I had a bit of trouble with one of my cars. It has a very odd electrical fault and the water pump became defective. An associate of my wife, who owns and runs a car workshop offered to repair the car. No problem he said, he'll fix it quick quick. Three months later and nothing much is happened so I ask him to get the car back to me. So, I collect the car this evening. It is covered in grease prints (its a white car), the wires under the dash are hanging out, the electrical fault is still there, they disabled the choke and set the idling speed to 3000 RPM and that lot is not even the worst of it. When I started the car it sounded like the exhaust was beating the car to death. They say no problem, the exhaust "blows" a bit. So I drive for a bit and pull into a garage to find that the centre exhaust bracket is missing and the central flexible exhaust joint is practically dragging on the tar.

I have never seen anybody do so much damage to a car in one go. They have to be a really special breed of back yard mechanics to be able to f*ck it up as thoroughly as they did. The thing that gets me most is that they just sort of dump it and rush off... probably thinking that I won't notice that the car is now thoroughly stuffed. My wife will still see the guy a couple of times a week because our kids share interests so it is not as if he can simply hide.

I am simply gobsmacked that people could have so little regard for their own handy work, I could never give a customer, let alone a friend crap service or destroy their property. I have replaced items free of charge in thee past and I will continue to bend over backwards to uphold my reputation for quality.

...but man oh man...they can be very glad that I am flooded with mood stabilizers because if I weren't I would have broken their skulls.

Anyway, I'm not going to get upset or anything, it is just another chapter in my book of disgust in mankind.