Some things defy logic, usually the things that require faith. When these things are realized to fruition we refer to these uncommon happenings as fate, or worse, luck.

I think of myself as a spiritual man although I'm not overtly religious. I derive meaning and purpose from good moral and ethical teachings, and especially enjoy writings where the hero or heroine is depicted as someone who has conviction in their beliefs. I am like the aforementioned hero of sorts who is full of conviction for what I do, and how I do those things, so much so that my true benefit to the local automotive parts and service community is thought to be quirky by some. I like to think of it as uncommon because that sounds more noble.

We've all heard the story of Noah, and how God tells Noah to build an ark and gather two of every animal. The story spends a little time about how Noah tried to convince all the other people to join him to save themselves from the flood that God has promised to happen. I sometimes wonder what all of the people treading water during the flood were thinking to themselves right before they drowned.

I think you can see where I'm going with this. Regardless of what we know, how well respected we are, and how we have proven ourselves throughout the years to perform “miracles,” we have so many things working against us that a feat of “walking on water” will not suffice to convince our clientele that we, the professional part store or service center, are the alpha and omega when it comes to fixing their car.

Why do they believe everyone else except us? I see it every day. People will buy anything if they have any hope that it might save them money, because they simply do not want to pay someone else for anything that they can do themselves. Our industry is plagued with a DIYer who buys Viagra on line, who Googles a P0420 Code, and then discusses the whole thing on a blog site filled with other folks who have already taken their online performance drugs just prior to posting.

The end result is a problem-solving scramble that lasts longer than four hours. In short, they are all looking for a miracle, but not a spiritual event. The miracle that they fixed it themselves, they saved a lot of money, and their exploration of the possibilities from blog sites, friends, cousins, uncles, and 'code reader' snake-oil salesman, produced a plausible cure. I can't believe that a lot of our potential customers actually don't know any better than this.

It's all related to the flood of information that our customers are forced to sift through every day of their lives. The endless amount of advertising and unjustified claims of others being able to save our potential clientele time, money or both does not compute. Let me use my logic calculator to give you a better explanation. "Check Engine" light is on, plus hand held code reader that an uncle owns, plus Internet blog sites, plus same code read by retail parts store part-time counterman, plus perception of quick fix/correct diagnosis equals 4 gas caps. Why does this keep happening to people? For the life of me, I don't understand it. Worse than that, by the time it gets to me to actually repair and properly diagnose, the customer has run out of expendable income and overly scrutinizes everything we do.

I recently had a customer who came in for a battery drain issue. When checking the customer in, she explained that it was not the battery, because she had purchased one, it didn't solve the problem, and the parts store she bought it from warrantied it two times within the last two weeks. She also said it was not the alternator, because she bought one, it didn't solve the problem, and another parts store warrantied it for her once, and wouldn't warranty it for her again because they said the alternator was not the problem, and recommended that she buy their brand of battery instead. She then bought a brand new one from the manufacturer, which also did not solve the problem. She told me that she had over $900 dollars in attempted repair, and three weeks of her battery still going dead overnight.

Seeing she was highly frustrated, I asked if there were any other problems with her vehicle during this time to see if there was something related. She said yes and explained that the rear wiper motor does not work and the arm is stuck straight up and cannot be moved. Bingo. Problem of battery drain (wiper arm trying to park and can't), and rear wiper operation solved by taking apart the wiper pivot, cleaning, lubing, and reassembling. It took us about 1.5 hours, and when she came to pick up her Ford Excursion she was shocked because we didn't replace anything yet I still had billed her for the repair.

She called her husband, who also was irate, and I explained to him what we found out, fixed, and how we verified the repair to which he exclaimed, "If it's not really fixed, I'm bringing it back.” I replied, "Well, if I didn't think it was fixed, I would not have billed you anything."

The real issue was lost due to prolific posturing of my customer. As she paid the bill, grabbed the keys from me, she said "You'll be lucky if my husband does not come and see you about this."

Lucky? Well, our luck involves years of training and countless hours that we've never been able to invoice. Luck? It's called experience. If I were lucky my customers and clients would recognize or appreciate the fact that in general, I'm more often right than wrong, and don't guess very much.

If people took care of their health using the same reasoning standards that they use to service and repair their cars, our national life expectancy would drop to about the age of 30. They'd all purchase home vasectomy kits, DIY brain surgery manuals, and let anyone with a smock and a name tag perform open-heart surgery just because so-and-so heard it worked great, and was really cheap.

Personally, I think to own a hand-held code reader you should be required to have a license, or at the very least pass some sort of aptitude test. If you buy an oxygen sensor or gas cap that your uncle says you need, he should have to give you the money for it if it doesn't work.

If you service your car based on blog site information, you must sign a release form that indemnifies my business from any related responsibility or injury for listening to the advice of Internet junkies. Now that would be uncommonly lucky for our entire industry, but it's never going to happen. We all may as well just build a big boat. You can download the instructions from the Internet, I hear.

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