mini viper
Enthusiast
Hi everyone,
I think I posted on the forum a few weeks ago about having someone look at a Viper for me near Oakland, CA. Well I have bought the vehicle (99 Black/Silver Stripe GTS ACR) and am enjoying it tremendously. It really is the car of my dreams and exactly as I imagined it. Absolutely drop dead gorgeous on the outside and a dangerous unrefined beast on the inside. Anyhow, back to my story...I need to register my car in Texas and in order to do that I need to get a Vehicle Inspection. Well, I decided that the Shell station close to my house did inspections and I assumed it to be an easy and relatively straightforward process. Boy was I wrong!
I drove up yesterday afternoon after coming home early from work (I just so happen to work for Shell) and I decided to stop by to see if they could inspect the car then. The mechanic came out big-eyed and looked excited to see the car but informed me that they would open on Saturday at 10am. I let him know that I would be back then and he looked rather pleased that I would be showing up again (maybe I was reading to much into his expressions). Suffice it to say, I woke up this morning and drove over there at 10:40am. Sadly the inspector was not there yet and was estimated to come in in around 45 mins or so. I decided it was a beatiful day to just go cruise around and so I had a great time just driving around listening to the exhaust rumble, and the occasional music coming from the surprisingly great Alpine audio system.
Thus I show up around 11:30 ready for my inspection to begin so that I can finally go pay the sales tax (oh joy). The gas station manager checks on me and abruptly says that it'll be about 30 mins. Meh, whatever, I park and play around on my phone when 15 mins later a mechanic by the name of Mark comes out to get my insurance and start the process. I wearily let him drive the car in the garage and stand in the door like a hawk to make sure they don't do anything stupid with my brand new toy that essentially cost my life savings up till this point.
Now the fun begins...the guy gets out of the car and leans over in the driver's side footwell messing with something. He keeps messing with it for like 5 mins and I finally walk in the garage to see what the hell he is doing. I glance in the passenger side and see he is messing with the foot pedal knob and I'm like *** is he messing with that for. The manager sees me and shoos me out saying that he is beginning my inspection and that I need to wait outside. Ok, so I wait another minute while he fiddles around, while thinking to myself that maybe he needs to reach the pedals better. All of a sudden he pops up out the footwell with damn know IN HIS HAND
and I say, "hey, did you just break something off of my car." He grumbles and mutters some cursewords under his breath while holding the damn knob and putting it back on. He manages to put it on and it isn't broken (THANK GOD) and I let him know that if he would like help opening the hood I will do that for him. He was trying to open the damn hood with the footpedal adjustment knob!!?! I try and remain calm and start to show how to open the hood and he just flips out, yelling "I ain't working on this m....f....'s car, I can't stand this s..." on and on and on. He motions to his coworker, "you deal with this m....f...." I'm like, ok, if there is a problem here I'll take my car somewhere else, that's no problem. Mark curses some more at me and my poor Viper that seemed to cause all this and gets one of the other mechanics to back the car out. I hop in the car and drive off...
Breath break...
While driving away I realize that I'm not just going to take that verbal abuse from a mechanic who had absolutely no right to say anything like that to me. I never once raised my voice nor said anything threatening. Thus I drive back (luckily I did because I had left my insurance there) and decide to talk to the manager. The manager had already treated me in a rather curt manner before and I wasn't expecting him to be completely open to my complaint. I explain to him the details of what happened and he stares blankly at me showing no emotion whatsoever and no indication that he is going to take care of the situation. He halfheartedly informs me that he will "talk" to his mechanic about his actions and quickly walks off after I aks his name (Dino) and the name of his mechanic. He doesn't give last names (and I won't post them here) but I had received his card yesterday from his other mechanic with his last name. So, I stand there for another few minutes typing some details into my phone about the event and he walks back out asking if I needed anything else. I let him know that I'm just documenting the situation and he responds with "document all you want, buddy" and walks off again. Maybe if I was 45 he might not have called me "buddy" but I'm a responsible 24 year old with a hotshot car (I'm pretty sure my age didn't help any of the situation).
Long story short I've called in an official complaint to my own company (albeit a completely different division) and tracked down the sales rep that deals with this gentlemen. We'll see what happens next. At least I know I can get a Shell gas card from the experience, although I let the CSR know that I would rather have resolution, not money.
This brings me to my question...does anyone have a good vehicle inspector in Houston that they use to do this work? I would rather not have to worry about some bumbling mechanic ripping off my pedal knob again.
