Mikey Says “Don’t Call No Mobile Mechanic, Dawg” Interspersed With Random Pics :-P

Last week I picked up a call around 7PM from a guy named Mikey wanting to know what it costs to put a battery in his 2021 Honda CBR300R.

He sounded broke. He had that tone and manner of speaking I’ve come to associate with people who don’t have two nickels to rub together. Although I don’t conflate money with virtue or intelligence, it’s almost the same tone and manner of speaking often employed by people who don’t have two neurons to rub together, either. That’s red flag #1.

Red flag #2 was when the first thing he asked was what it costs. My mama always told me that if I had to ask, I probably couldn’t afford it.

I got short with him and said “The labor is $132,” which is my minimum.

Then he wanted to know what the battery costs. I said “I don’t know dude, look it up on Batteries Plus dot com or eBay.”

He said OK, and we ended the call. Then I made a mistake: I felt bad for getting short with him on the phone. I’m trying to be “better on the phone,” and I felt like I wasn’t living up to that during this interaction.

That AND I looked up the battery and realized I had one in stock from Batteries Plus. The battery was ~$90 with taxes and the core charge from Batteries Plus. I bought it a couple months ago for a customer who ghosted me the morning of their appointment. That doesn’t happen all the time, maybe once or twice a year. It’s annoying, but I figure they’re probably having a rougher time than I am and give them some grace. I saw a good way to get my money back out of this battery I’d kept in stock, so I texted Mikey with the ’21 CBR300R back.

I said I was sorry for getting short with him, that I had a battery in stock, and I could install it for ~$220 that Friday. I also told him that if money was tight I could order one off of eBay (a $40 Mighty Max battery) but would have to wait for it to get here to install it. This was my second mistake of the day: I offered to push my schedule for someone who sounded broke on the phone, who the first words out of his mouth were questions about what things cost.

Mistake #3 was taking Mikey’s word for it when he said his bike needed a battery. I have pretty good luck with people who call and say their bike needs a battery, but I failed to ask the right follow up questions. “When was the last time the bike ran?” “How long has it been sitting?” “Has the bike been crashed?” I also failed to explain in crystal clear detail that it would cost more if the problem with the bike went beyond simply installing a new battery.

Keep in mind I’m answering this call at 7PM after spending 10+ hours baking in the sun fixing my customers’ bikes. It’s easy to miss things in these circumstances, which is why I probably shouldn’t be answering the phone at 7PM.

He jumped on my offer to be there Friday to install a battery for ~$220. I got his name and address and made a note to stop by on Friday after I’d finished my other appointments. He referred to the place as “my shop,” which made me think he might own a small business of some sort. Green flag. I looked up the address. It was a moving company. It turned out to be his employers’ moving company, which means their shop, not his shop. He just works there.

Why is this a red flag? It’s a red flag because Mikey’s full of shit.

Friday rolls around and Mikey sends me a pic of a busted up right side of the bike, asking if I can install a body panel for him. I say sure, but someone has to order the panel and it has to get here before I can install it for more money. He asks if I can at least remove the broken panel and button everything up to make the bike rideable.

Businesses, freelancers, and other service providers call this feature creep. It’s when a prospect or customer anchors on the original quote and then tries to add extra work to it without paying for the extra work. They try to sneak the extra work into the original quote, hoping I’m not man enough or whatever to tell them it’s going to cost more money. They often argue when I tell them extra work costs extra money. They think it’s some kind of a privilege to do work for them, that I should be extra grateful for their business. The red flags are piling up. At this point alarm bells are going off in my head because Mikey’s bike has been crashed!

I text saying I’m headed that direction. I get there and see the broken panel isn’t even attached to the bike, but there are cheap (they go for $14/pair on eBay, and I refuse to install them) aftermarket LED blinker wires running through it and into the bike’s wiring harness. Disconnecting them so I can remove the panel should take me about 30 seconds. One of his sketchy-ass moving company coworkers comes around, eyeballs me like I’m trespassing or something, and tells me Mikey will be there in a few. Great, that’s good! I won’t have to explain what’s going on over the phone or in a dozen text messages.

When I pull on the bullet connectors for the cheap ass blinker, the wires rip straight out of them. Great. I’ll crimp new bullet connectors on after I put a new battery in the bike…

I pull his old battery out and install a new one, fresh off the charger that morning. I turn the key. No gauges. No fuel pump noises. I pull the clutch lever and hit the start button. No crank either. No dimming on the gauges because they aren’t lit up at all. All I hear is a moderately loud buzzing sound coming from under the seat. “WTF is that?” I think to myself. All I see is a flickering CEL. It’s late in the day, and I’ve already knocked out 3 jobs including another one I got skunked on because 1) I pushed my schedule for someone else and 2) I failed to ask the right questions.

I text Mikey saying it’s going to take more than a battery to get his bike running. I identify the source of the buzzing, and it’s a relay under the seat that powers the rest of the harness. It’s one of those grey OMRON mini-relays Honda uses. I check the power on the battery, and it’s 13.00 volts even after turning the key and trying to power up the bike multiple times. All I hear is buzzing from the relay. I verify the engine and chassis are grounded to the negative terminal of the battery. I check all of the fuses, including the main fuse, and they’re fine. I visually inspect the ground strap to the engine and the positive cable going from the battery to the starter solenoid. Everything looks good.

It could be the relay, but there’s no good way to be sure without having a new relay on hand. Also I’ve never seen one of these relays fail, and I see ones like them all the time on Honda Ruckuses and Metropolitans. At this point I’m pretty sure I’m going to get skunked for the second time today. I’m already doing extra work beyond the original scope of the job, and I’m not sure if I’m going to get paid for any of it. The mistakes are piling up. The shit storm is growing more and more powerful as the minutes tick by. It’s late in the day, and I’ve been baking in the sun, in 95 degree summer heat, for going on 11 hours at this point.

