Originally Posted By: threeputtpar
Close family friends are my weak spot when it comes to helping others out with car problems. They are a great family and we love them to death, but they are the ones that BITOG has nightmares about.
They have no idea or interest in maintaining any of their gasoline burning possessions. Wehn I found out that one of the guys was planning on driving his father-in-law's Mercedes to Florida, I was a bit concerned. It had sat outdoors at his storage shed for 5 years with the windows partially rolled down without a cover. Front wheel bearings were seized, no brakes all around, wouldn't run right below 2000 rpms, and on and on...
He was just going to jump into it and drive it 1800 miles like he had just driven it off the new car lot. He can easily afford to be rescued when everything goes wrong, but I thought why allow that to happen when I can easily prevent it?
His brother lives straight across the street from me, and his issues are OPE instead of cars because he leases vehicles through his firm. I've had his lawn tractor and snowblower in my shop often, sometimes for the simplest things like a broken sparkplug causing running issues. At some point he'll bring me his PWC to get that up to snuff, it spends most of the summer in his driveway disabled.
I happily do everything I can for them and other members of my family simply because I have the knowledge and tools to do it. They all appreciate it greatly, and I don't feel uncomfortable when I ask them legal advice or help with HR issues. Those are their specialties and they are equally happy to help me. I never charge for my labor, and when friends insist on paying me I graciously accept and go out and buy them something I know they'll like.
I have ended up being the charity mechanic for probably a dozen people.
Yesterday while I was replacing a shock bushing on my sister's van the neighbor two houses down wanted me to come look at her newish Cadillac that had a digital speedometer than quit working.
The thing is, I'm handy, but with the internet there is no reason people can't google this stuff themselves, which is what I have to do if working on something that is unfamiliar. I've never touched a caddy, and with the all digital dash with HUD there's no way I'm touching that thing.
I currently have 24 Honda ATV's in my back yard. About half of them are mine. The other's belong to friends, or my wife's family. They bring them to me to fix, and when it was wheel bearings and even top ends I did it because I enjoyed it. Now it's gotten to the point where people just drop stuff off, and I've had enough of it. The guy who doesn't pay his bills but his wife drives a Range Rover? He drops his kids late 80's 350 Foreman off that "needs rings" and the things been sitting with the top end off for years. Cylinder had 1/4" of rust on the walls. His kid is in my daughter's class so I'm going to fix it with a parts bike I got for next to nothing, and hope that the dad doesn't sell it out from under the kid (I feel sorry for the kid). So I haven't gotten to that one yet and come home to find an old Big Red ATC in the driveway, same guy, with "can you look at it?" I pushed it off on the bushes, and the next time I saw him told him to come get it.
My parent's and my wife's father are old. My sister is an old maid, so they need my help. I don't want to see people I care about pay $100/ hour to have things done that I can easily do, but I've discovered while some people are nice, patient, and gracious, some will take full advantage of me if I let them. Family I feel an obligation to help. Same for close friends, but I've been amazed at the people who barely know me who want me to "look at" whatever they have.
I've told people "NO MORE" the last few times people have asked me to fix their stuff. I don't have time to work on my own stuff if I keep working on other peoples junk.
The last straw was a close friend has a Honda Rincon that he sank several times. I tore the motor down to clean it out, and after reassembly cannot get it to shift right. It has hydraulically driven clutches instead of gears so honestly it's beyond my skill level, and while I've found a lot of people with the same issue online, no one has ever posted up the cause of the problem or the solution, so I'm stuck on it. I want to fix it for him, but have spent countless hours messing with it and it still won't shift out of first without the rear wheels locking up, so I'm about to throw in the towel and tell him to come pick it up. He paid for the new seals, timing and oil pump chains, and top end work, but ultimately I failed to fix it, he spend a bunch of money on parts, and he's probably going to find that if he takes it to a shop fixing it will much more than it's worth (I suspect the motor will have to be torn down again). It shifted fine when he brought it to me, just smoked horribly, so I didn't get something together right. No way this situation ends well unless I get it fixed, and since I don't charge my friends to tinker it's put me in a very awkward spot.
The worst thing is, after being helpful for years, now when I tell people no it offends them. No good deed goes unpunished.