Welcome back to Comment Of The Day! Every day, we read every single comment posted on our site and pick the one that made us laugh, get informed, or feel warm inside. You don’t have to go into our comments sections and write thousand-word stories about why you love a car so much, but a lot of you do, and that means a lot to us. So we’re highlighting some of the most excellent bits of thought that you’ve formed into words and digitized onto our website. Today, Thomas published a story about a mobile mechanic that faced a moral dilemma. A customer reached out to Willie D. Jenkins in need of significant brake work for a 2007 Honda Civic. Well, significant is an understatement as the car didn’t really have brakes for at least four months. The customer intended on driving his kids to school the next day, but the car was so unsafe that Jenkins took matters into his own hands, temporarily pulling the ignition relay and fuel pump relay.
But Jenkins isn’t your typical mechanic. He’s on a mission to make sure everyone can drive a safe car. That includes fixing cars for cheap or sometimes even pro bono. From Thomas’ article: For further context, the Civic in question had rotors so worn that one of them snapped off a whole four months ago, yet the owner continued to drive it. The owner continued to drive it even after it started losing brake fluid and still continued driving after it completely lost brakes.
Thankfully, the customer authorized a repair of the brakes. And to do things as cheaply as possible, Jenkins raided RockAuto for the many parts needed. In a response to this story, reader Mr. Asa told a story of their own. For the second day in a row, we have a heartwarming comment taking the COTD crown: Jenkins isn’t required to fix cars for dirt-cheap prices. And Mr. Asa wasn’t required to pull out a pen and paper to explain to a customer what was going on with their vehicle. Jenkins could charge the kind of money that those mobile mechanic apps charge and Mr. Asa could have just sent that customer away. But instead, Jenkins decides to do what he can to help people keep their cars safe. As a result, kids will get to school safely. And when nobody else was willing to do the work, Mr. Asa figured out how to talk to a deaf customer and worked with them to inform them about what was wrong with their car. Tech pulled them, slapped them back on, sent it back out. Did not surface the rotors, did not replace anything, did not get fired. Did tell me later that he was the cousin of the service manager. He stayed there until I quit. I tried multiple times to call corporate on the bullshit that went on at that store before I realized they didn’t care and I’d just end up pissing them off. So I got creative and started fighting back my own way. Learned the system and got my customers every single benefit I could possibly get them. The one that sticks with me most is a deaf man with a Mazda MPV (I think that’s what it was, at least) that had the alternator in such a place that AllData recommended dropping the subframe with the engine to replace it. There were many issues with this whole setup, 1) Pepboys 2) no one knew sign language and he didn’t always have an interpreter with him 3) there was an electrical gremlin frying the alternators and due to #1 we couldn’t handle it, 4) I was the only person at that fucking store left with a soul. He came in three times to get that alternator replaced, no one would take the time to talk to him. Halfway through his second visit when he was visibly frustrated with everyone in the building, I motioned to him to hold on and wait one second, then I brought out a pen and paper. We spent 20-30 minutes writing back and forth. I told him what was going on, he’d ask a question, I’d answer, he’d ask another one and I’d answer again and we did that until he didn’t have any more questions. For 20-30 minutes I didn’t say a damn thing. Service manager came over to ask me to help other customers, without looking at him I grabbed another piece of paper, wrote that I was busy with a customer and slid it over to him. I did everything I could to put us on equal footing and then I just talked to him. I didn’t lie to him, I didn’t hide anything, I told him there was an electrical issue and I recommended a shop that we sent cars to when there were electrical problems. I let him know that once he got the gremlin sorted we could swap the alternator and send him off. He was turning red in the face when I got to him, when he left he may not have walked out of there happy, but he did leave there satisfied. There were good days, days when I could actually help customers, but they were few and far between. I absolutely hated that place. The manager, assistant manager, and other service writers would routinely steal tickets from me, put their numbers on the tickets so they got the commission. Some of the mechanics wouldn’t deal with me for a variety of reasons, usually because I wouldn’t put up with the bullshit they tried to sell customers. When your job is dependent upon commission, you quickly realize whether or not you’re actually a decent person. These two aren’t alone, either. My personal mobile mechanic, Jack of JET Mobile Auto Service is a lot like Jenkins. His repair quotes are far less than a traditional shop and he honors his quotes, even if it takes him longer to complete the job than expected. It’s because of him that my 2012 Smart Fortwo has been revived when no other local shop was willing to work on it. And it’s also because of him that my Volkswagen Touareg VR6 remains a beast. His work and his rates both cannot be beaten by any shop in a huge radius. All of you are awesome and even though these are small acts in the grand scheme of things, they certainly make days better. So kudos to Jenkins, Mr. Asa, and everyone else who does awesome work like this.
