The aftermath...

While I'd asked for the owner to wait until I was back, I got a call from him. He was very eager to take care of this.

While wiring the truck to be flat-towed behind a motorhome, I flipped up the seat behind the driver to find the bottom was scorched badly, burned through the carpet, and into the pad. I was so angry by now.

The factory heat shield for the muffler had not been reinstalled after they did the cat-back.
On top of that, the muffler was getting hotter than the catalytic convertor. And it was a Flowmaster, which I really didn't like as it was too loud.

The truck had quite a few loose ends the PO had let go (not the original owner who appeared to be meticulous in their care). The aftermarket radio was slapping around, high beams didn't work, a headlight was out, the passenger seat didn't fold forward - lots of little stuff like that.

When I got the truck back, it had a new muffler, the scorched part was repaired (so-so, but I was done by now), and it was finally running better. Not good, but better.  The shop insisted all they changed was the muffler, and that the Flowmaster didn't flow well (errr... what?! A Flowmaster is worth about 5-7hp on my BMW M3 which arguably has the best performing stock exhaust in the world).

The truck was washed and vacuumed. The shop also fabbed mounts for my tow bar and safety cables, at no charge. All the little things I mentioned above were resolved at no charge, without telling me.

Wow. Now that's trying to get back on my good side. A previous time I brought it in, it was delivered back to me dirty with greasy prints on the door, fender and hood. It was nice to see them taking this seriously for once.

But there were little things. The tow bar required a hammer to get in, and couldn't left attached and driven around (as I had requested), instead needing to be removed. I brought it back to be tweaked at the owner's request. They fixed that, but now some the pins were missing from my tow bar. It's easy to keep that from happening - PUT THEM BACK IN THE BAR when you're done with them. Gaaaaah!

The day I went to pick it up, someone apparently backed into the driver's rear quarter, breaking the tail lamp and adding dents above and below the tail lamp. It WAS a pretty clean little truck.

We finally squared up, getting me back a check for $750 for the work the shop in Arizona had performed. It wasn't signed, which I found out at the bank because I'm a trusting fool.

This place couldn't do anything well.

Today, I found out the turbo is leaking. Again. I'm sure they'll take care of it if I ask. But do I really want to bring my truck back to them? Absolutely, posti-freakingly no way.

And if anyone ever asks me if they should go there, I'm telling them all about the fun I've had.