Like on my boat for instance I had an issue with it only firing on 2 of 4 cylinders. Well I took it to a guy who charged me $400 and it worked good for one boat trip, then a month or so later I took the boat out again and it went back to doing the same thing. Imo if I were a mechanic and I couldn't fix it I'd at least give a portion of the money back that I charged. The part that irritated me was that he didn't seem interested in taking another look at it after that. Good way to retain customers, just tell them f off after they take your money.

This is just a ripoff artist. If you are taking someones money for work you stand behind it.

What did he do to it that fixed it long enough to run for one trip?

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This sounds strangely like 1/2 of the story.
I wonder what the mechanic's version of events sounds like...

When I was in college I did brakes on my friends parent's explorer. Saved them money and got some quick cash. The transmission failed a couple months later, they suspected it was because I worked on the brakes. LOL.

Did you get your boat fixed again? Different issues can cause the same problems.

A good mechanic should at least offer to look at it without charge. However if you started the conversation with wanting money back, he probably decided you weren't worth having as a customer, right then and there.

No he just wanted to work on one of his personal projects instead. I supposed I could get him to look at it again, but it's like what kind of customer service is that?

Hmm. My mechanic has not-the-greatest customer service skills. He chased me out of his shop last month so he could get some work done. Love him to death, wouldn't go anywhere else.

I think when you use a small operation to do work it's hard to find a combination of both. Customer service and good work quality. It's either one or the other, you don't get both.

Hey clearly didn't fix it the first time, so I'd say he's already demonstrated his competence, or lack thereof.

Any competent, and ethical mechanic would stand behind their work.

He may be doing you a favor at this point. Since now you might find a competent Mechanic to actually fix it.

small town small operations DON'T last if work is not good, word gets out + hes out of business. big dealers with large customer bases can hose a few but even so they MIGHT feel the effects of lost repeat customers or not!!

motor oil madman..... you are 100% correct. I have a few horror stories myself regarding boat mechanics. They seem to love to rip people off
and it's difficult to find a good one. I had a place put a starter on a boat one time and instead of putting on a brand new one they swore the one they
had on the shelf was good. Some guy had brought it in or something and had an "extra one." To make a long story short it cost me close to $1000.00 and the
original starter on my boat worked but it would click a few times before starting when cold. They finally put my old on on, I used it until the new one came in. I also had a steering column lock up on a 1997 Corvette and had it towed in two days in a row to the local dealership. It cost me $350 dollars the first day and $350 the second day for something the factory should have fixed for free. The C-5 Corvettes were infamous for steering column lock-up which would leave you stranded and flat bedded in for repairs. Another fine GM screwup which was not covered under recall but should have been since it happens on 1997 to 2004 models.

M-O-M, sure hope you have some good in your life cause you seem to have to deal with a bunch of crap.

Just to be the devil's advocate, it sounds like he did fix it, but it didn't stay fixed. I mean, as far as he knew, it WAS fixed. But, I'd be looking at that $400 service bill to see what he did (or didn't) do.

Marine mechanics : the horror stories I hear. Owning a boat requires one to be a good shade tree mechanic, or have a fat wallet. Not much exists in between.