Wrong Kind of Fireworks

On the "amusingly weird car problems" note:

A friend of mine (who we'll call R) is Really Good with cars and another friend of ours had bought a "new" (to him) car but the rear tail lights didn't work properly. R looked at the car for about a minute, and then said "the stereo is new isn't it? unhook the stereo!" Sure enough that fixed it, there was a short in the stereo circuit that broke the tail lights because they were on a shared circuit (how he knew this we never got out of him, something about it being "intuitively obvious" :rolleyes:). He also noted that the car had been in an accident before we had even walked up to it (which the new owner didn't know) and pointed out a solid half dozen identifying characteristics of that (most of which I've since forgotten unfortunately).

A good mechanic is about half magician it seems..
 
When I was stationed in Italy, my predecessor, Jim, introduced me to Geeno the mechanic. He was an older man, of indeterminate age. He'd seen every car part there was to see. Jim needed some bearings for his used Mercedes. The dealer wanted $100 each (in 1979). Geeno said "come back in a week, I've seen that bearing before." A week later, Jim brought his car back and Geeno installed the bearings off a Lamborghini tractor (I know, sacrilegious). They were a perfect match. A good mechanic is at least half magician like Ryan said, maybe more.
 
Steve...the same thing happened to me in Italy. My predecessor introduced me to Mr. Spinato, an older man who owned about ten acres of grapes and had a big house with a huge garage in the bottom and family living above. He kept that old Fiat in pristine condition during our entire tour. His shop was spotless, he walked me through every repair, gave me the old parts and detailed the engine bay every time. It was wonderful. I don't know if thee are people like that stateside, but would love to find one.
 
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