My Spitfire has been making ticky-thumpy noises from the rear for
years, decades actually. I thought maybe it was getting worse, and
in a fit of worry over the possibility of a U-joint coming apart at
speed I took it over to a furrin' car specialist not far from my
house, it being convenient. They've been there 10 years, handling
many different interesting cars. In fact, they are right next door
to Aston-Martin & Lotus Of New England, in the building that used to
house High Performance Cars, a Maserati and Alfa dealer, before those
names disappeared from the US. When I drove the car over the lot
held a '61 Alfa, a Ferrari Mondial, and a few other niceties. So I
figured they'd manage U-joints okay. Later that day they called me,
said they test-driven it, and from the way the noise behaved it was
merely diff play, not making the kind of noise that would indicate
emminent failure, and the U-joints were fine. They topped up the
diff oil. When I picked the car up next morning, the owner told me
he'd feel safe driving it "to California and back". No charge for
anything. Can't ask for anything better.
Some places do try to serve their customers. Of course, now I'm much
more inclined to take either car back over there for work that I
don't want to do myself.
--
Jim Muller
jimmuller@rcn.com
'80 Spitfire, '70 GT6+
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