Date:         Thu, 7 Sep 2000 17:40:41 EDT
Reply-To:     KENWILFY@AOL.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         KENWILFY@AOL.COM
Subject:      Re: scammed? Idle stabilizer
Comments: To: Pfunky@aol.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

Patrick, I am sorry that you got the impression that I was slamming all
mechanics everywhere.  I definately am not as I am one myself.  Having
troubleshot and fixed many of these vans in the described condition of this
one, I thought I would weigh in on how long this should take.  To totally
troubleshoot both the temp sender and the idle stabilization system is only a
matter of a few minutes with a multimeter and the Bentley Manual.  Less if
you have some known good parts available for swapping (I do).  At the
absolute most this whole thing couldn't have taken more than two hours.  I
understand shop time, but 6 hours still seems like alot of time to change out
a rear wheel cylinder, do a tune up and troubleshoot the system.  I am not
against good mechanics, doing thier job and charging a fair price, I am just
against mechanics who feel that they can take advantage of people who don't
know what is going on back there.  Also whenever I come across a big dollar
problem with a van I am working on, I always call the customer first before
replacing anything.  I think this is common politeness to the customer to let
them make the decision of something that is going to make thier bill much
more expensive.  From the letter I got describing the situation this was not
done.

So this is not a flame.  I appreciate your being upset, but I still think
this guy, at the very least, has a reason to complain about a shop that
doesn't treat him right by informing him first before doing costly repairs,
and may have justification of feeling ripped off if he is being over billed
for time.

Thanks,
Ken Wilford
http://www.vanagain.com
John 3:16

New Phone (856)-327-4936
Shop: (856)-765-1583
Fax:     (856)-327-2242