I was just called by the mechanic that yesterday charged me two hours for one hour of work. As it seems he is missing some tool, and he presumes the tool is located under the hood of our car. Well, that’s a coincidence.

The mechanic even claimed that I should leave my job and go home to check the car, get to tool, and bring it by his garage. I think he must have been on some kind of mind altering chemical to make these pretty outrageous demands.

We made the deal that this afternoon I would look for his tool and afterwards we will see.

• Phone inquiry: Free
• Search: Half hour (15 euro)
• Return product: Half hour, plus gas and deduction costs car
• Rounded up: 40 euro

I’m planing to tell him to come and get his tool, or he can wait until I pass by when I’m in the neighborhood.

Result: I am to good for this world. In the end we had to be in the neighborhood, van I delivered the screwdriver to his porch. Still, I managed to secure a discount for the next job. Now I only hope he will remember about this discount, but might he forget I still have the photo proof.

Since we are living in Las Palmas we take our car on a regular basis to the same garage ‘Taller Peru’. Thanks to our old seat we provide our mechanic with a steady flow of jobs. The weird thing is that is seems like our car has a completely new problem almost every month. In recent months we experienced:

• Batteryproblems cause by the alarm system
• Draining battery
• Defective power cables
• Leaking gas tank
• Broken exhaust pipe
• Overheating cooling fluid because of a broken sensor
• Broken windscreen wipers

The most recent problem with the windscreen wipers was solved quickly and for the nice round amount of 80 euros. The weird thing was the invoice. We needed to pay 2 hours of work (30 euros an hour) plus some small parts like oil and rubbers. Only the car had been in the garage only a single hour! Maybe we need to find us a different garage.