Dirty, Rotten, Blankety-blank

As of my last report on Sunday, I had received my car from the shop and everything was hunky-dory. That didn't last long. By the end of the day Monday, it was making a weird noise. Now, you may remember that I was paying our head mechanic to do the work outside of business hours. He's also the same guy who helped us purchase the car. Considering I'm his boss, I felt fairly comfortable working with him, but with all of the repairs, I'd been having my doubts.

I asked around and found another local mechanic who is used by many of the locals at the embassy and is widely considered to be reliable and trustworthy. I took the car in this morning to have the weird sound fixed but also to have him take a look at the car overall so that I can have a second opinion. As it turns out, my suspicions were EXTREMELY well founded, and the truth was much worse than I expected.

The mechanic called back about an hour after I dropped the car off to report that among other things, the welding job that our mechanic had done on the engine mount was shoddy and they had used a piece of wood to prop up the engine. WOOD! And not even a solid block of hardwood, but an 8" X 3" X 0.5" piece of particle board - I never would have seen it if I hadn't taken it to the other guy. Then there was a litany of other problems that would undoubtedly need repair before long. But still, the piece of wood was the most unbelievable thing. I don't know how to do much beyond filling the windshield washer fluid and changing a flat tire, but I defintely know that particle board will not support an engine.

What it comes down to is that we are probably better off selling the car and buying another one. But to add more insult to insult, (there hasn't been an injury - but that's probably only because I didn't see the embassy mechanic today, haha), I learned that the car we bought should probably only have cost $3000 vs the $4500 we paid. So on top of telling me the car was in good condition, our mechanic was most likely also involved in a scheme to overcharge us so he could pocket the money.

Now, knowing the local modus operandi, I expect a little over charging or even to have the mechanic suggest some repairs that might not be completely necessary. (I try not to generalize, but my growing impression of the locals is that while perhaps quite hospitable, they are generally not terribly honest or scrupulous. I think this bears that out.) But misleading me to this extent, where the problems with the car could have endangered the driver (I think of Stephanie), was just shocking. This guy lied through his teeth that the car was in good working condition.

The general consensus among the mechanics who worked on the car today is that it is probably better to sell the car and start over. Knowing what I know now, I agree. But we'll certainly lose money in the deal, not to mention the time and headache involved in the process. It's infuriating.

Of course, I plan to talk to the embassy mechanic about this - I just don't think it could have been done appropriately today. But there are really only two possible explanations. Either he screwed me over, or he knows absolutely nothing about cars. I'll be interested to see which one he chooses.

On the bright side, I finished first two times this week among our morning running group. Both times I was holding pretty close to a 7 minute mile for almost 5 miles. Also on the bright side, I have a wonderful wife who baked me brownies to cheer me up, and good friends at the embassy who are happy to let me vent.

We also have lots of great things to look forward to. We're planning to take a long weekend in March to go to Uzbekistan with some friends. And over the last week I've been working on the preliminary process of planning our R&R in Italy at the end of April through mid May! As always, we're setting an ambitious plan and half the fun will be planning it. As Stephanie so rightly reminded me, the important thing is not to let a few idiots, (That's the censored description. I can think of quite a few more appropriately severe words to describe these people and have used most of them at some point today), ruin an otherwise great experience.