I think I posted on the forum a few weeks ago about having someone look at a Viper for me near Oakland, CA. Well I have bought the vehicle (99 Black/Silver Stripe GTS ACR) and am enjoying it tremendously. It really is the car of my dreams and exactly as I imagined it. Absolutely drop dead gorgeous on the outside and a dangerous unrefined beast on the inside. Anyhow, back to my story...I need to register my car in Texas and in order to do that I need to get a Vehicle Inspection. Well, I decided that the Shell station close to my house did inspections and I assumed it to be an easy and relatively straightforward process. Boy was I wrong!
I drove up yesterday afternoon after coming home early from work (I just so happen to work for Shell) and I decided to stop by to see if they could inspect the car then. The mechanic came out big-eyed and looked excited to see the car but informed me that they would open on Saturday at 10am. I let him know that I would be back then and he looked rather pleased that I would be showing up again (maybe I was reading to much into his expressions). Suffice it to say, I woke up this morning and drove over there at 10:40am. Sadly the inspector was not there yet and was estimated to come in in around 45 mins or so. I decided it was a beatiful day to just go cruise around and so I had a great time just driving around listening to the exhaust rumble, and the occasional music coming from the surprisingly great Alpine audio system.
Thus I show up around 11:30 ready for my inspection to begin so that I can finally go pay the sales tax (oh joy). The gas station manager checks on me and abruptly says that it'll be about 30 mins. Meh, whatever, I park and play around on my phone when 15 mins later a mechanic by the name of Mark comes out to get my insurance and start the process. I wearily let him drive the car in the garage and stand in the door like a hawk to make sure they don't do anything stupid with my brand new toy that essentially cost my life savings up till this point.
Now the fun begins...the guy gets out of the car and leans over in the driver's side footwell messing with something. He keeps messing with it for like 5 mins and I finally walk in the garage to see what the hell he is doing. I glance in the passenger side and see he is messing with the foot pedal knob and I'm like *** is he messing with that for. The manager sees me and shoos me out saying that he is beginning my inspection and that I need to wait outside. Ok, so I wait another minute while he fiddles around, while thinking to myself that maybe he needs to reach the pedals better. All of a sudden he pops up out the footwell with damn know IN HIS HAND
and I say, "hey, did you just break something off of my car." He grumbles and mutters some cursewords under his breath while holding the damn knob and putting it back on. He manages to put it on and it isn't broken (THANK GOD) and I let him know that if he would like help opening the hood I will do that for him. He was trying to open the damn hood with the footpedal adjustment knob!!?! I try and remain calm and start to show how to open the hood and he just flips out, yelling "I ain't working on this m....f....'s car, I can't stand this s..." on and on and on. He motions to his coworker, "you deal with this m....f...." I'm like, ok, if there is a problem here I'll take my car somewhere else, that's no problem. Mark curses some more at me and my poor Viper that seemed to cause all this and gets one of the other mechanics to back the car out. I hop in the car and drive off...Breath break...
While driving away I realize that I'm not just going to take that verbal abuse from a mechanic who had absolutely no right to say anything like that to me. I never once raised my voice nor said anything threatening. Thus I drive back (luckily I did because I had left my insurance there) and decide to talk to the manager. The manager had already treated me in a rather curt manner before and I wasn't expecting him to be completely open to my complaint. I explain to him the details of what happened and he stares blankly at me showing no emotion whatsoever and no indication that he is going to take care of the situation. He halfheartedly informs me that he will "talk" to his mechanic about his actions and quickly walks off after I aks his name (Dino) and the name of his mechanic. He doesn't give last names (and I won't post them here) but I had received his card yesterday from his other mechanic with his last name. So, I stand there for another few minutes typing some details into my phone about the event and he walks back out asking if I needed anything else. I let him know that I'm just documenting the situation and he responds with "document all you want, buddy" and walks off again. Maybe if I was 45 he might not have called me "buddy" but I'm a responsible 24 year old with a hotshot car (I'm pretty sure my age didn't help any of the situation).
Long story short I've called in an official complaint to my own company
(albeit a completely different division) and tracked down the sales rep that deals with this gentlemen. We'll see what happens next. At least I know I can get a Shell gas card from the experience, although I let the CSR know that I would rather have resolution, not money.This brings me to my question...does anyone have a good vehicle inspector in Houston that they use to do this work? I would rather not have to worry about some bumbling mechanic ripping off my pedal knob again.
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