Top Shelf Stories
In a world that often shuns the uncomfortable, we embrace it with open arms—and open laughs. Our candid narratives around our stories assure you that awkwardness is a shared human experience. Tune in, enjoy the ride, and maybe learn a thing or two.
Top Shelf Stories
What Does It Cost To Trust Someone With Your Wheels And Water?
We trade DIY for smarter choices, break down bloated shop quotes, and show how a driveway mechanic and a gruff boat tech restored our faith in honest work. The thread running through it all is simple: streamline your life, pay for real skill, and reward integrity when you find it.
• streamlining time by hiring specialists where it counts
• decoding parts markups and book-time labor
• why shops resist customer-supplied parts
• driveway mechanic case study with clear rates and scope
• risk, insurance, and the myth of easy legal recourse
• how upsells and “safety lists” erode trust
• navigating boat repairs, season backlogs, and reviews
• grumpy expert who diagnoses, tests, and bills only the fix
• practical rules for spotting honest pros and avoiding traps
Tell your friends about us. We really appreciate you listening to our podcast. Continue doing so. Tune in again another Tuesday.
Top shelf stories with Jay, Chris, and Tony. What's up, everybody? Yow. How you doing? I'm thinking, What's up, everybody? Will be my tag. Every show. So, like you have like a line? Like Yeah. There's this one group they do the same thing. I listen to that's a sports one. They do the same little skit every time. How you doing, buddy? You know. Everyone waits. Six feet above the ground is better than below, or something he says. Every fucking time. You bet it is, Chop. Let's get into the stories or whatever it is. Yeah. Tony used to have such a What's up, everybody?
SPEAKER_01:What do you think? Yeah, I'm gonna mine's gonna be this guy spends more time in the sand than David Hasselhoff.
SPEAKER_02:No, Tony's has always been nice.
SPEAKER_01:Nice.
SPEAKER_02:But you don't say it as much as you should. No, just to enter the show. We can just start the show like that. Nice. Nice.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, welcome to the show, everybody. It's Top Shelf Stories. I want to tell everybody about how I am one of the luckiest human beings on the planet right now because your wife. I found an auto mechanic that I've actually had a solid transaction with. He didn't rape you? Because you know how it is, right? So my my van, I keep wanting to call it a truck, because it's a truck now. But my van needs some work, needed shocks, struts. I just bought this camper. I need a bunch of things wired up, hooked up, lined up. I don't want to do it. Did you find him on farmers only? No, I haven't been on farmers only since I found my one and only Tony over here.
SPEAKER_01:That's me.
SPEAKER_02:That's me.
SPEAKER_03:So I need all this work done on the van because I got this camper and I need to haul shit. And I could do like it all. But I I don't wanna. I want to do other stuff. I like doing other stuff now. Like when I ten years ago, 15 years ago, you'd catch me as soon as I get home from work, ditching the work clothes, throwing on the you know, junk clothes, getting outside, setting up a light for later and working on my car to save money.
SPEAKER_02:Well, as a contractor, Tony and I we do our tile work that pays us great money. We're not gonna paint our house when we can make more money at work. So what we do when we're at work is we hire a painter to paint because we're not saving any money with a painting ourselves if we're gonna be working. So yeah, basically like that. Right. So I'm right.
SPEAKER_01:I stop doing shit on my head. It's what's called streamlining your life. Yeah, I would agree. When when you got nothing to do, going out and changing the brakes on your car is fine because you weren't doing shit anyway. But now we're all grown-ups who have a stable income and like these fucking huge time sucks in our life, like spouses and kids and the internet, shit like that, the interweb. Well, that you don't have to. That's that's not a necessity. Once you get in your forties, you I find out you poop a lot more.
SPEAKER_03:It's true. It's true.
SPEAKER_01:I can maybe it's because of the internet. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:And you spend more time trying to prepare the food that makes you poop, too. You're like, I'm gonna make this brisket, it's gonna take me 14 hours.
