Timing Belt finally fixed

[Cat ^. .^ ~]

Kent McLean wrote:
>Cat ^. .^ ~ wrote:
>>Kent McLean wrote:
>>>Or (learn to) D-I-Y. :)
>>
>>My hubby used to do all of our work, ...
><long sob story snipped>
>
>I saw nothing there that said, "I can learn..."
>
>Do you think there are "guy genes" that the gentlemen of
>the list are born with that make them natural mechanics?
>Believe me, we've made our mistakes and learned from them.
>In fact, we still make mistakes and learn from them.
>Just some food for thought.

When I was younger and laid off my job at a brewery I used to work for a friend fixing cars at his garage until I was called back to work.   I have done plenty of work on cars in my life.   I have too many physical injuries at
this point to even consider doing that.  I do not think that all men are natural mechanics any more than
all women can multi-task better than men.  That is just plain silly.  I do happen to believe, based upon my own experience that men who own auto shops often, not always, take men more seriously than women.   Not always, but when I was in my teens and twenties and I would go in to ask about getting my car fixed, you would almost have to have been there to understand how patronizingly and condenscendingly I was treated.  It was at that point I started fixing my own cars.  I always own two, and when one was down, I would fix it and drive the other.

But just like I am responsible, competent and honest in my career,  I would like to find the same in a someone who works on my car.  And I have had mechanics in Minneapolis when I lived there who had Audis themselves and loved working on them and I could trust them and could relax when I dropped my car off.   I had second thoughts when I first came in because of what I heard being said to another customer, but I didn't feel like I had much choice given my timing belt was long over due for being changed.  I was concered that it would break at any moment.    At least now I don't have to worry about that and I can try to get the cold starting and braking problems resolved in a less-pressured fashion.

I did all the right things by calling ahead, talking in detail about what I parts I wanted replaced while they had the car apart (thanks to the suggestions on this list, thank you), got detailed pricing of all these parts and labor from the people I called, and that I wasn't able to leave my car overnight.    This process brought the estimate up for some, sometimes doubling the quote.    And, they have TWO Audi dealerships in Scottsdale just a few miles from this shop.   I looked them up after I got my car back.   There is no *reasonable* reason I should not have gotten my car back in good working order in a day.    I am strongly considering the next time I take a car to a garage explaining how and why I plan to bring my own parts each and every time.   ;-)   There doesn't seem to be any way to learn about foreign car speciliastic except by personal recommendation or to simply live through the experience.  And this one was more than tiresome.

Fay   


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