Modern Vespa

Greasy PLEASE show us pics, PLEASE

You no longer have the shop?

I'll get ya some tomorrow. I was so mad that I just pushed it off into the dark recesses of the shop.

About the worst I've seen in 15+ years.

-g

I would like to see a recent photo of you as you are about to hammer a mechanical horror.

I normally just pass on stupidity, but why would any person who gets paid by the hour complain about what the customer did to bring him the business? If this is his normal attitude, he will soon find himself unemployed. Really bad attitude...

Please reread the OP post. I was a rant about the mechanic piss poor work. The OP is just frustrated about how these sort of things give mechanics a bad name. Yes, and weekend wrenchers who are to lazy to do it right.

This makes me... sad rather than angry.

Call me stupid (thank you, I knew you would... ), but I like to take some pride in what I'll do.

I don't mind mistakes, we all do those. But I'll get sad seeing sloppy job on purpose. No matter whether this is by a mechanic, IT guy, doctor, teacher....just so...well, waste. Lack of backbone.

lol. I felt SEEN!

50% of the bikes I own has epoxy on 'em right now. :shrug

Because the guy who brings it in thinks it can be fixed for about $50. People bring bikes into shops in boxes and say they don't think there's much wrong with it because it was running last week, so it should be cheap to fix.
If you run a scooter store, you end up with a lot of these things that you fixed for way more than you said it would cost, because you expected to find a nut on the end of the crank, and not a gob of JB weld, and the owner was hoping it would be less than whatever you quoted. Most scooter shops require a deposit to look at a bike if it comes in not running, because so many of them never get picked up. So bottom line is that he probably won't get paid what the job really cost to fix.
If you own a shop and someone brings it in on the back of a truck and says it runs, always make them start it for you. Most of them won't start, then it was running yesterday, so it's probably something that's cheap to fix. Meanwhile, it sounds like a coffee grinder while the owner is fiddling with the throttle, cranking it, then kickstarting it until the kickstarter stops popping back up.

I'd rather have my mechanic lose his shit over an awful job by someone else than one that would rub his palms together at all the work that was just created for him. Just sayin'.

I completely get where Greasy is coming from. When I was a professional mechanic I loved fixing things. I hated cleaning up messes and this is a mess. Every spring when riding weather came around, I'd invariably get a bike that had been stored in a garage with an angry cat who spent the winter pissing all over it. You can bet they got charged extra because I had to work on their cat piss covered POS. It was money in my pocket, but it didn't make me any happier about having to deal with it. Money doesn't fix everything. And you can bet that if there had been an internet in 1980, I would have expressed my annoyance.

-Craig

Best rant ever! Thanks, Greasy, you made my evening.

don't get me wrong. i love the work, i enjoy fixing the unfixable and putting puzzles back together. but when you roll in with a fuckstory and i gotta bat clean up? no me gusta.

-g

potato, pahtato

-g

this, all of this.

i had so and so do all this work and it cost a bundle. but it's not right.

then take it back to them and let them fix it!

no i don't trust them. i spent so much money and it's not right!

okay, well, they totally screwed you. all this is FUBAR. you're gonna need all this and it'll be this much and this much in labor.

oh! all you mechanics are the same! you're all trying to screw us!

okay. cool. i'll eat my hour of labor. call a tow truck, your shit is out on the street. bye.

having tools costs money. having insurance costs money. keeping the lights on costs money. having a building costs money. that's before we get to my skill set.

you wanna call some knuckle head off craig's list to come fix it? that's cool. but when you wind up bringing it me you're gonna pay double.

-g

yeah, you totally missed the point. but it's cool.

btw, what do you do for a living? just, ya know, curious...

roughly 1,000mi

but yeah, i went from 3~5 bikes a day to 3~5 bikes a month and the idiot parade never stops.

thankfully, now it's changed from: sure i'll look at that! to a more: nah, not interested in any of that!

i'm not afraid of any of the work, it's just getting somebody to cough up $500 on a bike that's worth $750 on it's best day is a tough sell.

and the crazy people.

