The grumpy thread

[chaseracer]

Why do people tolerate this kind of shit from others?  Probably a rhetorical question.

[jakebullet]

45 minutes ago, New POD said:

Looks like a nice bit of kit. Can you recomend it? 

Not really. It was £40, feels a bit flimsy and only has 1 LED for night use. You can get similar from China for about £15, so it's £25 extra for an almost English manual. If you can handle Chinglish & fiddling a bit get a China one instead.

29 minutes ago, Pieman said:

Is your sister's name Veruca?

You showed remarkable restraint, I'd have smashed the thing to pieces and told her that if she knows better so much then don't fucking talk to me again.  (Or is your family the same as mine, where if you upset your sister the entire family refuse to speak to you for a week and you get Resting Bitch Face off all of them constantly whenever you're near them?)

Going back a few years she tried to run me over with a kia picanto. Which was great as it gave me a perfect excuse to never interact with her in any way. Managed 3 years of no sister bliss, then some drunk hit her parked car at 4 am, and I got roped in. Now Ma blackmails me into helping her with her gormless problems. I still try to stay away as much as possible.

Sister is probably extra pissed today because it's her birthday and I gave her a bottle of lambrini, a cake and a headlight polishing kit. These will have been deemed shit gifts. I should perhaps point out for my birthday last week she bought me a pack of chocolate digestive biscuits. I think she's come out on top in the gift stakes.

[NigeT]

Got round to replacing Ypsilon's rear spring which it failed MOT on, only to discover aforementioned spring had absolutely nothing wrong with it. At least I now have a spare stashed away. 

[artdjones]

19 hours ago, Fumbler said:

The BX, to correct the 4 or so MoT advisories, plus 2 additional jobs (replace worn bush in rear height corrector linkage, replace binnacle lamp(s)). It turns out replacing the front brake flexis weren't as quick as they'd said it would be.

I've never used Chevronics (wrong country for a start) but talking to others Citroen specialists have a tendency to overcharge. I've done quite a lot of work on BXs and Xantias, and a C5, including replacing various pipes, unseizing height correctors, properly setting up ride height, flushes, and radius arm bearing replacement. Also sphere changes. I honestly never found any of it that difficult. So I can only think some of these people are greedy and take advantage of ignorance.

My eyes were first opened years ago when a friend was charged the most of £1000 for changing a pair of radius arm bearings.

[wuvvum]

3 hours ago, jakebullet said:

Now Ma blackmails me into helping her with her gormless problems. I still try to stay away as much as possible.

The solution, as I recall people on this very forum advising you many years ago, is to move out.  (And not answer the phone.)

[MikeR]

Charity shops . . I had 2 wing back chairs and 2 cane chairs and a cane 2 seater to be gone 

Had it got a fire label ? 

Is it new looking ?

We can only pick up on a Tuesday !  , That means waiting 2 weeks .

It's ok I will sort it out , filled the skip at the council tip ,and the car is sat outside stuffed with mine and next doors shite ready for a morning skip filling session ...

Fussy buggers.  

[Bren]

1 hour ago, artdjones said:

I've never used Chevronics (wrong country for a start) but talking to others Citroen specialists have a tendency to overcharge. I've done quite a lot of work on BXs and Xantias, and a C5, including replacing various pipes, unseizing height correctors, properly setting up ride height, flushes, and radius arm bearing replacement. Also sphere changes. I honestly never found any of it that difficult. So I can only think some of these people are greedy and take advantage of ignorance.

My eyes were first opened years ago when a friend was charged the most of £1000 for changing a pair of radius arm bearings.

When I had my xantia there was a chap in Widnes who was ex citroen. I had water pump  timing belt and spheres replaced. I paid £350 for the lot. Sadly he is no longer with us.

[Pieman]

4 hours ago, jakebullet said:

Going back a few years she tried to run me over with a kia picanto. Which was great as it gave me a perfect excuse to never interact with her in any way. Managed 3 years of no sister bliss, then some drunk hit her parked car at 4 am, and I got roped in. Now Ma blackmails me into helping her with her gormless problems. I still try to stay away as much as possible.

She intentionally tried to run you over?!

As for the blackmail bit, that's exactly the same as me.  If my mother asks me to do a job for my sister, I usually reply "Well I can't say no can I, cos if I do her, you and dad will send me to Coventry for about two weeks."

[Fumbler]

10 hours ago, sierraman said:

Christ. What’s their hourly labour rate?

68 full fat English pounds.

[Fumbler]

2 hours ago, artdjones said:

I've never used Chevronics (wrong country for a start) but talking to others Citroen specialists have a tendency to overcharge. I've done quite a lot of work on BXs and Xantias, and a C5, including replacing various pipes, unseizing height correctors, properly setting up ride height, flushes, and radius arm bearing replacement. Also sphere changes. I honestly never found any of it that difficult. So I can only think some of these people are greedy and take advantage of ignorance.

