[yetibone]

I only do side work for family and VERY close friends who understand the concept of "Murphy's Law" and know enough to not to conjure up any correlation between, say, a timing belt replacement, and why their left rear blinker quit working as they pulled out the driveway.

Ignorance is bliss for a lot of people who don't understand automotive service and repair. Many of them will take advantage of some mechanic's good natured gestures of "making it right to keep the customer happy" and come up with some far fetched ideas for relating a new problem to a recent repair.

I had one guy try to squeeze a free tire repair out of me 'cause he SWORE it hapened in our driveway the day before. He had 160 more miles on the odometer than he did the previous day, so I asked him if he had any proof. He said he had only driven from our shop, to his apartment, and back again the next morning on his way to work.

"You live 160 miles away?" I ask.

"What do you mean?" he asks.

"That's how far you've driven since yesterday." I said.

"Well... I drove to the store and back, and did a few things... I know I didn't run over a nail on the roads here in Cary. But...Well...you see your shop is the kind of place where nails end up on the ground."

"Nails... at an auto repair shop?" I say

"You must not notice all the new construction around here do you?" I added

He says "Listen, I know it happened in your driveway, so I don't see where I should pay for something that's not my fault!"

"Your'e right." I said "You shouldn't have to pay."

I took a screwdriver and pushed the plug down into the inside his tire.

"There you go! No charge!"

I didn't like the guy anyway.

Yetibone