The seatbelt warning of my car broke last summer, a week before a long road trip from Sweden to France. The seatbelt warning would beep loudly and incessantly, regardless of if you wore the belt or not, driving me and the rest of the family mad. I called every mechanic within a reasonable “drive there, wait a few hours and drive back”-distance to get it fixed before the trip, but they were all fully booked or on holiday, the downside of everyone having four weeks off in summer in Sweden.

As a last act before resorting to buying industrial-grade earmuffs for the whole family, I thought of calling the mechanic from the rural village I hail from, quite some distance away. I figured I could drive there after work (wearing said earmuffs), sleep at my dad’s house, get it fixed over the day, and then drive home. I called to check available times, described the problem, and got this response:

Mechanic: “Sorry, mate, but we’re fully booked, and we’re going on holiday on Friday. I can probably fix your problem in an hour or three, and I have the parts, but we just can’t fit you into the schedule. It’s impossible.”

Me: “I understand. I really do. It’s just… I really hoped you could’ve helped me; you were my last hope.”

Mechanic: “Why? I’m no Kenobi.”

Me: “Well, that’s true, but I live in [town 150 kilometres away], and everyone around here is also fully booked.”

Mechanic: “Excuse the language, but why the f*** are you calling me in [Village] if you live in [Town]? Why not literally anyone in between?”

Me: “Well, as I told you, I’m from [Village] and my dad, [Dad], still lives there. He lives in [incredibly specific place], and—”

Mechanic: “—Wait, you’re actually his son? I thought you were f****** with me. And you wanted to drive all the way here to get your car fixed?”

Me: “Well, yeah. But if you don’t have time, then—”

Mechanic: “—Shut up. Let me think.”

Me: *Shuts up.*

Mechanic: “When can you be here?”

Me: “Um, Friday morning, so right before you go on holiday. My plan was to drive after work Thursday afternoon, crash at dad’s and—”

Mechanic: “—Drive directly to the shop on Thursday. I’ll drive you to your dad’s place afterwards. Your car will be fixed by closing on Friday. If I haven’t fixed it by then, I’ll slap it back together, and you don’t have to pay me a cent.”

Me: “Really? Oh, gods above, you’ve saved me!”

Mechanic: “We have a deal on one condition!”

Me: “Okay?”

Mechanic: “You won’t go back to f****** [Town] immediately afterwards, you stay and eat dinner with dad, you hear? And you bring at least one of his grandkids, right?”

Me: “That was already the plan, but I’ll stay another night. Thank you again!”

Mechanic: “Don’t mention it. Oh, and if you have another f****** problem and are trying to trick me, I’ll dump your car in the local river. Deal?”

Me: “I solemnly swear that you only have to fix the seatbelt warning, and nothing else. We have a deal.”

The mechanic was true to his word. The car was fixed by Friday lunch. We left a tin of home-baked (Star Wars-themed) cookies for him and his crew when we got the car back as an added thank-you, and I was told by my dad that the mechanics had annihilated them within two hours.

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I’m a mechanic who specializes in alignments. Most alignments can be knocked out in about half an hour, if you include test drives and paperwork. While we have multiple people trained in doing alignments, we only have one alignment rack at our location. All of our other nine bays can potentially feed into that one rack, so it can become a major bottleneck. Between that and the chronic mismanagement of the front-end salespeople, I’ve developed the habit, at every clock-in, of printing out every work order that pertains to alignments, reading their deadlines, and arranging the printouts on my work order board so that I can know what’s due when, anticipate my appointments, and spot any potential trouble areas before they happen.

The assistant manager comes to my alignment bay at around 2:05 pm and tells me that there’s a customer who wants to get their alignment checked, and that the customer has a hard stop, 100% cannot stay late, needs to leave no later than 3:00 pm.

Immediately, I know that this work order didn’t exist an hour ago when I got back from lunch, and I indicate the nearly full work order board.

Me: “That’s not going to be possible. I’m going to be out of the store for the next twenty-ish minutes performing a calibration on this Ford, and the front counter staff announced a few minutes ago over the intercom that the 2:00 pm appointment was here and waiting. I’m already going to be late for that, thanks to this ADAS calibration added on at the last minute. Those two things will take up all the time between now and their 3:00 pm hard stop.”

Cue the blank stare from the assistant manager.

Assistant Manager: “But I told them it’d be done by three.”

Me: “Not with one alignment guy and one alignment rack. You want that alignment sale, you’re gonna have to either pull another alignment-trained employee in here and have them do that alignment while I’m calibrating the Ford, or they can do the calibration on the Ford while I do this other alignment, or you can talk to the customer and buy me until at least 4:00 pm since the 3:00 pm appointment is likely going to be on time, or they can come back another day and get the alignment done then. Those are your options. I’d recommend choosing one quickly.”

Cue another blank stare.

Assistant Manager: “Thank you for your communication. Carry on.”

