It's time for the last of it. This time it's some of Crushers' business practices.
I really appreciated the patience with all the phone calls and questions (going both ways), so as to do the best we could to get what i was after; that goes a hell of a long way. Especially as i was getting something done that i had zero experience of, plus we were quite a distance apart.
Over time, however, i learned a few things. I found out, and not from Crushers, that he permitted someone else to drive my car, admittedly just after he received it and therefore before any work was done to it. All the same, i have some principles (well, i like to think), one being that it is illegal (in my book) to lend something that doesn't belong to you to someone else, without asking the owner of that something; as well, it is downright apathetic to do so if the owner does not know the borrower. That happened, and i wasn't impressed that someone i didn't know drove my car, and less so when i found out from someone who wasn't Crushers.
There were times when i distinctly felt like a guinea pig, as in the experimental-purposes lab rat type. When Crushers received the bias-ply tires, he asked me if he could put them on one of his cars in order to check them out for himself. I understand that curiosity, professional or otherwise, but that is not the reason i got those tires; as well, if i pay the new-product price, i expect a new product. It took Crushers two months to talk me into sending my car to a body shop local to him, which made sense when the body was off (i wanted to get the body in top shape as part of the build); he highly recommended the shop after he saw some of the results of their work. When the body was returned to him and i asked if the body work was good his reply was, 'Nah, i'm not impressed'. This lab rat isn't either, twice over.
Understand that i had to work full-time, as most of us do, and i was away from the build; just to say that i was rather stuck with my car at Crushers' place, and it would've been terribly impractical, not to mention an incredible pain in the neck, to take time off work, and get the car out of there. Fine, that was acceptable. What wasn't was when i once made some mild comment (i forgot what it was by now) to the effect that there was something Crushers did that i wasn't too satisfied about; his response was to say, 'if you don't like what i'm doing, come and get your car' (which was in pieces at the time). Understandable, certainly, but it really felt like the fact that it was nearly impossible for me to do so was taken advantage of. Too bad for me, i suppose.
One thing that really had me feeling murderous was the time i sent Crushers a cheque, in response to a request for one, then finding it was negotiated after about ten days, which is normal and well and good. However i expect some feedback on progress after a cheque is negotiated, but i got nothing for nearly four weeks, not a damn word, and then only after my asking. That to me is a very poor business practice: you don't take payment then ignore your client. I found out that Crushers had gone on holiday out of the country, and i cannot tell you how much of a rage i was in. After that initial response to my request for feedback that i just mentioned, i didn't hear back from Crushers for nearly another four weeks. So, cash a large cheque, and ignore the client for seven weeks; not impressed. Bj70_guy, my language was a bit more colourful than your comment above.
I'd trust Crushers for design and fabrication of metal stuff (the storage bins, overhead consoles, bumpers, protection bars and plates, etc); i would not recommend Crushers for anything electrical or mechanical on a car, and i would not trust him to carry out a full range of tests and shake-down runs, even if asked to do so. I would also, if you are contemplating it, keep the work you want done to your vehicle by Crushers to a minimum: while i did burn myself out after three years of non-stop work, and so stopped sending money to Crushers in about March of 2011, we can exclude that from the overall time span. Doing so has my car in his hands for a solid two years, possibly a little more; the point is, it just took too damn long. Granted Crushers did things he had never done before, had to learn as he went, and it was a huge build. But it was still too damn long. As well, with all the time it took, i expected a car in ideal condition, not one with all the issues i've mentioned. There are significant advantages to working for oneself; however, one of the times i visited Crushers, he said to me, unprompted, that, 'I only put in maybe thirty hours a week'. In quotation marks are his exact words. That's unheard of in my world, almost as if it's a working holiday.
