TableZero Chronicles: 02/2010

So I write this on the way back from our surreal Valentine's trip to St. Louis. This isn't the "fun" post but the post of all the car drama we went through with the ass clowns at NTB. We start with us on the way to Anheuser-Busch Brewery. We pull up to a stop light at 18th and Gratiot. I step on the gas, the car hiccups and dies rolling through the intersection. I immediately cut the wheels and hope to coast to the side. It doesn't happen. I tell Melisa to get out help push. We get it to the side and still can get it to fire up. I call a tow truck and Melisa calls around to find if any mechanic is open. Twenty minutes later, the truck arrives. He gets the car on the flatbed and Melisa said she finds a place about twenty minutes away. NTB in Bridgeton. This is the biggest mistake we make right here. See, my mother-in-law has a contact in St. Louis and she us this lady's number "in case of emergency". Well, she called her and while we are hauling out car to NTB, she says her brother-in-law is a mechanic but he's not open on Sunday. That's cool, this may not be a big deal. NTB may just fix something loose and it'll fire up. Well this lady says if they can't fix it to haul it to McCausland Service. Right on. We'll be cool. Fast forward to NTB's "diagnostic". They say there's two sensors that could be out. The crank and cam positioning sensor. Cool they get it ordered and we think we'll be out before our 7pm Valentine reservation at White Castle. Well, time passes, and it passes. They replace both these sensors and the car still won't fire up. Time passes further. We're at like 4 hours now. They come and say "we took a look at the timing belt and we thought it was ok, but we looked at it further and it's not grabbing anymore". Shit. A stripped timing belt. I know that's not cheap. Time for a rental car to get to White Castle. At this point nothing else can be done that evening. We make the decision to wake in the morning and try to get a tow truck to take the car to McCausland's. Mother Nature decided to rear her head and drop about five inches of snow that night. Yeah, good luck getting a tow truck in a timely manner. We call Bill at McCauslands and discuss with him about pricing and yadda yadda yadda and decide to let NTB do the work. Bill also suggests a new water pump while they're in there. What the hell. I know those go out too. It's gonna be about the same price at either shop and we save a tow. Now, NTB manager says they'll have no problem replacing the belt. They've done it plenty of times. So they start to work on the car and go all around St. Louis killing time. About 2 pm, NTB calls me and says "did my tech explain to you the differences in the four cylinder engines?" At this point it literally sounds like he's making up shit. I have some knowledge of how an internal combustion engine works. This guy is telling me a valve broke and has fallen into the engine! Ummm. What? Dude, I barely stepped on the gas when the belt stripped. I wasn't redlining down the highway when it happened and through a rod up into the valve. It was a very quiet engine dying. Well we show back up and the mechanic guy says he's barely getting any compression off the number three cylinder and the valve is the problem and they don't have the capacity to fix it. They try to get us to go to a mechanic they know to fix it the rest of the way. At this point my car has the fucking alternator, power steering, spark plugs removed and engine mounts loosened! Seiously? They leave all this unassembled to "save us labor costs". All this time we've been visiting with Bill and he tell us red flags are all over this thing and these guys are in way over their heads. So we are fucking pissed. Car still won't start, it's in pieces and worse off than before. At 4pm we tell them to stop everything and we're hauling the car to McCausland's. We know we're now staying another fucking night and get another hotel, rent the car for another day, and tow our car to the other shop. NTB says they'll only charge us for parts and just one hour labor. They have been working on our car about nine total hours. I don't mind paying for parts. I know they gotta pay the parts guy (those sensors were free). Whatever. I'll deal with NTB when we get home. Bill doesn't think anything is wrong other than they installed the timing belt wrong and the engine is out of time. So today Bill's guys work on it for about three hours and they have it running. Those dipfucks didn't know how to put on a timing belt right. Now Bill tells me they have to reassemble all the shit these guys took off that didn't even need to be. One of the bolts on the crank sensor was loose and wasn't working. They only left three of the four spark plugs and the guys at McCauslands had to figure out where all the appropriate bolts went. So here we are. All the was wrong with it was the timing belt. Yes we saw it and a good chunk was stripped. I do have a new water pump which we voluntarily repaced since all that shit was out anyway. Jason and Bill at McCausland's hooked everything back up right and the car runs like a top. NTB, you cost us a day and half and about $500 extra dollars. Fuck you. You will be hearing from us. McCausland's Service Center, you are the shit. Thank you for getting us on the road in what should've been four hours of time in the first place. Fuck you again NTB. Fuck you in your ass.

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Location:Miami,United States

TableZero Chronicles

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010

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Tuesday, February 16, 2010

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Wednesday, February 3, 2010

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