SPEAKER_01:How many times do you poop a day?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, three. Get out of here. You're lying. Three. You're lying. I'd have to take off my shoes to count on it. So I'm I'm I need this work done. I'm like, so I went to this, so this is part of the pain in the ass of not doing it yourself, is you still gotta find like somewhere to do it. Like, I need trailer wiring in my van. Like, where do you go to get that? So I'm oh fucking Hannah RV or wherever. So I go down there, get all these quotes, it's thousands of fucking dollars. And I get it, it takes a lot of time. You don't know what you're gonna run into, right? But also I gotta get this other work, more importantly, the van. Gotta get these new shocks and struts in. The shop wants like$1,900 for two strut towers, two shocks, and a little control arm that basically comes off with the strut tower. The book time is almost 28 hours on the strut town. The book time was high, but it wasn't ridiculous. What got me the most was the park costs. The strut the strut tower, the exact same one they were gonna use. It's the OEM one. It's like the only one you can get for the Dodge Caravan, which is like the most common car in the world. Is it the grand caravan? The grand caravan, the RT. It's an RT. RT. It's an RT. Oh shit. Yeah. So like, yeah. But you still you just get the strut tower from Monroe. I got one for$119. They were charging like$385 for each one.
SPEAKER_02:So you got you gotta go through multiple amounts of hands because like you're you're gonna pay for this guy, that guy pays that guy, that guy pays that guy.
SPEAKER_03:No, I understand that. They can order the part, they can have Napa deliver it for an extra$50. They can charge me an extra$50. You throw an extra hundred dollars, or maybe you double the price of the part, that I can get. I fuck, I get that. And you're probably getting a rebate, so you're even more than doubling it, but I think you're just doubling it. That's fine. Because you you that's the way that's the best way to make money. But you don't even have to do anything. Nothing. And then they use these book prices at these car shops. The book prices. Guess who wrote the book?
SPEAKER_01:Mechanic. The mechanic.
SPEAKER_03:So he knows how long it takes for him to do that, to poop, to eat a donut, go out to the break room, have a cup of coffee, tell Pete about the game he went to yesterday.
SPEAKER_01:We gotta write a book.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and how long it takes. So everyone's even how long everything takes.
SPEAKER_01:So everyone's even.
SPEAKER_03:So that's what I did. So I'm like, this is my shop. This is the place I go over all my stuff. They're gonna do me right, but uh, this feels wrong. This is too much. Let me go ask around. So I ask around on this. Nope, they're all within the same like hundred bucks the price, just over your quote over the phone, even. Same price. So it's like it's like bringing your own drink into a bar. I'm like, they're all there. So then I'm like, I'm gonna find a place I can bring my own parts. You can't do that. They don't let you do that.
SPEAKER_02:Because it's like bringing your own drink in a bar. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Like, how can we warranty a part that we didn't provide?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Somebody said to me it's like going into the restaurant with the chicken and an egg under your arm and going to the cook and just giving it to him and be like, I'd like to have the cordon blue, you know?
SPEAKER_01:It's like bringing your own stripper to the strip club.
SPEAKER_03:Well, that would actually work out pretty well for you if you did that. Like, I've always found that if you find yourself with a stripper at a strip club, it goes way better than when it's just you and your friends. It's true. I've been there.
SPEAKER_02:I haven't been there.
SPEAKER_03:But so I'm looking for a freaking mechanic, right? So then I call this guy. Well, I talk to my wife, and she's got this friend. This friend works at an auto mechanic. She's a diesel mechanic, she's a school-trained diesel mechanic. She works as a diesel shop, hooking up trailers. I'm like, oh, this is perfect. They let women be mechanics? You bet. You bet. Since when? So she's like, I'm like, this is perfect, right? Let's have her come over and take a look. So she calls me and she's like, I this is kind of out of my scope, but I'll come with my guy. Oh, he does this stuff all the time. Whatever, Tony. She does this stuff all the time. He does all this stuff all the time. He'll come by. So this guy. I'll let you go.