My eyes were first opened years ago when a friend was charged the most of £1000 for changing a pair of radius arm bearings.

These were all pretty meanial tasks as well so I do wonder if they charged the book time for some of these jobs. I'll query it tomorrow as I'm collecting the car on Friday, but this has been a good bit of motivation to upskill in car maintenance.

[jakebullet]

10 minutes ago, Pieman said:

She intentionally tried to run you over?!

As for the blackmail bit, that's exactly the same as me.  If my mother asks me to do a job for my sister, I usually reply "Well I can't say no can I, cos if I do her, you and dad will send me to Coventry for about two weeks."

I'd been somewhere with Ma on the train, and she was insisting she would come and fetch us from town, despite we could walk in less time than it would take her to get there. I made some comment about the 2 ft deep mcdonalds packaging in the car, and she was all get the fuck out of my car. So I did, being a full 5 minutes walk from home. She then pulls up and says "are you getting in or what?", so I told her to fuck off.  So she drove onto the pavement and tried to squash me between front wing and the wall.

The other thing with her blackmail jobs is you have to remember at all times she's very IMPORTANT. Brakes will have no pads left, but she will allocate you between 12:02 & 12:07 pm, and if you protest you can't do it in 5 minutes flat you're a useless lazy cunt, and she'll take it to the garage instead. After driving it with no brakes for a month or two.

Or Ma will volunteer me for jobs I can't do. She wants the roof pointing 'cos she found 2 cm of concrete fallen off. Best call a roofer then hadn't you? Last I heard on that one she was trying to claim off the insurance for "storm damage" every time it was windy.

[Jazoli]

I don't understand why you put up with this shit and don't just fuck her off and do nothing for her, by capitulating and doing things she needs you are just feeding the monster, fuck her off and live your own life, and tell your Ma to keep her gob shut, honestly, families are a fucking nightmare.

[Pieman]

Sorry to be so blunt, but she deserves a punch in the fucking gob.  And if someone mounted a pavement in a car and deliberately tried to hit me, I would be straight on the phone to the police.

[BorniteIdentity]

1 hour ago, Fumbler said:

68 full fat English pounds.

Fair enough truth be told. The village grease monkeys charge me £50 per hour and the Jap specialist (who are amazing) £75ph. 

The alternative is running something mainstream and end of life, but who the fuck wants to do that out of choice? 

If your only bill for the year is £1200, that’s good by my maths. After all, what price style? The alternative is a 2005 focus with shitty arches and the smell of stale fags. You’re doing it right man

[jakebullet]

I do the best I can to avoid her and her stupid ideas. Only got roped into "dog cam", 'cos Ma is going nuts over impending dog, and will make life hell if dog related things don't happen. Said puppy is being collected this weekend, and I intend to be 90 miles away so I can't get the blame or more jobs.

I've already got it wrong by saying I find this whole puppy thing suspicious. I think idiot must have found it on facebook, so my first thought was is it some scum breeding dogs in a shed? Oh no, she's a famous professional dog breeder who shows at crufts. So why is she selling said puppies for half the going rate? And why when I google her name doesn't she have a website? Why only facebook? Stop being a stupid boy! 

They was supposed to be collecting on Saturday but now Sunday as famous breeder forgot she's going to crufts on Saturday. But.... crufts is in March??? Well some other dog show then. They're either going to come back with a breeze block in a box, or a puppy that isn't what they think it is. It's not that hard to setup a facebook page pretending to be someone else after all.....

[Fumbler]

17 minutes ago, BorniteIdentity said:

Fair enough truth be told. The village grease monkeys charge me £50 per hour and the Jap specialist (who are amazing) £75ph. 

The alternative is running something mainstream and end of life, but who the fuck wants to do that out of choice? 

If your only bill for the year is £1200, that’s good by my maths. After all, what price style? The alternative is a 2005 focus with shitty arches and the smell of stale fags. You’re doing it right man

Yeah, now that I've had a day to think about it, it's not too bad, just unexpected. Apart from this the big bill for the year is insurance, and like you said, I think I'm going quite well considering the miserable alternatives.

[jamescarruthers]

1 hour ago, Fumbler said:

Yeah, now that I've had a day to think about it, it's not too bad, just unexpected. Apart from this the big bill for the year is insurance, and like you said, I think I'm going quite well considering the miserable alternatives.

I do wonder if they had a few people on it at once too if they did all of your tasks quickly?

