More like I hate to paint. Do you realize how many Dodads have to be moved first? :)
btw, it's peanut butter and pumpkin.

to not having the crankcase drain plug reinstalled. Yes, and the little red light preceded the engine welding itself into junk by about 30 seconds.

Can you say " OH SHIT !!!!!!"

That reminds me of the time i had changed the oil in my 70's something VW rabbit , i hadden't tightented the drain plug tight enough , and as i took the car on a post oil change run , the drain plug came loose , i heard a clunk and saw a cloud of smoke , i watched the oil pressure plunge , i was on the interstate at 70+, i put the car in nutral ( it was a stick shift ) , turned off the engine , and coasted to a PEPBOYS . Luckly they had a drain plug for my car , I replaced this and filled it with oil , i crossed my fingers and started the car , i got 50k+ miles from it untill i had to get the heads re-built . YES I WAS A LUCKY MO-FO !!!!!!! :)

See, there you go again,you don't shoot from the hip worth a shit. I'm strictly helicopter, nothing to do with the Ospreys. I would like Larry Kings money though, I'd buy all my friends VWs. :D

If I have to hear ONE MORE TIME that my friggin' serpentine belt is cracked, and should be replaced I'm going to blow. 9/10 times I have an oil change the shop calls to tell me 'they have a few concerns'. In my 1st car, a '91 escort (I miss her badly) from the first to the last right before I traded her in I heard this line. I had that car for 10 YEARS, and never touched the damn belt. Per my dad, it was fine. So, the car I traded it in for 2 yrs ago was a 2000 taurus. (love it) Guess what? From the very first OC to today, same thing. Firestone today, with a quote for $100 to change my cracked serpentine belt. AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! Both Firestone and Goodyear places regularly do this to me.

The only place that doesn't tell me the belt needs changing is the actual Ford dealer 35min away that I occasioally go to because they throw in a free car wash with your oil change.

I think both those places have a 'take women for suckers' policy. My ex got sucked in to getting the brake rotors replaced on a practically new minivan at a Firestone shop. They told her they were warped and then conveniently lost the old parts when I went back there to have them show me. Goodyear got her to buy a set of over priced tires we didn't need on the same vehicle.

i went to firestone for a quick oil change because it was close. the comes in and tells me that my belts don't look so good, i am way overdue on my airfilter, and that my transmission fluid absolutely had to be done right away.

i told them that i had changed the K&N air filter myself less than a week before. he apologized and made an excuse about misreading his notes. he went back to the belts and trans fluid. i let him know that i'd just had the 60,000 mile service done a month or two before and those were taken care of. he informed me that whatever mechanic i used probably performed a "walljob" on me and he'd be happy to help me out with my problem. he nearly shit himself when i let him know that my mechanic was my uncle and i was present when he did the work.

he went back out and told the technician. now would be an appropriate time to mention that i can see into the work areas from where i am sitting. important because the technician apparently forgot this bit of info as he slammed my hood hard enough to break the latch. i didn't pay for the oilchange, but they did pay the bill from the dealership where i got the latch fixed.

firestone and goodyear joints are all pretty jacked up from what i hear.

Cars are more reliable than ever and except oil changes will go much longer between major services.
It used to be a choice between the dealer and your corner garage or do it yourself. I'd do everything except automatic transmissions and the actual machine work on engine rebuilds. If you didn't want to tackle it, the dealer was the most expensive but had the tools, parts and know how to get it done right. You paid more but demanded more.
If you could find a local mechanic you felt had the knowledge and tools to do a competent job, it might take a little longer but you'd save a few bucks. You might not hold him to the same standard either.
But now cars are so complex and the tools/equipment so specialized, it would take a major investment (for each car) to do any more than basic maintainance. Hell, the last set of service manuals cost me $150, whereas my '65 Mustang manual was something like $20ish. Even the '69 Corvette manuals, which was three volumes and had dimensioned drawings to make the specialized tools you'd need, were only $50/$60.
I've saved a fortune over the years by doing myself, and fortunately my getting lazier/more prosperous and the increasing complexity in the cars have coinsided nicely. But they have to do it right!
Oh, and I pay the dealer $20 for wiper blades instead of $5 at Pep Boys but by God they're worth it. ;)