Mikey finally shows up, and I show him what’s going on. He’s wearing a denim jacket with Scarface emblazoned on the back. Mikey looks just as stupid in person as he sounded on the phone. He acts like I kicked his puppy when I show him the blinker wires. I tell him it’s not a big deal, that I can crimp new connectors onto the wires. He says he doesn’t want me to “fix” them because they can’t be tested with the bike the way it is. I’m like OK, sure, whatever.

I tell him it’d be at least 30 minutes of labor more plus the cost of the relay to pull apart the left side of the bike to get to the relay, and that it would have to be another day because I don’t have one on hand. I also tell him I can’t be sure it’s the relay, that I’ve never seen one fail, but getting a new one and installing it would be a good way of ruling that out as a problem.

Mikey gets frustrated and starts in on me with “I thought you were a motorcycle mechanic with 10 years of experience?“

At this point I start vibrating, which is what my body does when I want to hit someone. Don’t you worry though, I haven’t hit anyone since I was a kid. I’m grown now; I’m an adult, and I don’t just haul off and hit people. But I damn sure want to sometimes!

What is that supposed to mean, anyway?

“I thought you were a motorcycle mechanic with 10 years of experience?”

Does Mikey mean I should be able to diagnose an electrical issue on a crashed bike quickly and easily, without charging him any more than what I quoted on the phone to replace a battery? I’m sorry Mikey, but electrical problems on crashed bikes are a minefield, and they’re often difficult or nigh on impossible to diagnose or get right without having some extra parts to swap in and out. All of this costs money. All of this takes time. All of this is true regardless of how good a mechanic someone is. As a mechanic, I am neither Santa Claus, nor am I a miracle worker.

I ask him about how his bike got crashed.

Mikey tries to tell me he didn’t crash his bike. At this point my eyes go wide because his claim runs contrary to what my eyes are telling me. I ask him how the right side plastic got fucked up, how the handlebars got bent if he didn’t crash it. He tells me he “dropped it” when he was trying to push start the bike after the battery died. OK! I respond that in the world I live in, any time a bike’s handlebars touch the ground, that’s a crash. Mikey’s eyes go flat. He can’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. It’s like he can’t believe I’m not buying into his warped version of reality.

Mikey keeps calling me “Sir” too, which further enrages me.

He goes on to lament (cry like the little broke bitch he is) that he’s about to pay $220, and his bike is going to be in the same condition as it was before. I told him that’s not the way it works, that only the minimum would be due at the end of the appointment. Plus the cost of the relay if he wants to go that route. He hems and haws. Now it’s $100 ($132 in reality but Mikey has issues with reality) but his bike is still going to be the same as before, which isn’t even true.

I’ve spent time removing a broken panel. I’ve spent time installing a new battery and learning that it’s going to take more than a battery to repair his bike. I’ve identified the potential source of the problem, a buzzing OMRON relay under the seat, looked up the relay, and quoted him on replacing it.

In the back of my mind, I’m wondering why his bike has a dead battery in the first place. If it’s a charging system issue that left the bike stranded where he works, it’s going to cost him even more money he doesn’t have, and he’s going to be even more pissed about it. He keeps pointing out that I broke his $7 blinker. At this point I don’t want to work with him, and I don’t want to work on his bike.

I remove my new battery and install his old one in its place. It’s obvious to me at this point that Mikey is an ungrateful piece of shit, that he doesn’t understand the value of his time or other peoples’ time, and that there’s no way I’m going to be able to make him happy.

I tell him I’m going to crimp some new bullet connectors to his blinker wires and then we’ll talk, but I’ve already made up my mind. Fuck this guy. As soon as I’m done crimping these connectors, I’m going to pack my shit up and leave. I don’t give a shit about getting paid. I’ll take the L. My mistake for ignoring red flags; my mistake for not asking the right questions. I can live with my mistakes.

While I’m crimping the connectors, Mikey’s not 6 feet away talking shit about me to one of his coworkers.

“Don’t call no mobile mechanic dawg”

“I thought this was a motorcycle mechanic with 10 years experience”

“He showed up and broke my blinker”

“I’m about to pay $100 and my bike isn’t even fixed”

“It’s worse than it was before“

As soon as I finish crimping the connectors, I stand up and tell Mikey he doesn’t owe me a dime and good luck with his bike. I’m done with him, but for some reason he still wants to give me $50 for my time or something. I tell him no thanks, that I don’t want to take anything from him, that his money doesn’t mean shit to me. Mikey needs that $50 a hell of a lot more than I do.

I’m taking full responsibility for ignoring red flags and not asking the right questions, for not managing expectations in the right kind of way. I’m taking responsibility for breaking my own rules like 1) I don’t deal with broke people and 2) I don’t push my schedule for anyone. If I get short with someone on the phone, there’s usually a damn good reason. I don’t need to apologize for it after the fact. I did it for a reason. I don’t need to get paid anything after making that many mistakes. The lessons learned are payment enough for me.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading! Thanks for allowing me to vent my frustration at you and the rest of the world! Unlock a $15/hour discount on both diagnostic and flat rate labor by mentioning “MAKE IT RIGHT MIKEY” when you book online, call, or text to book an appointment. The number here is (720) 634-6935.

It should go without saying, but, if you relate to Mikey in this situation, please don’t call, text, or book online. I don’t need your business at all. I’m busy enough already working on bikes for smart, patient people who have reasonable expectations and money in the bank! 😛