The “mechanic” finished the Jeep and I picked it up yesterday – Friday, 8/28/2009 – which brought the length of service to 8 full months. Ridiculous? Most definitely… from the average perspective that is.

After awhile I learned that the best thing for me to do was to adopt a unique perspective of patience and clemency, but more importantly, a contentment with the fact that I may never get it back at all. Some may not agree with this stance of acquittal toward the mechanic, but doing so was actually one of the best things that has happened to me in awhile. It allowed me to forgive him of his shortcomings, realize very concretely that it is only money and possessions, and to count any positive news as a true blessing rather than something I felt entitled too.

When I picked the Jeep up, I owed the mechanic an additional $1,000 for the labor. I had already paid him $2,500 in advance to enable him to buy the parts and get started on the labor. Did I give him the other $1,000? I gave him half and told him I will give him the other half after I had a chance to drive the vehicle and have it checked over by my mechanic friend. I made him sign a sheet of paper that outlined all of these things very clearly and told him if everything is kosher, I will deliver the remaining $500 to him early next week. Which I most assuredly will do.

In saying all that, you better believe that I am VERY happy to have been finally reunited with my vehicle. I have learned some great lessons through this experience and they will positively shape many of my decisions from here forward!

Thanks for reading.

Good luck with this. B/c I’ve had 7 cars in the past 8.5 years i’ve lived in my current city, my auto mechanic knows me well. I’ve built a rapport with him and I trust him. He does a good job. Finding an honest mechanic is priceless!

Best,

RB

It is possible that he underbid the job and is just not that motivated to complete. Let’s say he bid the job so he would pocket $30 per hour, not huge, but some nice pocket change. But lets also suppose for every hour he works he spend 3 hours traveling to junk yards, negotiating price, and hauling the goods back (in his vehicle using his gas). now his 15 hour repair job is really taking 60 hours, his hourly rate has dropped to $7.50 an hour. Not much motivation.

I am bringing up the possibility because this guy may be a great body tech, but a lousy business man. It should be worth ~$500 (especially if you have to tow the jeep and parts) to get it wrapped up.

@craig #6: Yeah… lesson learned.

@valerie #8: I have considered it, and will consider it in the future, but I’m just not sure it is worth the time, trouble, and effort.

@Bodark #5 & Troy #10: That will likely be the outcome. I’m giving him until next week and then I will probably do just that.

Here is exactly what I would do.

Take a truck and trailer over there immediately
Put the Jeep on the trailer
Put any parts for the Jeep in the back of the truck
Demand the rest of your money that hasn’t been spent on parts back.

Leave.

You will likely not get any money back. But you will get you Jeep and any parts for it back in your possession.

Then hit RESET. Decide if you want it fixed by someone else, parted out, donated, etc. Forget this guy. Listen…don’t buy the BS. It is common sense. The guy spent your money on something else, and is stalling you. He has no intention of fixing it, because he has no money left for parts. Sorry, but it is true. Get this guy, and his toxic attitude out of your life.

I would get your Jeep back immediately, or this will continue to get worse. Cut your losses now.

Even if you only get your Jeep back, a few parts, and no money refunded, at least you have options including fixing it or selling it off as parts or a re-build to someone else.

Now you have no options but to wait, get frustrated, and continue fighting with this guy. This will not end well if he continues to keep your Jeep.

Go get it now. Don’t warn him…just show up, you and a couple buddies with a truck, trailer and winch.

Own the situation.

Never got the refund, but thankful that we paid by CC. Called CC company & wrote a letter disputing charge & they handled everything. Within two months we got a credit on our statement including the interest paid on the $600.00.

In the end we found a dealer who had pellets in stock and were able to purchase two tons, but at $30.00 more per ton. We had ordered from the first company because of recommendations by many of our friends who use pellets, good product & low prices.

Lesson learned – if we have to order and then wait for delivery, I will use the CC (and send the cash payment to CC right away) because it does offer some protection against these types of situations.

Pick up jeeep and parts (Uhaul, trailer from a friend, Home-depot truck etc..)

Sell parts (ebay, local Jeeper’s Club)

Sell Total vehichle (sometimes called a donar vechicle for guys doing a complete rebuild of another vehichle)
-OR-
Donate the whole lot to charity and wrtie off agains your 1040 (AGI permitting)

All the best, but arguing with the mechanic at this point seems futile, and perhaps a segway to a fist-fight.

This has happened to me before with contractors, so before i hired him i talked to him about this very thing happening, and he assured me he would work on the job steadily until completed. I even got him to agree in writing to finish the whole job in 3 weeks. He’s totally ignored that and i guess we’re now into week 5 or 6. It’s frustrating, but i don’t want to tell him what i really think becus i want to use him again; his quality of work is really good and his price, too, so i’m up against a rock and a hard place.

I hadn’t wanted my sun room (and family room, which has all the furniture from sun room stored in it now) to be out of commission for the whole summer, but that’s basically what it’s turned out to be. Oh well.

We stopped by to see our baby yesterday, and she’s making lots of progress, finally! Had to get a new quarter panel, new door skin and the driver’s side is covered in bondo work… All that was left was to clean up the welds on the quarter panel and paint her, they were hoping to do paint either yesterday or today. Should be soon that we get her back. We can’t even handle being a two-car couple anymore, let alone one! (My DD is plagued with some sort of mechanical issue that’s been intermittent for 6 months and we have yet to figure out, so she has good days and bad ones. Not good when I go 25 miles to school and back starting today.)

Good luck with the Jeep! It’s been almost two months since the accident happened for us, and I’m sorely missing our car!!

Sorry to hear about the problems with the mechanic though. 8 months is wayyyy to long.

-SingleGuyMoney