Rephlex

So I took the car to a Firestone shop, but the guy wasn't there to look at the thermostat. So one of the guys says "Follow me around the corner, we can get it done right now." So we go to another shop and nobody's there to work on it either. I tell him (and by now I'm thinking this definitely falls under sketchy at best) I'll come back on friday. He says, "Wait, there's one more shop, it's right down here." So we go to one more place. The guy pops the hood and is listening to the engine. There's a loud rattle we'd heard when checking out the car, we figured it was a bearing or somehting, mechanic says "There's something loose inside the engine, rattling around." So he explains he's gotta open up the valve cover, get whatever it is outa there, and then bolt it back up. So we agree on $50 for the thermostat and $50 to get the random piece of metal out.

About half an hour later I'm starting to kick into full panic mode, waiting to see my car fly by on its way to the chopshop and the mechanic come after me with a wrench and cut out my organs to sell on the black market. So I walk out to see how he's doing, and he goes "You very lucky!" points over to the VERY LARGE piece of metal bracket that had broken off and was sitting on the timing chain. So I grab it and go back inside, 20 minutes later the thermostat is done, I pay him $100 (plus a $3 tip for getting it done so fast) and now my A/C works fine and my motor won't explode (because of that chunk of metal) in a week!! I plan on taking it to another shop to get his work looked at, make sure there aren't any screw ups.

Holy crap this could have turned out bad. All this happened in 3rd ward, Houston Tx. Thank God for decent people.