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| - Primarily an expert at charging my credit card; perhaps even capable of simple maintenance work, certainly nothing more. The work he did on my kit car was absolutely abominable, extremely expensive, most of it had to be re-done by a real mechanic, and also wasted months and months of my time. Here is a partial listing:
1) Transmission: My car had a shifting problem when I got it. Justin sold me a rebuilt transmission but still had the same problem. Finally traced this to the shifter bushing; he said he would install a race shifter bushing and let the car sit for more months; later said he couldn't find such a bushing and installed the regular nylon one. Unfortunately it was always hard to test this stuff at the time because of the engine issues (see #2). Given my experience, I believe the "rebuilt transmission" was simply unnecessary padding the bill.
2) Engine: I wanted a very reliable Beetle engine, so I asked to have electronic ignition and a new carb installed. Car always ran at extremely fast idle (2500 rpm) when I picked it up. Later another mechanic found that the linkage was installed "wrong." Once we slowed the idle down to normal, we realized that the engine had a bad miss -- the result of ignition wires that installed wrong on Cylinders 3 & 4. With the right mechanic, this was a 10 second fix. Things were okay then until the carburetor worked loose and started leaking fuel after about 200 miles. Oh and BTW, Justin also kept my original VW carburetor, which was worth some $$$.
3) Installed new steering wheel but never got it on straight and never returned the old wheel. Another mechanic fixed that.
4) Let the car sit for months on end, promising to rewire it. Finally I had to pick it up and take it elsewhere -- smartest move I ever made.
5) While my car was sitting in his shop for months on end -- and while he was supposedly replacing all my gas lines (he didn't do all of them, either) -- the gas tank went from full to empty. I later traced this to a bad gas cap. Now, wouldn't a decent mechanic think to check the gas cap as part of a fuel line install?
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