I brought my boat to Vic because my small kicker motor kept dying while trying to troll at low rpms. I explained in detail that every time I touched the tiller handle to adjust speed or even direction, it would die. Vic's diagnosis was that all the internal and external fuel lines were rotten and needed to be replaced, new fuel pump, carb rebuild, etc. The estimate was $570 or so. I told him to go ahead if that is what it needed. Then he called me back to appologize that he left out a part and the estimate went up to over $600. I agreed. After several days he called to say that he forgot to order a fuel pump and the repair would be delayed. He had my boat for about a week and when I picked it up the bill was $770. I paid it without saying a word, finally glad at the prospect of having a reliable motor to fish with.
After the repair work, I put my boat in the water for the first time Sunday. The motor started hard and would not keep running. I had the same exact propblem I had prior to taking it to Vic and spending $770. As you could imagine, I was not pleased. I dropped the boat off first thing Monday morning, but Vic wasn't there. An hour later he called and said he had found the problem. It was a short in the kill switch and he asked me to come back to his shop. So I went back and he quickly demostrated the problem. I expressed my frustration with the fact that I had spent all this money and still had the same problem. I asked why he had not checked this possibility in the first place. I was NOT insisting on my money back for the work he had done.
He could have taken the high road in the interest of keeping a long time customer. He could have said, "hey, my bad for missing it, let me take care of that for you". Instead, this is what occured: He asked , "do you want it fixed or not?" My response, "of course, that's why I brought it to you in the first place". He says, "do you expect me to pay for the repairs?" I said, "of course, I've already paid you alot of money and the motor is still doing the same as when I brought it here". He says, "that isn't going to happen, and with that attitude, I am going to charge you a diagnostic fee as well". That is when things got heated. I told him that now I was pissed and that I would be taking my boat elsewhere. He said, "if you try taking that boat without paying me for my diagnosis, I am calling the police". I told him he better call the police then, because I was taking my boat and if that is what he intended to do, the next call would be my attorney. By the time I went around the building and returned with my truck, he was standing in the bay with his head down. He walked out, said he was not calling the police because it wasn't worth his trouble, moved his forklift out of the way and started to motion me back in an attempt to help me hook up my boat. By then, I was done and told him I didn't need his help. I hooked up and drove away.
The shame of it is, this should never have escalated to where it did. And, he had previously given me a price on installing an expensive auto-pilot system for that motor. If he had just handled this situation in a professional manner and made sure the motor was fixed, I was going to spend alot more money with him, now and in the future. Now that I know what the problem is, I called another shop and asked how much it would be to repair the faulty kill switch. $40 for the part and an hour of labor. read more