Back in June I suffered the ignominy of a blown head gasket and (it turned out) cracked head. I had the work done at a little independent shop that specializes in MB and BMW repair. I thought they did a good job, so when I needed brakes last week, I took it back to them. Oh, and btw, guys, I seem to have a fuel leak.

They got the head job because the local VW dealer had refused to make repairs on my Jetta, which needed a skid plate installed after they removed and "lost" the plastic belly pan, and they refused to install an aftermarket repair for a broken engine mount "ear" that they broke off earlier. That dealer insisted that the "ear" repair required a new engine block and $1400 for the part alone. The independent guy happily installed the aftermarket repair and the skid plate for quite reasonable labor charges.

They tackled the fuel leak first, and after spending a couple hours on cleaning up the mess and tracking it down, they discovered three of four injectors were leaking. They volunteered that injectors were $400 a piece, but they'd had success replacing seals a couple weeks earlier on a Sprinter with leaking injectors, did I want them to have a go at mine? Of course, I said go for it.

When they went to pull the first injector, they found the nipple to the fuel line was loose. All were fixed with the application of two wrenches. They refused to charge me for either the diagnostics or the repairs, saying that while there was no way to know for sure, it looked to them as though they'd failed to do the job right back in June, and sorry about that. Oh, and by the way, had I noticed the alternator clicking oddly? Yes, I had, and had suffered a flat battery a couple weeks ago.

On to the brakes, a fairly straight forward job, no problem. I'd asked 'em to look closely when they did the brakes, as the ABS/brake light would very rarely come on out of the blue, and reset with the next shut-down/start-up cycle. Something intermittent, obviously. They found a lot of rust around the sensors, cleaned 'em up, and think that's fixed the problem, but can't be sure, of course, since it was an intermittent issue. They did NOT just spend my money replacing 'em.

Then they called to say no doubt about it, the alternator has now quit completely. So I told 'em to fix that too. No sense messing around.

Now back last spring, I'd asked the local dealer to check my engine mounts, as I was getting that vibration, you know, the one that suggests that either the TC is going or the engine mounts need replacement. The dealer had said the mounts look fine, must be the TC. I hadn't said anything to the independent guy about that issue, but when I was picking up the Jeep after the brakes/alternator/fuel leak repairs, he said "by the way, you need new engine mounts. The passenger side especially, is pretty well shot, and very flappy."

We'll tackle THAT job next week.

People talk all the time about mechanics making boat payments on un-neccessary repairs. I want to go on record that there is a difference between un-necessary repairs and repairs you do in fact need, and the line is sometimes hard to draw. You know you've got a wrench you want to keep when you find one into fixing things, rather than just throwing parts at it until it shuts up. These guys are keepers for finding problems, for fixing things and for finding real problems others have had their crack at and blown.

So, a shout out to Mark Barker and the gang at MB Euro on Boonsboro Road here in Lynchburg.