SPEAKER_02:No, go. Go, go, no, go ahead.
SPEAKER_03:So I'm lucky as hell because I found this mechanic now.
SPEAKER_01:So did you end up with the guy or the girl?
SPEAKER_03:I ended up with the guy.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. How would you have felt it, was the girl?
SPEAKER_03:So he's like, yeah, he comes over and I was like, here's all the stuff I want done. He was like, All right, I can do all of those things. That's not a problem. I'll do them right here in your driveway. I'll come over and get it done. I'll charge you$75 an hour. I'm like, that's a miracle. That is a miracle price. Really? That is a miracle. And he's like, and he goes, I think everything you need to be done here, I can do in seven hours. And I've been to the shops. Everything I need to be done is booked out at like 20 some hours at 200 and some hours an hour for these mechanics to do. And then I gotta pay over price for all their parts. And this is not only just a van, but this is also other stuff.
SPEAKER_02:Is this mechanics name? Is his name Tim? No. Schaefer?
SPEAKER_03:No.
SPEAKER_02:So does he let the girl help him?
SPEAKER_03:So he. No. I didn't even have to help him. He came over. I hooked him up with a fan because it was hot as shit.
SPEAKER_01:Where's my A1 wrench, bitch? You told him I'm charging you 12 an hour for this man.
SPEAKER_03:I hooked him up with the fan. I hooked him up with the soda and the water. I said, if you need anything, let me know. I'll help you. But I'll I I presume if you're like me, you'd rather just me get the hell out of your way. So if you need anything, holler. I'll be around. He's like, Yeah, I'll find you if I need anything. And the man went to work. He brought all his tools, he did all his things, and he replaced the strut towers, the shocks, and the control arm thing that's connected to the strut towers for in like an hour and a half, two hours. Well, he booked me out for that part at a little bit more time than that. I'm perfectly fine with that. I paid the man double. I paid the man double what he asked.
SPEAKER_02:He gave you an hour rate, and then whatever he finishes it in, is you're still paying that hour rate.
SPEAKER_03:Well, it's kind of like your tile jobs. You probably just come up with a price. You don't really necessarily so he just said, I'll do this, I'll charge you, I charge 75 an hour, and for this, I'm gonna charge you seven some odd hours. So he might, you know, he might consider himself thinking, I'm gonna have to drive here, I'm gonna have to break load my tools up, I'm gonna have to do the, you know, I'm gonna have grease and this on the other thing. Gotcha. Because you see on your shop receipt the fucking shop supply is like$17 because the guy got to blow his nose and he wipe his hands between sandwich bites.
SPEAKER_02:No, I I agree. It's like going to the hospital and getting pay paying$200 for a sky's coming over tomorrow to finish up the rest of the work.
SPEAKER_03:I'm gonna give him the other half of the money and I'm gonna pay him double what he fucking asked for it again, because I think he's worth more. Yeah, you appreciate him. And this guy's you should. And he's he's super excited to do it. He's a younger kid. Sure his name's not Tim? He loves the fact that he's getting some cash after work and that it's easy stuff he knows how to do right into my driveway.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so if something happens down the road two months from now and he didn't do something right, sure, and you crash into a building, what do you do then?
SPEAKER_01:Well, probably the same thing I would say to the other side. Probably won't even remember anything.
SPEAKER_03:If you think if you think for one second that you are gonna be able to go after your mechanic shop because you crash into a building, you're crazy. So what's the reason you think they're warranty? The parts are warranted. You'll probably come replace it if it busted.
SPEAKER_02:When you sign that receipt, you're signing a waiver saying after this is done, I know I might not I might or may not die, but if I do, it won't be because of your your repair. I don't know about that.
SPEAKER_03:I don't know what you're trying to say. You think you're gonna go to CarX or Mufflers Plus or whatever, and they're gonna that muffler falls off and I die because of that?