[hairnet]

6 hours ago, NigeT said:

Got round to replacing Ypsilon's rear spring which it failed MOT on, only to discover aforementioned spring had absolutely nothing wrong with it. At least I now have a spare stashed away. 

so if they failed it on broken fucked rusty whatever

seeing as theres nothing wrong can you tell them they made a mistake

 

[Fumbler]

13 hours ago, jamescarruthers said:

I think this makes the BX a keeper now as it’s crossed an investment frontier?! I’m hoping that’s nearly everything fixed now? 

It's staying for the forseeable unless something in the family or to me happens etc. It should be mechanically sound, or, at least, close to it. I am frequently reminded of the sage words the Xantia owner who parked up to say hello said: that I should expect a few months to a year of pain while all the niggles show themselves and get fixed. I'm leaving the bodywork to myself and it's probably going to remain tatty with the wrong paint touch-ups and stuff like that. The front bumper seriously needs work doing to it, though.

6 minutes ago, jamescarruthers said:

I do wonder if they had a few people on it at once too if they did all of your tasks quickly?

They may have, but over the phone they only made mention of one whom I've spoken with during my previous visit. It's possible!

[cobblers]

My wife's mum and brother are both horrible pieces of work, but she'd always keep in touch with them because they were family, and it would consistently upset and drag her down.

They say blood is thicker than water - That's total bollocks. If anyone treats you like shit, get them out of your life completely, whoever they are. If family treat you like shit, then that's even worse!  The best thing my wife did for herself was just walking away from her entire family and ignoring all contact.

[NigeT]

9 hours ago, hairnet said:

so if they failed it on broken fucked rusty whatever

seeing as theres nothing wrong can you tell them they made a mistake

 

Naturally I pointed out the error. To their credit they’ve apologised & are pressing in and out the bearings on my CLK hub for no charge to make up for it. 

[captain_70s]

12 hours ago, Fumbler said:

68 full fat English pounds.

When I put the Volvo in for a pre-MOT they said it'd just cost an hour's labour. Me being 200 years old thought that it'd be about £45. Nope, £66. OOF. I was actually disappointed with the tiny list of things to repair given the amount it'd cost to get it...

[paulplom]

I fucked my sister off about twelve years ago.  Not because she acted the cunt like yours but because she was an interfering cunt and always sticking her nose in my business.

I once didn't see my eldest daughter for six months because of something  she had said to her mother. I started speaking about seven years ago when I split with my other two kid's mother. I got myself another girlfriend and within a week or two my sister had messaged her behind my back warning her off me for some fucking reason. I fucked my sister off again after that. She just can't fucking help herself. iirc we'd only been speaking about two months. She had to get people in to do her kitchen and bathroom, I wasn't even asked as she would have known I would've told her to fro.

My mother thankfully just keeps out of it.

[captain_70s]

3 minutes ago, paulplom said:

I fucked my sister of about twelve years ago. 

[paulplom]

Dramatic spelling error!!

Edited accordingly!

[AnnoyingPentium]

Left my earphones at home... and I'm on the train.

[AnnoyingPentium]

...aaaaaaand there's a guy listening to music without earphones in.

[andy18s]

2 minutes ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

...aaaaaaand there's a guy listening to music without earphones in.

Are you sure it's not a mirror?

[grogee]

On 2/8/2022 at 7:44 PM, Fumbler said:

Had some work done on the car... dropped it off at midday Friday and most of the work was done at the end of the day. I've just received the invoice thinking it'd be £200 or something. Well nope

Fuck. Only 18% of that is parts. The rest is labour and VAT.

I don't know the full story but that feels expensive. Particularly if you didn't have an estimate to work on beforehand, even verbally. 

I am a 'casual' mechanic and do stuff for friends and neighbours. I charge £50/hr because

a) I'm careful

b) if I said the job will take me 2 hours, I charge for 2 hours, even if it took me 4

c) they don't have to pay VAT and can supply the parts if they want. 

£1000 labour would be 20 hours for me, I could get a lot done in that time. 

If Chevonics charge £65+VAT that's fine, but I'd expect their knowledge and experience to reduce the total time spent doing Citroen-only jobs which they should know about. 

Most of all I'd expect a phone call before the work to say, "it's going to be a big bill. Do you want us to carry on or not?"

With our sensible hats on I think we'd all be questioning the value of a BX versus this bill. But if it's paid then yes it's a keeper and good luck with it, I hope it brings you much happiness. FWIW I'm desperate to scratch that Citroen itch and these stories don't put me off at all. 

[Dead_E23]

40 minutes ago, grogee said:

I am a 'casual' mechanic and do stuff for friends and neighbours. I charge £50/hr because

Do you have (or need) public liability insurance to cover that?   

I'd be wary of charging the neighbours to change their brake pads on their shitheap and then the very next thing they do is stick it into the back of someone's Ferrari Enzo.