics, because he hangs out with the best looking Marauders out here, and that's the Windy City crew.

IMHO...

Oh, this is going to leave a bruise, I just know it...
 
The Important Thing

Fellow Leatherneck: The important thing is you identified the problem, took corrective action, and continued the mission. Better that you got out of the there with the car you took with you. Sometimes if the end state is the same as the opening state , in hindsight you actually had a good day.

Remember Billy Bob Thornton's garage mechanic character in the movie U Turn ? Where Sean Penn's 65 Mustang goes in there with a flat tire and ends up being taken completely apart by the guy? And his whole life kind of unravels the same way the Mustang does? Sermon over. S/F, -kjs-
 
SergntMac said:
Jason captures the best pics, because he hangs out with the best looking Marauders out here, and that's the Windy City crew.

IMHO...

Oh, this is going to leave a bruise, I just know it...
Click to expand...

Mac is right. I hung out with the best looking Marauders at the last Chicken Run, then he showed up :dunno: Now the other Marauders look so much better, thanks for taking one for the team Mac! :high5:

:laugh: :jk:
 
twolow said:
Did you go to Goober's shop in Mayberry?
Click to expand...

Hey hey hey!!!....Goober knows cars, and his shop's in Marietta, Georgia, not Mayberry. Grand Muffler, that is, of our own TAF. How about a little respect?:lol:
 
Rider90 said:
Mac is right. I hung out with the best looking Marauders at the last Chicken Run, then he showed up. Now the other Marauders look so much better, thanks for taking one for the team Mac!
Click to expand...
Ummm...What's wrong with this picture?

Feel free to delete any pics of my car from your MidwestPanther whatever that do not meet your standards.









Now...Care to continue making your point with emoticons rather than plain language? Not everyone reads those tiny cartoons, eh?
 
I was just playing around, guess not then. You have one of the nicest MMs out there and I was assuming my post would be taken in the manner implied as sarcastic.
 
torinodan said:
Then he goes off on a whole story about how he's done this kind of thing for 20 years, he knows best, going down the highway my RPM's are going to running around 4,000 or so, I'll have no performance, The car is going to be slower off a dead start and never get or 80 MPH.:shake:
Click to expand...

LOL!!!! :baaa: :baaa: :baaa: Well then here's some pics you can show him or anyone else who tries to tell you what he did. And keep in mind that these are all of my car and the gear change that I did myself with 4.56 gears. As you can see, in O/D while moving at 70 MPH, the engine is reving at 2750 RPM's, and even with the O/D off at 70 MPH it's still well under 4,000 RPM's. And the car still climbs to 120 MPH in a heartbeat, and I installed the 4.56 gears before the car was ever supercharged, and even then it never had any problems getting to 120 MPH with these gears. BTW, even at 80 MPH, the engine in my car is reving only at 3,050 RPM's while in O/D, and again, that's with 4.56 gears. The RPM's with 4.10's will even be lower (yes, I had 4.10's in my Marauder too). Here's a link to a great calculator if you ever want to know what gears will do for your car as far as changing the RPM........but I realize that I'm preachin' to the choir here;) http://www.richmondgear.com/101032.html
 
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.......TorinoDan,......here's a couple more incase you're interested. If not, please don't think I'm attempting to hijack things here. I just thought this was kind of relavent. :)
 
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torinodan said:
Ok, I went to a shop up in Irvine to see how much he would run me to put in my gears. Right away he starts on the wrong foot. He says...you sure you want to do that? I said yes. Then he goes off on a whole story about how he's done this kind of thing for 20 years, he knows best, going down the highway my RPM's are going to running around 4,000 or so, I'll have no performance, The car is going to be slower off a dead start and never get or 80 MPH.:shake:
The whole time he said up and down he knew what a Marauder was:bs: . I keep telling him that none of this was the case and he dosn't know a Marauder from a Vega. Yeah, this guy is great, he also said that when the gears are installed I can't do anything for a speed correction. Told him.. It does have a chip and I can reflash the PCM as well. To show how smart he is he bolsterd up and said that the computers in no way can have a chip installed or be flashed for 410 gears. Yes, he was trying to pick a fight with me over it. :mad: Just short of calling him a meat puppit and a few other choice words I tried to say thank you and goodby but he wanted to keep telling how bad a choice I would be makeing. yeah right!! Said he knows all about dyno tunes too. Again I went to walk off and his last words were, "don't worry, if I did ther job you would be back to get them changed again because you're not going to like them at all." I just said "thats why I'm going elsewhere, I don't think you really know whats going on". This guy got dumb for all the years experiance.

All in all I left happy knowing there are people who aren't so vain or put themselfs this highly just to argue when they are wrong and don't want to hear anything else. Thanks guys. I broke my soap box. Rant over.
Click to expand...
He Was right, you would have been back...He probably would have put the gears in BAS_ACKWARDS, and then argured that you left the shop and the warrenty on the install was VOID, like his head.:lol:

JIM
 
Yeah, I can't see how he was trying to argue with me so much without hearing anything I was saying. He was dead set it's a bad thing. After 20 years he has no idea. Like trying to tell someone that the center tire wear on the rears is normal too. Oh well. Thanks for the pics Billy.
 
I've had people try to tell me the same thing, and in my experience, it's always someone who is with modifying old muscle cars only, which don't have wheels and tires as tall as the ones on our Marauders, and more importantly, don't have overdrive transmissions. And havaing an O/D trans makes all the difference in the world when it comes to choosing tall gears for the rear, and driving on the highway with those gears.
 
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