I perform the calibration on the Ford, come back to the store, test-drive my 2:00 pm appointment, pull it into the alignment rack, and start hooking up the measurement equipment.

The car with the 3:00 pm hard stop has not moved. The keys and its work order are still on my board.

It is now 2:45. The manager on duty comes to the pit, points to the keys and work order on the board, and says:

Manager On Duty: “That has a hard stop at 3:00 pm. The customer is asking whether it will be done soon?”

Me: *Shaking my head* “Nope. It’ll need at least another hour, most likely, and I told [Assistant Manager] forty minutes ago that the hard stop at 3:00 wasn’t going to be possible. Did he talk to the customer and buy me time?”

Manager On Duty: “No.”

Me: “Did [Assistant Manager] grab one of the other alignment-trained employees and have them align that vehicle?”

Manager On Duty: “Obviously not.”

Me: “Those were our options to get this customer happy by 3:00 pm today, and I told [Assistant Manager] as much. It’s not happening by 3:00. The customer has now been waiting for almost an hour for an alignment that won’t be done, so if I were you, I’d try to either buy time or do damage control right about now.”

The customer left without her alignment, and I was left with another few stress-induced prematurely gray hairs. Thank God for the weekend.

In the mid-1990s, I worked in a small automotive repair shop doing general repairs on most brands of vehicles. There were three of us working there: the owner and two techs.

We got a call one day from a new customer whose BMW would not start at a nearby golf course. I sent a tow truck and had the BMW put into a stall. Sure enough, it would crank over but not fire off and start.

I checked for spark, and there was plenty. Now to check the fuel system. No fuel pressure. I went under the hood again to check the fuel pump relay. No problem there. Now to check power at the fuel pump. The manual said the fuel pump was in the inner fender liner in front of the left rear wheel. I pulled the wheel off and the liner back, and lo and behold, no fuel pump. There was a fuel filter there, though.

I went back to the manual and looked up the next production year BMW, and it said the fuel pump was internally mounted in the fuel tank. I cleaned myself up well (the car had white leather) and removed the rear seat to access the fuel pump. The fuel pump only had power while cranking or engine running, so I got [Coworker] to crank the engine over while I checked power to the fuel pump. Pump had no power to it.

I priced out the fuel pump and wrote the estimate. It came out to approximately $525.00, broken down like this.

• Labor for diagnostic time and install: 2.5 hours at $75.00 = $187.50

• Fuel pump: $300.00

• Subtotal: $459.49

• Tax and shop supplies: $38.18

• New total $525.68

When the customer called for the estimate, [Coworker] answered the phone and gave him this total of $525.68. No towing included; it was on the ticket, but [Coworker] just missed it.

At the last minute, I remembered the fuel filter and ordered one and installed it on the vehicle. I didn’t add the labor cost of that, just the cost of the fuel filter plus a little tax.

When the customer came to pick up the car, I heard a lot of loud voices in the office and went in and took over.

Customer: “Why is my bill $625.00 instead of the $525.00 I was quoted?!”

Me: “The quote my coworker gave you did not include the charge for towing, which was $75.00. I also forgot to add the fuel filter at $25.00 plus tax; I installed it at no labor charge.”

[Customer] raised his voice, suggesting that the fuel filter was the problem, not the fuel pump. I assured him that this was not the case, and he demanded the old parts. That was no problem as we would just throw them away anyway.

He wrote a check.

About a week later, the check came back as a stopped payment. It turned out that [Customer] lived in another county, and our DA’s office (local prosecutor) will not take action on out-of-county checks.

The shop owner called [Customer] to see why he would stop payment on the check, and [Customer] started ranting.

Customer: “I took the fuel pump to my mechanic, and he said the fuel pump was good and you ripped me off!”

That was total bulls*** as a restricted fuel filter will hardly keep a vehicle from starting, although it might affect the acceleration a bit.

A few months later, we sued [Customer] in small claims court. An attorney friend represented us for free and said if we collected, to add $500.00 for his fee. We paid $25.00 for a process server, and he was served. [Customer] never showed up for court, so we won by default. Now his bill is around $1,175.00 with court costs, attorney fees, and such.

In Texas, if a customer does not pay for a car repair, we can enforce a mechanic’s lien on the vehicle, which the customer agrees to when he signs the repair order, and we can even take it from anywhere we find it. Also, it can’t be sold to another party with a lien on it.

A couple of months later, we were telling this story to another local who owns a tire shop. It turned out that [Customer] had bought a set of tires from them and stopped payment on that check, as well. [Customer] was trying to play the system knowing that out-of-county checks won’t be prosecuted.

A few months after that, I saw the BMW at the local golf course parking lot and sent a wrecker to pick it up.

Now the bill is $1,350.00 with the impound fee. The wrecker company took the car to their yard and then called the local police department to inform them of a repossession.

