It's funny, the guy had a good thing going, a nice clean shop. Good customers. Seems kind of stupid that you would risk a good business and do something dumb like this.
As for Krystal, I would be curious to get her take on it. Judging from what I heard, it seems like she didn't really know what was going on (which would explain her earlier post to this thread). She was always very helpful and friendly, and was very good at responding to phone calls or replying to e-mails. She even delivered my car to my apartment complex instead of me having to drive over the hill to pick it up.
Shaz on the other hand, I was never sure if he was on the up and level with me. On the surface, I thought he was a good guy who loved to work on TDIs. His shop always seemed to be clean and organized which was a plus in my books. He was always very helpful, answered all of my questions and would actually take me out to the shop to show me what he was talking about. I started out with him last year when I had a bunch of work done bag in October of last year. Timing belt, injectors, 11mm fuel pump upgrade, cam, Malone II chip. The prices where always high, but then, what auto mechanics isn't these days?
My problem came with the fuel pump, I thought I was getting a fully rebuilt fuel pump, but as it turns out, I got one that Shaz resealed. About 5 months after all of that work, my brother in law drove the car (who is used to gas, not diesel) and went from first to second and red-lined it. The car died and come to find out, the "rebuilt" fuel pump was dead. I had the car towed from Redding, Ca. to Santa Cruz, Ca. because I thought I had a warranty on the pump. Shaz told me that he wouldn't warranty it because the solenoid went bad and on my invoice they stated that was not warrantied. I had to take his word that he wasn't pulling a fast one on me.
Aaron from Boraparts.com can vouch for all of this because I was talking with him a few times a day trying to see if he had any clues as to what might have happened with the pump. Aaron was a champ, took a lot of time to listen to everything and gave me lots of great advice. Eventually, I was stuck with either paying Shaz for another fuel pump or pay to tow the car somewhere else. I had told Shaz to hold off on doing anything until I figured out what I wanted to do. He called me up one day and said the car was ready to be picked up. I told him I never authorized the work to be done and that started a whole round of haggling on that.
Eventually, I went ahead and paid Shaz for the second pump. Ironically, this pump was also supposedly under warranty because he claimed it was a pump straight from the dealer and carried a 12 month, 36000 mile warranty and covered all of it. I guess with him being gone I won't be able to collect on that warranty either....
From this experience and having to pay for TWO fuel pumps in less then 6 months, I always was a bit skeptical of Shaz from this point forward. Overall though, Shaz actually went out of his way to help me out, he even looked at my car while it was dead in Redding California when he was up there for a car show. Even after haggling over the second fuel pump and the warranty on the first, I still had intentions to continue having my car serviced by him because he was competent and seemed to do the job well. Now, I am moving my business over to Bugformance which is in San Jose. First appointment is for CE for glow plugs that has been on for three years. Now that smog is coming due I actually have to get it fixed now...
As promised, here are the pictures...
Note that the bay door on the right is supposedly where the pot was being grown. Whenever I was there I don't recall the door ever being open. You can also see a ventilation fan that was placed at the top of the building on that side.