SPEAKER_02:You think what you think is gonna happen? Your family's getting$10 million. Ha!
SPEAKER_03:You're insane. Who are you gonna call? One call that's all guy? Yeah. No, no, no.
SPEAKER_02:I fucking hate that guy.
SPEAKER_03:You're gonna walk out with a t-shirt and a cup of coffee and they're gonna settle. You're gonna tell me that I way more trust the guy who spent the afternoon, his evening in my driveway than I do some random guy who's just working for 17 bucks an hour.
SPEAKER_02:Maybe that's why they charge you more at a shop because they have insurance where if something does happen they have insurance, so if their guy busts the knuckle, he gets his knuckle fixed. No, but it's just it's more of the customer if something happens that he did not fix correctly. No, they have insurance.
SPEAKER_03:Insurance so people like you try to sue them, they can defend themselves.
SPEAKER_02:And then you get the money because they can't defend a retard.
SPEAKER_03:Uh I once were I was once in an oil change place and saw a slip and fall fake accident. And I had some insurance guy calling. Some insurance guy was calling me afterwards asking me what if I would interview and all this other stuff. So they have insurance for that. They don't have insurance so that if you crash into a tree, you can blame it on the strut tower they installed.
SPEAKER_02:Well, if my muffler falls off as they uh before I hit the tree. Give me a I knew that the muffler was the problem.
SPEAKER_03:How many times in your life have you gone back to a car shop and gotten anything out of them when something was wrecked? I've never had a never never, dude. I've never never I did I manage uh two commercial trucks and have to have them in for service. And I'll tell you, they could have installed that windshield wiper operator knob three weeks ago. And if you bring it in there, the reason it broke was not because of them, it was because of some other reason. But don't worry, we're not gonna charge you parts, but here's your bill for eight hundred and sixty-five dollars for labor because our rates are three hundred and seventy a fucking hour.
SPEAKER_02:So you're saying that a vehicle, a dangerous weapon, a murdering four-wheeling psychopath killing machine can be altered by another human being, and if it isn't fixed or altered the the right way, and it kills someone, they're not at fault. How is it okay?
SPEAKER_03:I I can I will grant you there may be certain circumstances where your auto mechanic that you took in for service is did something faulty that caused harm, and you would be they would be liable. I can agree to that. If that's the case, there's no reason I couldn't hold this individual liable as well. I had something fixed, but that never happens.
SPEAKER_02:I had something fixed on my car many uh eons ago. Okay, and they forgot to put some type of lube in the tires. And the only reason I knew that was because after I got that fixed, don't know why you laughing already. Who the fuck lubes a tire? No, no, listen.
SPEAKER_01:Something some of the things I it's crazy how you automatically knew that. You're like, these motherfuckers didn't even lube my tire.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that's let me get to the story and find out what I'm talking about. Okay. But honestly, I have no idea. I can't even change a car, a car's my car's oil. I don't know anything about anything. I just know they had something wrong with something that attaches to my tire that wasn't working. I, after I got it fixed, I bring it to because my dad's like, hey, you need new tires. I can see the wires sticking out. So I went to the tire place, which is Mr. P's great place. I don't anybody in uh Milwaukee area and West Dallas area wouldn't know him. But he went through, fixed my tires, and he's like, you know what? Did you just get this thing or whatever this is fixed? Because they didn't put oil in the whatever it was that needed to be done. And I was driving to Florida at this time. So I had to drive with wires hanging out of your tires.
SPEAKER_03:Well, my tires were so bald that the the yeah, you know You had a probably a wheel bearing or a hub or something.
SPEAKER_02:Something needed to be done with my with with it, whatever connects to my tires. After that, I needed to get grease. Grease it, fine, whatever. Lube thing. Not a close.
SPEAKER_03:Try to bring some grease into the bedroom and tell me how this works out for you. Okay. But if I told you lube is the same thing.