-g

Part of the problem is that many of the people that claim some other mechanic screwed it up are lying. There was no other mechanic. It was them. For some reason, almost every motorcycle/scooter owner thinks they can turn a wrench - and they can't. They get in over their heads and finally decide to take it to someone qualified. But they don't tell you everything. You end up playing a game of "incremental disclosure" and wasting even more time because they won't fess up to their mistakes.

This is why I refuse to buy a used bike.

I bought a used SYM CityCom and the transmission drain plug was so stripped only 1 thread was holding it in! Plus changing the front brake pads took me forever because "someone" LocTighted the guide pins on the front caliper! I asked the original owner about the dumb issues he said the dealer did it.

How to go from making a valid point, to making yourself sound like a jackass in one sentence.

Step 1. Make a valid point.

Step 2. Follow it up with something like this: Wishing death on other riders, seriously? Come on man. We're better than that.

Two summers ago my business was offering service/repair, and I had a customer who said a local mechanic named Ted, @#$%ed up his carbs. Ted has owned his own shop for almost 30 years. Before that, he's been wrenching longer than I've been breathing. If there's one guy in this city I trust to get carbs right, it's Ted.

I also work with Ted quite a bit, so I suggested I call Ted, explain to him the situation, and knowing Ted he'd probably fix it for free and my customer wouldn't have to pay either of us a dime. "I may as well call Ted for you and ask, right?"

As soon as the customer heard I was on friendly terms with Ted his story changed completely. Suddenly there appeared a jerry can of old gas they put in by accident, blocking up the carbs, causing his friend to take them apart, and "It was probably my friend not Ted."

That's the other thing, it's always "a friend" and never they themselves who screwed things up.

I will say, I still ONLY buy used bikes, just, you have to ask screening questions, like "Who did the maintenance" and "Do you have receipts" and if the answers are suspect, or there were too many mods done, just walk away.

Wow, you did that well!

dear 8lb 6oz baby jesus did you miss the point.


hy·per·bo·le

/hīˈpərbəlē/

noun

exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.

i know you're canadian, but pull your finger out of your ass and dial it back about 20% there boys.

-g

Seriously, I want to buy you a beer.

















I pulled my finger out of my ass a long time ago.

open invitation if you ever find your way out west, i'll get the first round! hell, even if you're here for a layover i'll come meet ya at the airport for a few wobbly pops.

if i find my way east and within striking distance i'll be cashing in for sure!

-g

Not sure what it's like where you're at, but it's still a brotherhood over here, and I'm cool with preserving that.

where i'm at, people have reading comprehension and can still take a joke.

but you're more than welcome to go shit in your hat, brother.

xoxo

-g

Madison, I want to buy you a beer. If I could have given you another thumbs up, I would have. Thanks for making me laugh.

And if you're ever in the Pacific Northwest.... Hell, between Jess and all you mods you probably have someone standing that first round in just about every state and several countries.

I want greasy125 to have my babies.

I totally thought you were a dude.


...sorry....

He's more human than human...


Yeah multipass.. she knows its a multipass.

I thought you were a zombie princess!

oh god... who left the door open again!??!

fare thee well human beasts!

~flees for mars~

-g

with science, anything is possible.

*posted from space en route to mars*

-g

MV-Bot is everything. MV-Bot is nothing. MV-Bot is all things, at all times, in all universes both known and unknown and all technology across the the cosmos and those yet to be discovered, in perpetuity.

MV-Bot is the worst NDA ever and your best friend.

MV-Bot may or may not exist.

if MV-Bot wants to have babies with me, i may just try. even if it's, like a seahorse situation where i have to carry them. totally cool with that.

-g

Perhaps my favorite MV forum quote of all time... And there are lots of good quotes in the MV forum.

Apologies, I should've dropped a F-bomb in there.

Entirely out of character for me. Not part of my brand at all!

Delighted none the less!

-g

Not this one?
https://html5zombo.com/