Yup... people do some crazy things sometimes... Funny part is this all started becasue this older gentleman tried to replace a set of lower ball joints in his driveway, then he comes to me and asks if I can et it back together. I told him "sure..." just have it towed over to me and I'll take care of it. He calls AAA and they brought it to me on 3 wheels, then ripped his front bumper getting it off the truck, had to call him and let him know about it etc etc etc... Anyway, got his car fixed, stitched up his bumper with zip ties just so the car wouldn't look so bad etc... he's happy so he sends me his son in law to fix His car that won't start... Same thing, I told him have it towed over here and I'll get to it shortly.
Sooo... it's busy as **** this day and 30 minutes later here comes the tow truck and drops his car off... AND he's right behind the tow truck and expecting me to drop what I'm doing to look at his car.... Strike 1... I tell him I'll have to get to it after I'm done with the other stuff that I got gooing on and call when I find something out.
After things calm down I go out and jump start his car and after reconnecting his intake duct from the air filter to the throttle body it fires right up.... I told him to check this Before towing it in and spending $50 or so on a tow... anyway, I call him up about closing time and tell him I got it started and what I had to do to get it started, he tells me to keep it overnight and check it out real good... O... K...
Next day about 30 minutes after opening.. guess who's here?... and he's not happy to see me inspecting someone else's car... Really?!! you're pissed because I'm away from your car to do a 10 minute inspection? strike 2...
He then tells me it wasn't driving that well before and he wants a tune up and oil change done... Ok.. no problem, but I'll start on it later this afternoon when things calm down over here.. So I do a couple alignments and a few other jobs but I'm still swampped with inspections since it's the end of the month... Guess who shows up about an hour before closing time? ... Yup... Here he is again asking about his car... I told him I hadn't had time to start on it yet and the parts are on order, Now he's really pissed and asking how more people I'm gonna take care of in front of him... Again??!! So he's now complaining I won't have time to work his... Duh... I'm the shop owner... I can stay late if I need to I'm thinking to myself, then I explain to him "I'll have it done but it'll be after closing time, I can do that because I'm the one who calls the shots and we're not gonna close the doors right at 5:30.... He agrees to it and decides to take off and wait for me to call him to pick up his car... So he takes off and I go back into the office for something and there he is walking into the office looking for me to tell me he's gonna take the car now... I tell him ok and get his keys then he asks me how much he owes me.. just off the top of my head I told him $75, he agrees and pays me so I get his car out of the shop and give him his keys. At this point his wife is just glaring at me everytime i look her way then she starts asking me what all I did that it costs $75... I told her really casually "I got your car running" so she's pissed but accepts the answer for a few minutes, then she asks me to show her exactly what I did... I said "ok", popped the hood and showed her that I reconnected the intake duct. Then I went on to say to the guy "this is all I had to do to get your car going" and you could have saved yourself the $75 and the towing costs if you would have just done this first" and i made sure I said it right in front of his wife who was already really pissed by this time.
So not only did I stick him with a high bill for being such a pain but I also got to throw him under the bus with his wife at the same time.
Most people I'd never pull that on, but this guy has been begging for it from the time they dropped the car off til he got ni it and drove off...