I left my car in storage over a year, in Canoga Park. The storage company was great, unlike the garage next door.
When I came back to the United States, from a wasted year in Germany, the car was covered with dust but amazingly the tires were still inflated! The battery was, of course, fully discharged and we tried to start it up with our rental car, but not luck. After some troubleshooting, it turned out that the fuel pump was not turning and we had to find the closest garage.
And, there we found Steve’s Automotive or how to do a crappy job while smiling all the way; they were close, the price was right and Steve was friendly, so we made the mistake of towing the car there.
Each of the trips there, we could always see Steve and William, reminding me of Pinky and the Brain. Steve is a friendly older guy that will chat and smoke with the customers while his disciple does all the grunt work.
And the problem is that William is challenged enough by trying to remember how bolts and screws are different to do proper work.
In the end, they had to remove the exhaust of the car, remove the gas tank, change the pump and put it all back.
While doing this, they managed to:
- Loose the gas cap
- Almost rip one of the battery cable
- Rip one of the oxygen sensor wires
- Mount the exhaust back improperly
- And added a surprise for later
After it was reassembled, you could feel your teeth rattle as the exhaust was rubbing on the car’s chassis. Another trip there, they took us next door to a you can try to milk those customers too exhaust shop that proposed to fix the problem for about $900. The problem eventually got fixed for free by a garage in Santa Monica that just realigned a few things. I wish I still had the info about these two places.
So, we go on our merry way, the car is not shaking anymore and… oh wait a minute.. something is wrong.. oh yes, the car just died! Steve’s monkey has also managed to screw up the floater in the fuel tank; When you are tricked to believe there’s 1/4 left, it’s in fact empty! But this time, I’ll handle it another time, I just don’t want to give them the opportunity to put their hands on this car anymore.