SPEAKER_02:But if I told you lubing something, that's the same thing as like you feel like something should be in there that's liquidy, that doesn't dry out, right? Sure, sure. So yeah, grease, lube, same thing. The car markets, that's the same thing. But he's like, if you wouldn't have done this, you would have your car would have broken down before you got to Chicago.
SPEAKER_03:So did you go back to them and get your money back? No, I didn't do anything. Irreparable damages repaired by them.
SPEAKER_02:No, because nothing happened. The guy from Mr. P's helped me out and saved my life.
SPEAKER_03:So this guy is a what I I think you missed in the beginning when I said I have a good mechanic. Okay, yeah. Because there are mechanics and I've had mechanics before. The other part is I could do this work. It would just have taken me probably eight to twelve hours instead of an hour and a half to do.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, you're right.
SPEAKER_03:Because I wouldn't know exactly. This guy does this 15, he probably had done exactly this three times already that day while at work. So he just came to my house with his tools and did it.
SPEAKER_02:So the what Tony was talking about, the word he said, I don't remember because I'm bad with words. What was it? Don't know. Grease? A bearing? No, talking about making your time worth because you do what you do. You gotta streamline your life. Streamline. Streamline the word that way.
SPEAKER_01:That word So here's the thing. Uh there there are certain things in my life that um You streamline like look, dude, I make a pretty good living. Like I I can't complain. Uh given my education, my my area.
SPEAKER_03:Socioeconomical background. Yeah. But you're a white male though, so you should you didn't deserve any of it, by the way.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, no, no, no. I didn't actually write down that I'm uh Asian. Oh, yeah, you're straight. Every time I gotta fill anything out, I'm like, I'm Asian. I think they get good funding. You know, it is.
SPEAKER_02:I think it's it's people that have been raised up with dads. They don't do as good. And you weren't, so you have to I don't think you're thinking about that one.
SPEAKER_03:Or like numbers.
SPEAKER_01:Actually thinking about leaving my kid's life for that alone.
SPEAKER_03:Well, you got one that's a little older than the other. You can stay in that life, but completely ignore the other child.
SPEAKER_01:Every time I leave, because I don't know if I'm coming back. I look at my oldest and I go, Going for a pink now.
SPEAKER_02:Oh you better fucking understand how to make a peanut butter jelly sandwich with the right amount of jelly and peanut butter. Oh, both my kids cook. Really? Yeah. Even a seven-year-old, six-year-old?
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:What does he cook? In the microwave? No. Macaroni and shit. Jesus. Raising these kids right. That kid chops shit. Wow. He fucking loves it. Just wait till he chops his finger off. Yeah, well, that's a bill worth paying. But what? So I get I get really weird about shit where I know there's a high probability of me being taken advantage of. Huh? I so like mechanics are one. Yeah. Like I have I have a fear of mechanics because like usually when something's fucked up, I know there's something going on with it. Right. And you know, like I have an idea, okay, my my ball joints starting to be fucked up, you know. So you take it in and you tell them I need a new ball joint. And then they put it up on the rack, and they're like, Yeah, no problem, we'll change out that ball joint. And then they call you up an hour later when they fucking got you, and they're like, Oh, your tie rods are actually gone, you know, your fucking left shock is bad. And then they give you a list, and that$300 ball joint, which was already grossly overpriced. Yep. Now turns into like, well, we can get you back on the road safe for like$17.90.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, this all started at the tire rotation about 18 months ago where they're like, Oh, you should probably replace the shocks and stripes.
SPEAKER_02:But they don't do it until you say yes. They don't just do it and then give you the fucking thing.
SPEAKER_01:But they they always take advantage of it. They always got you by the balls because they're like We already got it in the air. We got it in the air. They're like, your tie rod's so bad we can't even get the ball joined in. That guy's not gonna put this back together like this. Yeah, it's really hard to do that. It's not safe. They just they fucking get you. They they like nickel and dime every fucking little bit they can out of you. They make they bring in the right down to taking your car in for an oil change. Every fucking time they pull your air filter. Yeah. No, that's not true. No matter what. No, because Well, maybe not on your little fucking clown car.