Every car make is trying to take the small mom and pop shops out of the formula. With the price of diagnostic equiptment and the software updates for the equiptment make it very hard for anyone but the dealer to check out cars. Also, now that oil requirements are changing, quick lube's I hope will get that information. We have had cars come in with concerns and ultimately the problem was due to the wrong weight of oil. Not a big deal but it could be over the long term.

Eh Bubba, do you guys do body work?

I gave Devon Hill an hour of mechanic time to find my rattle in my 95 GTI VR6 and they didn't find it. To be fair the car has to be driven hard to hear it correctly. Lumberjim heard it when he drove it for a day. I think it's body-related.

There's zero trust between owner and service dep't, but it goes both ways. My car suffered a massive electrical failure about a year into owning it. At that time there was no vwvortex, just a VR6 e-mail list. The people on the list were fanatical about sharing service information. This cause of failure was identifed by them as a specific wiring harness. When I called Devon Hill the next morning to explain why there was a dead VR6 in their parking lot, and what the mailing list had to say about the harness, the guy was non-plussed. They diagnosed it as something entirely different and replaced the battery and sent me on my way. A few days later the weak harness killed the new battery AND took the entire dashboard with it.

Update. So, when I picked up my car yesterday, they said that there was some uneven wear patterns on the tires, and a rotation and alignment was a good idea.($150+) Really? These tires are are only 8,000 Hwy miles old, and I paid for and use the lifetime rotation and balance from the goodyear shop that I bought them from every other oil change (6-7,000 miles). (plus, i just had a bearing replacedshortly after the tires were put on, and they checked the alighnment after that and it was fine.) So, I asked him to show me the wear on the tires, since it wasn't noted on the paper. After much stammering and random rubbing of the tire, he tried to show me this tire was more rounded on the edge than the others --which was total BS. I told him I could still see the little rubber flaps on all 4 that are there from the manufacturing, and could he please be more specific about exactly where the uneven wear was since these were brand new tires. More tire rubbing and stammering, then finally a Well, Mike is my expert, and he really is particular about these things. Blah Blah Blah. Also, The coutesy check they supposedly do said I only had 10/32nds left on the tread depth, and that all my fluids were fine, when in fact they weren't. I was out of washer fluid. I asked him how was I supposed to trust that the other fluids were fine, when they obviously didn't check them? I told him I wouldn't be back for any more service since I couldn't trust them with my car. And I won't.

On the other side of things (I think I posted about this somewhere else) possibly even this thread but I'm too lazy to check ..

I had my car in for 25K service at my dealer and tried to get them to do stuff early ... they wouldn't. They identified some "vibration" over 50 mph ... most places would have done an alignment ... they balanced the tires (courtesy) and all better. See you in 5K, guys.

Is the rattle constant? I'll be happy to check it out for you. As far as a body shop, we use Brandywine Coach Works of West Chester. I will say this, we do not use them because they are the cheapest. Where do you think the rattle is? Body? Chassis? I have a set of chassis ears that we use on special occasions.

The rattle mostly happens when accelerating quickly or sometimes up hills or such. It comes from the rear left of the car, which is suspect because it was hit in a parking lot once. (My car was stopped and a young F-150 driver didn't turn fast enough while parking next to it!) I had Karossierie fix the rear panel. But you know, it's one of those things, I can't say 100% that the rattle is the result of that repair. The rattle didn't start right after that... it was maybe a year on?

Brandywine Coach Works... hey LJ who was it that addressed that rust area...?

If you wanted to stop by, I'll go on a roadtest with you and try to pin point it for you. I do have an auto body background, so it may help. Let me know.

i think it was zingani's. but it might have been brandywine. we used both at Family.

here's that thread