Mexican Auto Repair

It’s another day and I still don’t have my car yet.  It’s been now 8 days since I last drove it, before I brought it in for what I thought was going to be a simple repair.  That’s what I get for thinking.  That’s also what I get for bringing my car to garage full of, and yes it pains me to say it, Mexicans.  The last time I had my car serviced by anyone other than my personal mechanic, it was serviced by a white guy, a white guy who knew what he was doing.  He fixed my car and got me back on the road in no more than a few hours.  The one time I bring it into a garage full of Mexicans, I’m left waiting for over a week until they correctly diagnose what is wrong with the car and then go forward with the repairs.  Let’s not forget that when I brought the vehicle to them, I told them in English that the car was overheating but that there wasn’t any steam or anything coming out from under the hood.  I further explained to them that one of the fans just behind the radiator doesn’t appear to be spinning, with may have contributed to the overheating problem.  It wasn’t like I withheld any vital information from them or anything.  After all, this doesn’t sound like it would be a good time to keep secrets from a mechanic.   It’s been my experience that a lot of them can and will find 10,000 other things wrong with your car and convince you that each and every one of them is serious enough that if you don’t repair them now, it’s going to cost you a lot later.  I like to be up front when it comes to telling a mechanic what’s wrong with my car when I bring it to them.  My car was supposed to completed and in my possession at 2:00pm last Tuesday (6/27/06) and here we are, 8 days later and still nothing.  They were already ramming me dry for $400 or so, after they told me that they were going to replace my radiator and thermostat.  I checked with them well after 2:00pm that day to see why they weren’t done with it and they told me that they still weren’t done with it and that it would probably be done Wednesday, 06/28/06.  The last time I checked, radiator replacement wasn’t the kind of thing that took more than a day or two.  I decided that they knew what they were doing and so I just assumed that extra time on my car would mean that my car would be returned to me in tip-top shape.  Again, that’s what I get for assuming.  Then on Thursday, when I checked in with them, they asked not once but twice if I had experienced any problems with my car not starting.  At this point, I feared that they messed up my car even more and that with every passing day, this repair job was becoming increasingly more expensive.  I never mentioned anything about my car not starting.  I drove the car to their garage.  Even after it overheated, it still started.  After telling them that my car never had any problems upon startup, they said that they would continue to work on it.  On Friday, I checked back with them because, as you might’ve guessed, my car wasn’t close to being ready on any of the days or times they had told me.  Sadly enough, there were a few times where I had driven by the service station where my car was supposed to be getting fixed only to find it sitting in their parking lot.  My car should’ve been up on one of their racks being serviced.  This time, not only am I told that my car still wasn’t ready but that now it needed to have it’s computer replaced because after 3 days, they finally figured out what the problem was.  If that wasn’t bad enough, they then told me that my bill had now gone up to about $800.  Like I said, with every passing minute, I feel like they’re scheming to weasel more and more money out of me.  That Saturday, I told them to go ahead and put that computer or whatever they needed to replace in the vehicle.  I was told that the car would be done no later than 12:00pm.  That’s bullshit, because my car’s still sitting there in their shop.   

Here we are, 8 days after I brought my car into the shop full of Mexicans and I have nothing in return but a great deal of aggravation and grief.  It’s a good thing these guys aren’t doctors or surgeons.  3 days to diagnose a problem?  That’s ridiculous.  This is what I’m talking about.  This is why I talk about Mexicans so much.  They continue to give me plenty of ammunition.  I don’t know what more to do here but wait, I guess.  I’m afraid that if I show any kind of anger towards them, they’ll mess something else up with my car.  It’s like when you eat out and you’re not happy with your order.  You want to get pissed off but you hold back, out of fear that they’ll spit in your food or put something foul in it.  Mexicans.  You can’t live with them and they keep crossing the border illegally.