Official Hiccups
Well, there’s officially a hiccup in the whole process now…
As I previously wrote: the body shop votec said that the engine would turn over but would not fire when they went to move it into the paint booth. They were going to take it next door to the votec department that teaches engine repair and such. At the time it sounded fine to me. Well, last week I went to check in on how things were going… and they weren’t.
When I got there I found the instructor very disinterested in the project. He put “some guys on it.” Well, next thing I know, they still have no idea what’s wrong with it, and I’m down one installed alarm system (which I (who installed the alarm myself right after high school) could have told them has NOTHING to do with the firing of the engine). Then he says that they’re in the middle of finals and wouldn’t be able to get back on it until after the Christmas break on January 10th. “When after that might it be fixed? A week? A month?” I ask in an air of obviousness. “Well, I can’t make any guarantees. We can make a class project out of it though.”
On my way out I snapped a quick shot on my cell phone:
At the car repair votec.
I’m not so concerned with it taking so long. It’s just the thought of fifteen guys poking and pulling at critical things? “Now, where does this thing go?” …BANG BANG BANG… “Got’it out boss.” Nawp… no thanks. I’ll figure something else out.
After some mulling it over, I decided to have it towed to my regular mechanic, have him fix it, and then drive it back to the votec for BODY WORK ONLY.
Early this week, I took the day off to run some Christmas errands and to get this taken care of. They moved the car back to the body shop area. I called a tow truck… <waiting> <waiting>
Hmm. I’ll just go peek and see what the students did to it… Tsk-tsk. Typical. The dash under the steering wheel is disassembled all over the floor with screws and clips scattered around. Fortunately, I’ve dissembled/reassembled that area several times, so I know how it goes back. I can only hope that all the parts are still present.
<waiting> <waiting> Ah, here he is. Oh, good. It’s the flatbed kind. We pulled around back of the votec. No one is around; everyone is gone for the Christmas break. I think this tow truck guy is either trying to impress me (the only one around) or else is just lazy–perhaps both. He pulls up perpendicular to my car… like he’s the vertical part of an ‘L’ and my car is the horizontal part.. except there’s about 25 feet between the two. (“L” for “Lazy”, I maintain… read on)
“Do you want me to help push it into position?” I ask.
“Nah.. I got it”.
Ok, maybe he feels the need to earn his $75… No wait. He’s not going to exercise a muscle save the typical excursion it takes to walk from here to there. He connects the wench hooks to the tow brackets. Then he cuts the steering wheel all the way to one direction. Then with the winch he proceeds to drag the car into position and onto the bed. Impressive? Sure (were it actually necessary) Graceful? Not really. Nonetheless, we’re on our way to the mechanic.
I get to the mechanic and explain the situation–mainly to inform him why the car he normally works on is only present in part. I told him there was no rush as school would not be back in session until January10th. I depart.
I heard from the body shop instructor that they’ll paint it first thing when school resumed.  Well, I do hope so.
Yeah, I know. I’ve been saying/thinking all along that ‘you get what you pay for.’ Hopefully, what I get is just a long process and not a poor result. While the latter is a possibility, it shouldn’t be worse than when I started.
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