SPEAKER_03:It's part of our 21-point inspection, sir.
SPEAKER_01:They probably figure your car's electric or something.
SPEAKER_02:Well, the biggest thing is too is the bullshit. They think they think you should get the best oil, synthetic, whatever the fuck it is. And I have had the same cheapest oil for probably like 15,000 miles. I know I need an oil change, but I haven't got one yet.
SPEAKER_01:Right. But but this is this is what I'm saying. Like, I fucking hate this shit. Uh I give somebody a quote, I do everything I can to stay inside of that. Everywhere else you go, you you always feel like you're fucking they're trying to add something on. They're fucking ripping you off to begin with. So there's one person I there's one one industry that I fear more than automobile mechanics. Veterinarians. Oh my god. Okay. Okay, two of them.
SPEAKER_02:That that's inside joke, because we're not.
SPEAKER_01:No, it's it's in the podcast joke, though. Okay, two people I fear. Okay, what is it? What is it? The other one is boat mechanics.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah, those that's a made-up thing. Just say mechanics. Fucking boat mechanics, dude. They're the worst.
SPEAKER_01:Why can't you do it yourself? Anytime. Well, because boat motors are something normal people know nothing about.
SPEAKER_03:It's pretty true.
SPEAKER_01:So every time you take it in there, they they fucking rake you over the colt. You like that there's nothing you can do. Like, they got your shit disassembled. They always tell you everything's bad. Everything on a fucking boat is crazy expensive.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, fine if you want to drown or whatever and end up in the middle of the year.
SPEAKER_01:Why don't you say this?
SPEAKER_02:Put this back together with this, and that's all I want. Put it back together and I'm done.
SPEAKER_01:So I drop I drop my boat in the water for the first time this year, and I rent a spot on a lake. You're pretty late, man. Well, this was a couple weeks ago. Still pretty late. It's still pretty late. But I drop my boat in. Uh I'm taking it from one end of the lake to the other to get to my spot.
SPEAKER_03:That's when most boating acts or like breakages happen, actually.
SPEAKER_01:And and it's uh I got my buddy on a boat and me, he's gonna, you know, it's like a big ordeal to get the fucking boat to where I need it to be for the season. And uh we get on it and I start going and the thing's not fucking moving. Like it's just at a walking pace going across and and the engine's fucking revving up. I'm like, fuck, dude, this thing's broke. I don't have a boat mechanic anymore. I had a guy, and that guy is no longer in the boat game. He's finally made it. Yeah, no.
SPEAKER_03:Once there's enough zeros in the bank account. So enough coronas in the fridge, you're done.
SPEAKER_01:So I'm like, fuck, now what am I gonna do? So I start calling places, and now I I want it fixed right away, right? I start calling places, I'm like, how far are you out on service right now? And they're like, ten weeks out, six weeks out. Yeah, because it's beginning to, yeah, you know, every they're like, oh yeah, we're fucking chalked full of boats, and I'm like, fuck, I ain't gonna get this thing fixed.
SPEAKER_03:And I'm reading Google reviews on them, you know, because people tend to go getting ripped off is real too. You don't want to be like telling a story, I got this guy who takes care of my boat. And they're like, Oh, you go to that guy, dude. Oh no, don't go to that guy.
SPEAKER_01:So I'm reading Google reviews uh on all these boat places, and so I figure if if anybody has more than a 50% good review, they're probably a great place to do business with. Better than 50? Yeah, because people go to the internet to write reviews when when something's fucking horribly wrong. True that. People don't go to the internet because they had good enough service.
SPEAKER_02:And let's remind everybody in the audience to give us a bad review because that's all the ones we care about.
SPEAKER_03:You want a review or any review.
