This car HAUNTS the Car Wizard's dreams!

and at that time he actually kind of threatened me he's like look do you want to stay in my building or not [Music] so every mechanic or shop owner has that one car that will never leave their mind they wake up in cold sweats at night it's the one car that just really was the worst car or repair experience of their lifetime of their career and for me it was a 1985 volkswagen rabbit cabriolet it was green in color and it haunted me it still haunts me to this day so i had my shop going for about six months there in halstead in town and everything was going well my landlord at the time was renting that building i didn't purchase it he said hey i've got this car it just needs a little bit of work it's been sitting in my warehouse for a couple of years see if we can get it running again i couldn't really say no as my landlord i didn't want to make him mad so it's like okay drop it off we'll take a look at it he got it to the shop and parked it outside and there was a layer of bird poop all over it the cabriolet top was damaged it didn't run all the brakes were locked up they were rusted so bad we couldn't even push the car and at that point i was thinking okay this is not for us i called the landlord up and was like this might be a little bit more than what we talked about there's a lot of work he said oh yeah price is not an issue go ahead and get started he was he really i was like wait a minute here the car's not even worth prices what do you mean price is not an issue he's like look just just do it i need to get this car back on the road i don't care what you charge me just get it done get it running and driving that's all i care about is running and driving okay i guess we can probably get it running and driving we got started on it all the fuel lines are plastic and brittle and half of them were broken like i said the brick the brakes were seized up the engine would turn over but it wouldn't start it had boss jetronic mechanical fuel injection it had been sitting for what was thought was a couple of years when we digged into the records that were in the glove box had been sitting for at least 10 years it seems like that's always the way people remember time i think that people are pretty good with time until it comes to their cars i just had that replaced a year ago and when you checked the receipts it was five years ago this car hasn't been running for three years and you find out it's been 10. it always seems to work that way but anyways i said okay enough let's just get this thing going and get it out of the shop but we just kept running into problem after problem after problem then i get a call from the landlord he's like yeah i know the engine turns over and won't start just go ahead and pull it and we're going to go again i'll send it off and get it rebuilt i'll say i thought we were just going to get it running and driving why are we rebuilding the engine now and at that time he actually kind of threatened me he's like look do you want to stay in my building or not i was like our lease agreement doesn't involve your vehicle here it doesn't have anything to do with your volkswagen rabbit it's like yeah but it does include in the text of the agreement that i can terminate for any reason at any time i was like fine i'll pull the engine i got to keep staying here at the shop i can't just leave tomorrow i have to keep this business running fine we'll get the engine out and just kept going and kept going and we ended up actually pretty much restoring the car every time we get something done and get it fixed he would say okay go ahead and do this he really weaseled this in on us and we really shouldn't have taken the job but once we got it running and driving and we got the brakes fixed where it actually would run and drive we found out the ac doesn't work the convertible top is torn he goes and tells me go ahead and pull the entire interior i'm sending it off to be rebuilt i'm like come on guy we talked about getting it running and driving we didn't talk about pulling the interior we didn't talk about this we didn't talk about that so i talked with mrs wizard about it i was like how do i get out of this i i can't just drop the car or dump it because then the guy's going to terminate my lease agreement and then we're going to be out on the street really was pretty screwy the way he did all this but we came up with a plan and the plan was we had about four or five months left on the lease and in that amount of time we need to decide what we're going to do outside of this shop where we're going to move or what we're going to do and if we can string this along and make it last long enough and we get a little bit done here a little bit done there yes we got this done now the ac is working and when the day comes when we're going to leave we leave the building with the car in it and just dump the thing so we did get it running and driving we got the ac working we got the interior out of it and in about that amount of time we had decided it was time to move we had purchased a larger building in newton and the landlord calls and says where where are we at with this car i said it is running and driving the ac works everything you want it done he says well i wanted it i wanted to prep for getting it taken to the body shop on a few other panels i said tell you what we just found a new place to move our shop it's much larger i will not be renewing my lease agreement and he said oh wait a minute here wait a minute i don't want you guys to leave i said no why are you worried about that now when you threatened to terminate my agreement over this car i said no it's it doesn't matter we're leaving and i'm also leaving your car here it's running and driving it's everything i talked about but i'm not going any further i'm dumping this anyway push comes to shove we get moved out he brings the car a year and a half later and tries to claim warranty on it well the ac quit working and now the alternator is not working i said i have a one year 12 000 mile warranty on all work i do you have exceeded that there is no warranty on this car he says well i haven't driven it since then how could i said i did all that work and you didn't even drive it it's just been sitting in the building well yeah i said number two it seems like to me you abused the car you just dumped it and number one you don't have a warranty there's nothing here to do if you want us to fix the car we might fix it but i'm gonna charge you for it he said uh forget it just just forget about it i heard about later at a body shop the car is still sitting there four years later at this body shop unfinished and it's rotting away it's actually further behind than when i started on it i i don't understand what was the driving factor for this car why did he not take it to the next level and why did he do it in the manner that he did why didn't he take it to a restoration shop out in california somewhere or some way that specializes in frame off restoration start from scratch rebuild everything and it's probably because of cost it was one of those rare situations where i normally would have turned down the vehicle but i really didn't have a choice i had to keep the business afloat i had to keep everything going i took it on and i really shouldn't have at that time i couldn't pick and choose but now i'm in a position now in the shop i'm in now there's many times where we get a phone call hey i got something similar situation volkswagen rabbit blah blah blah been sitting for two years and i'm like nope no chance in that i am not interested i already know where we're going with this and usually i can get out of these proposals from customers or potential customers by simply saying it will cost two to three times more than the vehicles worth to get it back on the road i will need half up front that usually solves it they say half up front i say so yeah your vehicle's worth five or six grand it's probably going to take 15 to get it back on the road i need seven or eight thousand up front it's usually a click they hang up or i get told i don't have that kind of money and then my question is why are you calling me there are some situations where i have a customer who has worked with me for a year or more i know that money is not an issue i know that they say they will pay it they will pay it they don't bicker on with the cost i had a customer recently bring me a 79 nova it was his wife's back when she was 14 years old it's been sitting for a long time he asked could you please get this back on the road i don't care how i don't i'm not going to bother you just do the job you have an open checkbook i don't care what it cost he's already put a lot of money down and i have no questions whether or not he's going to pay the bill i haven't had to fight with a guy and it it really has been a positive situation i don't do these very often it's a very rare situation that i'll take on these cars but that rabbit will always haunt me probably until my dying day and i know from that experience what to expect on every consecutive experience after that most of the time it turns out negative in those situations and it's too bad so that is the worst car i've ever worked on in my life we'd like to thank the ticket clinic for supporting vinwicki this month when you get a ticket no matter where it happens you're risking points on your license costly fines insurance premium increases and risks of suspension or jail time so it's more important than ever to have great representation the ticket clinic is a nationwide law firm that can help you find a ticket no matter where you get it it's easier than ever to start a relationship with them you'll just take your ticket snap a picture of it and text that picture to 305 305. you can also reach them at the link in the description below to thank them for their support of venwiki and fight your ticket with the ticket clinic

Channel: VINwiki

Views: 223,638

Keywords: vinwiki, car stories, the car wizard, nightmare, volkswagen, landlord, real estate, rental, restoration, automotive, shop, owner

Id: vuAQGwJHghE

Length: 9min 52sec (592 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 18 2022