Since I am not a mechanic I do not look for machine shops frequently.
It seems each time I looked up my Yellow Page the names are all strangers
to me. It's not like Kragen, Napa that are aroun forever. So there is
no easy way to identify them based on Yellow Pages. My cousin is a
mechanic but he is 40 miles away so I do not want to go that far for a
machine shop.

So what I may do next time will be to talk to the mechanic of the garage
I trust. And hope that he will be willing to point me to some direction.
Or maybe I should just hire the mechanic knowing that he will send it out
anyway. I may pay more but maybe this is a better bet.

David

--- Allan Streib <streib@cs.indiana.edu> wrote:

> On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 14:49:00 -0700, "David Kao" <dtkao0205@YAHOO.COM>
> said:
>
> > But I have since developed a fear of going into a machine shop.  I am
> > not trying to say all machine shops are run by crooks. What will you
> > do to avoid being victimized by machine shops? Of course I am now
> > much more experienced and I probably can avoid it by natural gut
> > feeling about a machine shop. But I am not sure how to identify a
> > good one from a bad one without getting some business done first.
>
> The usual things: look for shops that have been around for a while.
> Habitually crooked shops will have a hard time staying in business long
> term.  Ask at a trusted general repair shops what machine shop they use.
>  Once you have identified a likely shop, check them out with the local
> Better Business Bureau.  If you still have doubts, or if the piece is
> particularly rare, I guess you could engrave some kind of unique mark on
> it, photograph it, and verify that it's still there when you pick it up.
>  At least then you'd have some evidence that they switched parts on you.
>
> Allan
> --
> 1991 Vanagon GL
>

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