SPEAKER_01:But but you know what I'm saying? Like, you nobody runs out to the internet and said, I had I had a decent experience at this place.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, no, I get it, I get it.
SPEAKER_01:So I'm like, if they have 10 reviews and five of them are this guy's a piece of shit, and five of them are this is the best place I've ever went. I'm like, well, they're probably pretty decent.
SPEAKER_02:So you got I I would put it in this perspective that a hundred people were satisfied and fifteen were were pissed off, and those 15 out of those 15, five, and it has 105. So yeah, that percentage makes sense. And because you know, and no one's ever gonna be like, take the time to help you out unless you tell them, right, hey, give me a review. And most people aren't gonna do that unless you're a podcast.
SPEAKER_01:So I find I find this place, I've never heard of him. I read his reviews, he's got like 50 or 60 reviews, they're primarily good, but a lot of them are like, this guy is just a fucking grumpy asshole.
SPEAKER_03:Awesome.
SPEAKER_01:Those are the best guys. Hey, if you get brand new. If you fix my car being grumpy, do I give a shit? Nope. Nope. So I call him up and he answers the phone and he goes, Yeah. And I'm like, Oh, maybe these reviews are fucking spot on. And uh I go, What the fuck do you want? I said, hey, I said, I got this boat, I dropped it on the water for the first time. It's got a Mercury 60 horse on it. Uh, I give it full throttle and the thing's hardly fucking moving. And he goes, I go, how far are out are you right now on service? And he goes, I got 10 boats in my shop right now. We're all waiting, we're waiting for parts on all ten of them. He was like, I got two mechanics sitting around with nothing to do, bring it in today.
SPEAKER_02:He's like, My my my reviews on the the w interwebs have been pretty bad, and I'm trying to be a better person.
SPEAKER_01:So I I go drop it off to him the next day. Meanwhile, I'm doing I'm doing the normal thing, like if you're not feeling good or something like that, I'm doing internet research. Right. And everything's pointing toward what's called the lower unit, which is basically your boat's transmission. Yeah, you have your motor on the top, that's the big round part, and then the long part that goes down to the bottom of your boat is the transmission. It's called the lower unit. So the motor's running, but it's not catching any of the other. Yeah, it's not spinning the propeller, but the motor's running fine. And uh that repair is six thousand dollars.
SPEAKER_02:Jesus Christ. That's not how much is a new motor? Like a like, I mean. So, wow. Okay. It's the most expensive thing to fix it. Oh, yeah. I know that the most expensive thing on the boat is the motor.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, no, no. The lower unit is the most expensive part of the mower.
SPEAKER_03:The most expensive thing on the boat is the woman sitting in the captain's partner in a cockpit chair.
SPEAKER_02:Next to you, yelling at you, like, where the fuck are you going?
SPEAKER_01:So I take it in, I re-explain everything to him, and he looks at it and he's like, It's gonna it's gonna be one of two things. Fluid. He goes, the lower unit shot. He goes, that's really expensive. He's like, these motors also have this electronic fuel delivery. It's like a fuel pump. He goes, but they fail all the time, and it gives us symptoms of a burnt-out lower unit. How old is your motor?
SPEAKER_03:Because your motor's running, but there's no gas in it to make anything spin fast.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. How old is your motor? Ten years. Is that is that old for a motor? Not at all. Okay. Um he goes, that piece is also pretty expensive, but nothing like lower unit. He's like, you know, that's like a twenty five hundred dollar repair. He goes, just Christ. He goes, just warning you it's probably one of those two things. Six thousand or twenty five hundred? Yeah. And I'm like, fingers crossed it's twenty five hundred dollars. Right. So this this fucking guy calls me up the next day. I'm assuming it's 6,000 the way you said fuck it. And he's like, hey, this is Gordy over at Summertime Marine. Uh come get your boat. It's done. I'm like, okay. So I'm like, I I start calling this guy back, and now we're playing phone take back and forth. Wait, you didn't approve of anything. And I'm like, what the fuck do you mean it's done? Like, I didn't ask you, or like I didn't approve a six thousand dollar repair, so I'm fucking furious. Lawyer. At the time, I'm out of town. I went out of town for three days to uh uh if you listen to our podcast, I was at a spa. This is a spa day. This is a spa day. He's spending at the spa. He's spending on his boat. What money is he spending in a weekend? Jesus. I'm like, this motherfucker, he went and fucking changed my lower unit out. He's gonna hand me a$6,500 bill. He's gonna change the lower unit and be like, well, that wasn't it. So then he he's gonna replace the fuel pump too.
