False Economy

I have a friend, John who really loves his cars. He's a real enthusiast, and could tell you the compression ration and design details of every bit of his old Mercedes although strangely he isn't at all mechanically adept. In fact I once watched him trying to do something fairly straightforward and it was a painful experience. As a result John doesn't attempt DIY servicing and entrusts his pride and joy to others to keep it running smoothly. The thing is that John is a bit short of cash at the moment so he hasn't been able to afford to have the car serviced professionally. As a result the dear old Merc hasn't quite got all of the attention that it needs to keep it running smoothly.

Last month the car developed a misfire, it was just a minor hic and so he decided to have the car serviced by a guy who he had recently met at a car show. The guy seemed to know what he was talking about, and best of all he was cheap and lived fairly close to John, the guy even offered to come and collect the car and drop it back after he had finished. True to his word the mechanic chap turned up on time and drove John's pride and joy away to service it.

The car came back 2 days late, at first glance it looked nice and shiny and it sounded fine and so cash changed hands and the 'mechanic' hopped into his lift and drove off.

John couldn't wait to take the car for a drive, he jumped in and set off up the road. Immediately he could tell that all was not well. The minor misfire was now much worse, and there was a distinctive smell of hot oil emanating from the vents on the dashboard. Naturally John wasn't best pleased and the squealing brakes only reinforced the fact that things were not as they should have been.

John phoned the 'mechanic' who was apologetic and said that he would sort things out. 3 visits later and the car was no better. John was beside himself, he just wanted the problems to go away.

Eventually John had no option other than to send the car to a professional, the list of faults that appeared when the new chap did his diagnosis was impressive to say the least, and a month later and a couple of thousand pounds worse off John finally had a fault free pristine Mercedes.