“We are car people…”

Gerry Edwards, motorcycle maestro.

Last  year I had a Chevy dealer service my Corvette with predictable results.  The steering wheel was tilted to the left after an alignment, they told me the battery was fine (but I needed a new one a couple of months later), and they charged me for lubing the door hinges (I could see they had not).   The follow on interactions pretty much followed most of the experiences I’ve had with dealers…several trips back to fix the things they screwed up (it took three returns to get the steering wheel pointing straight ahead).  I was most bothered by the fact that they charged me for labor to lube the door hinges (I mean, who charges for such things?) without having done the work.  When I asked about that and showed them that the hinges had not been lubricated, the service manager explained that they didn’t have the required lubricant.  I don’t know what was more disturbing:  The fact that they charged me for something they had not done, or the service manager’s belief that not having the required materials somehow justified that bit of fraud.   Why, I wondered, couldn’t I find a service outfit for my Z06 with the same competence level as Gerry Edwards and his guys?  That’s that I wanted; a automotive technician with the skills and honesty that we have in our CSC motorcycle maintenance staff.

Well, I found one, but I got to it in a roundabout way.   We stopped going to the BMW dealer as soon as our 4 years of “free” maintenance ended on my wife’s car (what a joke that “free” maintenance was, but that’s a story for another time).   My buddy Marty (whose wife also drives an Uber-mobile) alerted me to an independent shop in our neighborhood.  Taylor BMW, to be precise.   We’ve always been happy with the work Taylor did for us (far more so than we ever were with the U-boat captains at the BMW dealership).

Taylor branched out, or expanded, or whatever you want to call it.  They opened another independent service place right next to their BMW shop, and this one focuses on American cars.   One day last week while driving home from CSC, I could feel the front brakes pulsating in the Vette.   I was due for a brake job.  There’s no way I would return to the Chevy dealer (I could hear them already…yeah, we charged you for pads, but we didn’t have any), so I thought I would try the new US option at Taylor’s.

When I stopped at Taylor’s with my Corvette, I noticed a very cool (and very old) Opel station wagon with a racing number on the side.  Mike (the manager) came out to meet me.  I told him what I needed and how I wanted to make sure the service tech didn’t sit in my car with screwdrivers sticking out of his pocket and….

Before I got any further, Mike (with a German accent, no less) told me, “Joe, see that Opel?  It’s mine, and I know exactly what you want.  I race autocross and the guys who work here work on my car.  Nobody here will do anything that hurts your car.  We are car people.”

Mike, in his 47-year old Autocross Opel.

Wow.  There’s something about an auto tech with a German accent that automatically instills a sense of confidence.  I liked the guy immediately.

When I returned later that day, my car was ready, it had been washed, and it was perfect.   Mike and I spoke a little more, and he told me about his Opel.  It has custom, period correct magnesium racing wheels (he found three wheels in one country and one in another).  It has a super-rare Steinmetz intake manifold and a custom carburetor.  It looked to me like it had new paint, but Mike explained that he spent a lot of time buffing it.   He took me inside the shop and showed me the ventilated disks that came off my car (they were way heavier than I would have thought).  Mike told me he put ceramic pads on my Z06 instead of the stock pads because “it’s what a car like yours should have.”

A very clean engine engine compartment showcasing a Steinmetz intake, a custom carb, and more.

On the drive home, the Corvette did the same thing both of my CSC motorcycles do every time I ride them.  It brought a smile to my face.  I am one happy camper.