SPEAKER_03:Fuel filter, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I'm like, this motherfucker's bucks. I'm like, this motherfucker's gonna charge me$8,000 and I'm gonna have no fucking choice. Like he's he's got me. There's nothing I can do now. It's fucking done. We go to court, he wins. You know, uh so I'm fucking furious, and I can't get a hold of him the whole rest of the day. I'm like, this is fucked.
SPEAKER_02:Like now you're real mad.
SPEAKER_01:So I'm like getting a massage from this fucking half-hearted white lady, and I'm not even enjoying it because I'm so worried about it. Not even a strong hand or grip. And uh the next morning I get a he calls me back. 25 bucks a day if you keep leaving it here. Scoredy, you gonna be in today to pick up this boat? And I said, Well, I said, first let's talk about what actually was wrong with it. And he goes, Yeah, uh bad news. He goes, uh your four spark plugs were all fucked up. He's like, so we pulled them and changed them. He goes, I actually dropped it in the lake and uh took it for a cruise around the lake. Thing runs fucking mint. So come pick it up.
SPEAKER_03:$184.
SPEAKER_01:$320.
SPEAKER_03:Oh my god. They want a grand for my van.
SPEAKER_02:So wait, now he has a mechanic for cars. Now you have a mechanic for your boat.
SPEAKER_01:And uh stand-up guy. I went and I went to the book. Did you leave him a review? And I went to go talk to him, and I said, I said, you know, I said, I really, really appreciate you you being honest with me. I said, because at this point you could have changed my lower unit just to get the work and the money into the shop. Because you already warned me that this is what it probably is. I said, and you opted to only fix the problem. I'm like, I really, really appreciate that. He goes, I wouldn't be in business for the last 25 years if I was just out ripping people off.
SPEAKER_02:Did he and did he end that con that that sentence with dick?
SPEAKER_01:He's like, now get your fucking boat out of here. And I'm like, every review on the internet about you is dead on. Yeah, but he's awesome. He's awesome. And uh uh, you know, even even like that, I'm talking to him, and and my really good friend is having problems with his motor, and he's got a little bit smaller motor than I do. And I I asked him, I said, Hey, my buddy's looking for a place to bring his boat, and can he bring it in here? And he goes, What size is the motor? And I'm like, Oh, it's a 40. And he goes, I he goes, I don't fuck with the little shit. He goes, Your motor's the littlest one I'll even touch. There you go. You know, I'm like, he's just a grumpy old dude who doesn't fuck around, he doesn't waste your money, he doesn't waste your time, came through with exactly what he said he was gonna do, and didn't take advantage of me when he had every fucking opportunity. Yep. So yeah, it's uh it really feels good when you find somebody that has a skill that you don't feel like is taking advantage of you. And he could just be setting me up next time. He might completely fuck me over. Like I gained your trust. This is like the first crack rock's free, all the rest you gotta pay for, you know. I don't know. I'm assuming he's a great guy, though. I'm glad you found a mechanic. I'm glad I found a boat mechanic. Uh everything's good in the fucking luckiest guys in the world.
SPEAKER_03:The Top Shelf Stories podcast guys are the luckiest guys in the fucking world. And you're lucky too for tuning in. Tell your friends about us. We really appreciate you listening to our podcast. Continue doing so. Tune in again another Tuesday.
unknown:No, then talking about it.