When [Customer] finished his golf game and came out to go home or wherever people like him go, and he found his car missing, he called the police to report it stolen. The police informed him that it had been taken on a mechanic’s lien, and they warned to not come onto our property unless it was to pay for his outstanding bill.

[Customer] called us and yelled at [Owner], cursing and hollering. [Owner] hung up on him. [Customer] called back cursing and hollering again. [Owner] hung up, again. [Customer] called back a third time.

Owner: “If you want to discuss this like an adult, we can. Otherwise, I am not going to listen to cursing and yelling.”

Customer: “Fine.”

Owner: “The bill to redeem your car is now $1,350.00.”

Customer: “I’ll sue you!”

Owner: “Do you remember being served by the constable a few months ago? We sued you already, and you never showed up in court.”

[Customer] then said he would just let the bank take the car back. Okay, no problem there. The bank would pay the bill and auction the car, and whatever wasn’t covered by the auction, [Customer] would still owe.

I got the call from the bank asking how much was owed on our bill. I informed them of the balance due, and I asked the banker what was owed on the car. The balance at the bank was around $9,000.00, and the car was worth around $6,000.00. At auction, it might bring $3,500.00. So, if [Customer] let it go back to the bank, not only would he have a repossession hurting his credit, but he would still owe the bank around $6,850.00 and have no car.

[Customer]’s wife called and asked to come in and pay for the car. We told her the amount and told her only cash.

She came and paid.

Now for the revenge. We called our friend at the tire shop that [Customer] had screwed over on the tires. I think it was around $1,100.00.

That friend arranged for a wrecker to pick up the car after [Customer]’s wife paid us, and they took it to another impound yard, incurring another $175.00 impound plus the $1,100.00 for the tires.

Trying to screw us out of $625.00, [Customer] ended up paying us $1,350.00 and our friend’s shop $1,275.00, for a total of $2,625.00. I bet his wife was pissed, and that probably put an end to his golfing for a while.

I work as the Service Manager at a local car dealer. Basically, I am over the entire service department, so most of my day is just dealing with complaints. But I had a new one yesterday — and that’s saying something.

A customer comes in for just an oil change. This particular customer has never serviced any vehicles with us before. As soon as he checks out, he walks out to his car, pops his hood, and “notices” that his engine cover is missing. (Why would you go out and just happen to pop the hood open if you didn’t already know it was missing?) And he proceeds to lose his ever-loving mind.

Of course, I get involved.

Customer: “I just checked my oil yesterday, and the cover was there, but now it’s not!”

I walk back to my technician’s work area to check and see if maybe he took it off and just forgot to put it back on, which can happen sometimes. In this case, there would be no reason to remove it because it’s not required to do an oil change, but I figure I should at least cover all my bases. I check around [Technician]’s work area, his toolbox, etc., and there is, of course, no cover. I ask him if he noticed it.

Technician: “There was no cover on it when I opened the hood.”

I go back to talk to the customer.

Me: “I checked my technician’s work area, and I spoke with him, as well. It was not on the engine when he opened the hood.”

He continues to lose his mind and accuse my technician of stealing the cover. I looked him dead in the eye.

Me: “Sir, I’m pretty positive he didn’t take your engine cover to put on his entirely different make and model of vehicle.”

Customer: “You should buy me a new cover!”

Me: “I’m not buying you a new cover.”

Customer: “I’d be okay with a used one.”

Another red flag: if you were convinced that we had stolen it, why would you be okay with a used one? To make him go away, I tell him that if I come across a used one — if we have a similar vehicle traded in — for example, I’ll see if I can snag one.

Fast forward to this morning. I’m walking by the detail department, and there’s another vehicle of the exact same year, make, and model as the customer’s; it was traded in, and they are cleaning it up for the lot.

I pop the hood — no engine cover. Thinking there’s no way it’s a coincidence, I go to my parts department and ask them to price me out a new engine cover. I want the part number and price. The parts guy puts in the VIN.

Parts Guy: “What engine cover? That vehicle never came with one.”

So, this a**hole knew there was no cover — he probably bought it used, there wasn’t one there, and he assumed there was supposed to be — and brought it to us for a cheap oil change because he thought he could just freak out, we’d cave, and he’d get one for free.

Now, I get to call him Monday to let him know that one, he is not getting an engine cover because they don’t exist for that vehicle, and two, we will not EVER service any vehicle for him at any point in the future. He is fired as a customer.

As a female mechanic, I’ve had a lot of coworkers and customers insinuate that my gender somehow makes me incompetent, or at least inferior to the men I work with. Fortunately, I’ve also had plenty of managers who take absolutely zero s*** from sexist a**holes and are willing to back me up in these situations.

Probably my favourite defense came when dealing with a new hire who seemed to be offended that I was the go-to employee at an auto shop.

New Hire: “Why the f*** does a woman have such seniority here?”

Manager: “In this job, the only situation where your genitals are relevant is if you’re such a f***-up that I have to threaten to feed them to you before you comply with instructions.”