How To: NOT Get on My Schedule, Get Blocked, and Blacklisted

This guy’s going to need to ride his “rattling” scooter over to Sportique or pay someone to have it transported to avoid doing any further damage to it.

My interactions with duder started with a rambling voice message left at 1:40PM earlier this week on Tuesday, April 30. In the message, he says:

• He has a scooter that ran perfectly before…
• He attempted to install some Dr. Pulley sliders
• Scooter now makes a rattling noise
• He says he made sure everything was “seated perfectly” but still gets the “clacking” and “rattling”
• Then the scooter gets difficult to start “as if something isn’t aligned”
• Wants to send videos, so I can diagnose the problem on my phone
• Says to call back if I’m available this week

He texts this at 7:05PM the same day:

Lots of red flags here for me as a mechanic in these very first messages. Let’s go over them.

He tried to DIY the job to, no doubt, save some money. Either because he’s broke OR he has a problem with paying mechanics because mechanics are know-nothing wrench monkeys in his mind.

Only the spirits of the universe know what method he used to remove the nut that fixes the variator to the crank. Same for how he put it back together, but OBVIOUSLY he screwed up SOMETHING with the disassembly and/or reassembly OR HE WOULDN’T BE CONTACTING ME because his scooter would still be running fine, like it did before he made the attempt.

That the scooter has become difficult to start indicates something seriously wrong with that rotating assembly, and, unless he’s a professional videographer shooting these videos in a well appointed studio, odds are slim to none I’m going to be able to accurately diagnose anything using his videos.

It also doesn’t sound like he expects to pay me for any of this “diagnostic work” he wants me to do on my phone.

All of that is besides the point because I can’t and don’t diagnose anything unless I have both EYES and HANDS on the machine.

I’m not available this week; I’ve been booked out until the 14th or so since the 1st, but there was a random slot on the 8th open until someone else got it. More on that in a sec.

I responded via text the following morning, on May 1st:

Just straight facts here. Let him know it might be easy, might not be easy; in fact it could be impossible to repair for less than the cost of replacing the scooter. Asked about the stock rollers in case he accidentally bought, or was sold, the wrong size sliders. He responds with this:

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that at this point he’s taken the assembly apart and put it back together at least TWICE, and his scooter is still having the same issue. He doesn’t think the crank is screwed up, but he’s also under the impression that he put everything back together the way it was before, WHICH HE OBVIOUSLY DID NOT OTHERWISE HE WOULD NOT HAVE THIS PROBLEM.

DIY Danny has issues with basic logic. It’s also obvious he hasn’t read a damn word on this website. Fortunately, I do not have any problems with either reading comprehension or basic logic. I’m laughing to myself at this point. So I respond:

Diagnostic work is always “time in” at my shop rate, which WAS $127.5/hr until May 1, and I WAS going to honor that for him IF he scheduled an appointment on the 1st when I offered him the 8th.

I WILL NOT quote an exact price to fix something I haven’t seen based on another person’s description of the problem, especially when that person caused the problem but doesn’t seem to think they caused the problem.

But I ballparked it for him in that text, even though all of the same information is available right here on my website for people who know how to read. However, DIY Danny has trouble with basic logic, reading comprehension, and apparently basic math skills, as evidenced by his reply the following evening:

No dude. Not at all. That’s not even remotely how this works. DIY Danny wants me to quote an exact price without seeing the bike, either because he’s broke, or he has zero respect for the work mechanics do.

If you try to DIY a repair and you screw it up, you need to approach ANY MECHANIC hat-in-hand, wallet out and wide open. Most mechanics won’t touch that stuff with a 10-foot-pole let alone quote anything related to the repair over the phone or text. I’ll touch those jobs but only for people with the right kind of attitude about what they’ve done and what it could take to fix, if it can even be fixed.

DIY Danny had the wrong attitude from jump street.

Here’s where the fun starts:

I got exactly the response I was looking for! DIY Danny is a gem!

I figure this is what he was looking for all along; that is, someone to come and fix his scooter for free or nearly free. I swear, I can smell these dudes, they’re always dudes, from a mile away.

They telegraph their intent without even knowing what they’re saying. They take me for some kind of an idiot. They do this because they think all mechanics are idiots whose experience, knowledge, and skills can be replicated in 15 minutes by watching YouTube videos.

Unfortunately for him, fortunately for me, I am IN FACT and absolutely 100% a “smart mouth c!nt” and NOT an idiot.

So here’s the deal. If you read all of this, and you relate more with Danny in this interaction than you do with me, you’re more than welcome to have your broken scooter towed somewhere like Sportique and have them diagnose and fix it for you. But let me clue you in on something; they’re a bunch of “smart mouth c!nts” too! That goes for nearly every mechanic I’ve ever met! It comes with the territory!

Sportique won’t tell you how much it’s going to cost to fix before they’ve seen it either! No mechanic on planet Earth does that for repair work. It’s absolutely bog standard to have no idea how much something will cost to fix until a mechanic has put eyes and hands on it, and there’s no such thing as a “free estimate” in this business. Even then it’s just an estimate that could go up or down depending on what else the mechanic finds, or doesn’t find, as they perform the work.

Mention “DIY Danny” when you book online, on the phone, or in person while I’m working on your bike and you’ll get 10% off of my shop rate, taking it to down to $130/hr from $145/hr until June 8, 2024.