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member. • A Reader Reminds Us That The Car Community Still Has Plenty Of Heart: COTD • How Getting Accused Of A Felony Motivated Me To Fix A Broken Car • A Look At The Off-Road Trip That Resulted In Our $700 Chevy Tracker Dead On A Trailer And Our $1700 VW Touareg Stranded In An Abandoned Detroit Neighborhood Having said that, being the owner of a smart AND a Touareg, you obviously still enjoy watching us suffer just a tiny bit. I guess I caught him by surprise cause he was silent for a minute….so I said, let’s start over….my name is Dave, how can I help you? From that point on we got along fine, I sold him an Audi for his wife that day, later a new Porsche for himself, and cars for two of his kids over the next few months. and new cars almost every year after that – he turned out to be a great customer, he just got caught up in all the usual BS people drop on each other about car dealers. Or maybe I was a rarity in the business, a sales person that just didn’t find the need to lie to people. I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. There are a lot of lying salespeople, and there are also a lot of bullshitting customers. I’ve conversed with many deaf customers before. We had a regular when I was at a Bobcat Dealer who was very good at lip reading and speaking (I assume he was partially deaf, or lost his hearing later in life). But during the COVID days, we had to resort to note pads, as he could not lip read through a mask. I had a woman a few weeks ago who had just moved here (northern MN, I’m now at a Toyota dealership) from Mexico, and had brought her beloved Toyota Yaris with her. She was struggling with the terminology for what she needed (wheel liner and tail light), so I walked out to her car with her. Turned out it’s a version of the Yaris that is not sold in the US, and I cannot order any parts. I was able to decode her VIN using Partsouq and get her part numbers for what she needed, but I think her only option was to have someone buy them in Mexico and ship them up. Makes a huge difference in understanding! This guy was in the area from Louisiana, not sure if he moved there permanently or was just visiting. One of the other stores wasn’t honoring the road hazard warranty (big surprise.) He called my store and he was hot. I tried to get him to calm down, to let me talk to him, but he just wouldn’t (maybe he couldn’t, I’ve been beyond that mad before.) Finally it got to the point where I had to tell him as calmly as I could “Sir, if you can’t calm down and stop cussing at me, I’m going to have to hang up” and when he didn’t I hung up on him. Immediate call back, immediate cussing, listen for a bit and again “sir, I’m going to have to hang up if you keep cussing” and… well, yeah. Next call was him telling me he was going to come up there and we’d finish this conversation. I let the guys in the shop know to look for someone coming in angry and to make sure he didn’t kill me. Guy pulled in and slammed his car into park while still moving. Probably my imagination but I remember him getting out while it was still moving. Came into the store (quite literally) hopping mad. I let him yell and as quietly and as calmly as I could I told him that I could take care of his tire problem if he got me some paperwork. If he couldn’t get me some paperwork I could call the store he went to and get them to fax the info to us (at the time they were working on networking all the stores so customer records were visible across all stores, I doubt it ever got fully implemented.) I kept talking to him as calmly as I could and he slowly calmed down, I was able to get his information from the other store and we set up an appointment. It was going to be on my day off so I called my manager and let him know the story and that everything should be in the system for a tire checkup and potential replacement under warranty. When all was said and done the guy apologized to me, I apologized to him for hanging up on him. He came in a couple days later and got a tire replaced. A customer that I had completely forgotten was in the waiting room came up and expressed his amazement at how well I handled the situation. Never forget the person behind the problem. Everyone you meet is one or two steps away from a horrible day. Looking back I loved that job because I managed to care about strangers and genuinely help people. I ran with that and tossed all the corporate BS over my shoulder. I used to look for the nearly red faced customers and try to help. It made the job more interesting and I enjoyed it more that way. Really caring and problem solving with strangers can be a fun job.
