Automotive machine shops WTH?

So the awesome engine machinist I have previously used and had great results with decided to actually retire, he was a retired UAW guy that worked out of a shop on his personal property. In the last few months I have tried 2 other sources in the Indy area, first guy is a "crew member" on a top fuel team, works out of a nice big building on his personal property, has nice modern equipment, we talked about what I wanted:
(G3 Hemi block, align hone, bore and torque plate hone, square and parallel decks to a height dimension I provide)
He says no problem, is fairly busy but will have it done in 4 weeks. 8 weeks later I call and ask WTH is going on, he says he will need the crank and rods to set the deck height, mind you I have $100k worth of of inspection equipment at my machine shop (non-automotive) and before I took the block to him I checked the crank stroke, Callies Compstar (found it was 3.992 vs the advertised 4.000), Scat rod length (6.125 was dead on) and the Diamond pistons compression height (advertised 1.110 was 1.110), while dropping everything off I stated that I wanted the decks at 9.241, with a .030 gasket that gives me .040 quench, he confirmed yes no problem, so either he didnt trust me or had no way to actually measure deck height. 4 weeks later after a lot of BS excuses I pick it up. The final bill was damn near twice what he said it would be, the weasel wasn't even there so I could call him out, I had to settle up with his what I assume was his wife. So I wrote him off as "never again " after the bait and switch stunt and discovering he torque plate honed using my torque plate and not putting a head gasket in place, in addition to re-using used torque to yield fasteners that were in place.

A few weeks later I have another G3 block just looking to have align honed, call a race engine shop, he gives me a price says about 3 days, 12 days later he calls, says it's done, however the price he quoted the day before I took it there had multiplied by 5, I ask WTH, he responds " oh, that was the price per main cap"
If I tried this crap at my business I would expect to be out of business in no time.
Is this crap normal??

It's a 50/50 and in my area many of the shops are back logged 2 weeks to 2 months.
A lot of automotive machine shops have closed in the last few years, retirements and retail supported shops dropping the machining part to sell new or remanufactured components.

About 3 years ago I lost my access to machinery due to a good friend retiring
He would let me do quite a bit of my own machine/shop work in exchange for labor.

ms to have become the norm.If it's going to take a month,say so! I hate when they tell you,,,,,,,,,it will be done on Tuesday,,,,,they just don't say which Tuesday
Then you still need to be able to check the work to be certain it is to your spec!

Three rings of Hell, engine shop, chassis shop, body shop.

But when you visit the shop, they're standing around talking sports.
Of course it takes 3 months: they don't do anything, and when the rent comes due they pass the cost along on your bill.

I think the issue is trying to make money without being efficient with production. They want to charge $125.00 an hour but want to put out $25 per hour in production. I had a machine shop I used for years, they had a fire and after the owner rebuilt, it was like the other posters described, everything sent came back over budget, and stuff tacked on the bill for checking this or that, which I never authorized. I have a great machinist now, older guy that has a shop at his house, we are both about the same age, so maybe we will retire at the same time.

I have been pretty fortunate for the most part.

I did have one shop sit on my parts
for a few weeks, and then they called me saying a bigger job came in the door that we have to prioritize
in front of yours, so we won't be able to do your job. At all.

That was enough, but things turned bizarre when they then offered to take my parts somewhere else (of their choosing,
somewhere that I have no idea if they're any good or totally suck), to 'help me out'.
I had to wonder, what does this other place that I know nothing about kick back to them?
I declined, went and picked up the stuff and started over.

machine shops use to be good,now they suck,i live in the st.louis area,there is no good machine shops here anymore

Hard to say if it is normal or not but I'm not surprised that you ran into a shop like that. I work with an engine shop that does excellent work at very fair prices but I'm familiar with other shops in the local area that don't do great work even though they charge a lot more. I also deal with a local chassis shop who can build a complete race car in just a few weeks for a very fair price but I've heard stories about other shops who took months to build crap that all had to be cut back out of the car. So there are good shops and there are bad shops. You just have to figure out how to find the good ones and avoid the bad ones.

[quote=496 A-body]So the awesome engine machinist I have previously used and had great results with decided to actually retire, he was a retired UAW guy that worked out of a shop on his personal property. In the last few months I have tried 2 other sources in the Indy area, first guy is a "crew member" on a top fuel team, works out of a nice big building on his personal property, has nice modern equipment, we talked about what I wanted:
(G3 Hemi block, align hone, bore and torque plate hone, square and parallel decks to a height dimension I provide)
He says no problem, is fairly busy but will have it done in 4 weeks. 8 weeks later I call and ask WTH is going on, he says he will need the crank and rods to set the deck height, mind you I have $100k worth of of inspection equipment at my machine shop (non-automotive) and before I took the block to him I checked the crank stroke, Callies Compstar (found it was 3.992 vs the advertised 4.000), Scat rod length (6.125 was dead on) and the Diamond pistons compression height (advertised 1.110 was 1.110), while dropping everything off I stated that I wanted the decks at 9.241, with a .030 gasket that gives me .040 quench, he confirmed yes no problem, so either he didnt trust me or had no way to actually measure deck height. 4 weeks later after a lot of BS excuses I pick it up. The final bill was damn near twice what he said it would be, the weasel wasn't even there so I could call him out, I had to settle up with his what I assume was his wife. So I wrote him off as "never again " after the bait and switch stunt and discovering he torque plate honed using my torque plate and not putting a head gasket in place, in addition to re-using used torque to yield fasteners that were in place.

A few weeks later I have another G3 block just looking to have align honed, call a race engine shop, he gives me a price says about 3 days, 12 days later he calls, says it's done, however the price he quoted the day before I took it there had multiplied by 5, I ask WTH, he responds " oh, that was the price per main cap"
If I tried this crap at my business I would expect to be out of business in no time.
Is this crap normal?? [/quote ] i'm living in the indy area, all my life, and to my knowledge there aren't any good machine shops.

I’ve learned that just about any quality machinist is going to be buried in work and having racers all wanting things done before race weekend. And I’ve also learned to NEVER ever tell a machinist that you’re in no hurry 🤣.
Honestly most machinists that do have a fast turn around aren’t very busy and there’s usually a reason.

My machinist sadly passed away a few years ago.He was a great guy.One thing he pretty much said "If your in a hurry dont even bring it in".He did do some stuff for me quick if I asked.Let alone the prices he charged was cheap.Especially since he was a perfectionist.Sadly a friend and a great guy and machinist.His shop was always full and most all was repeat work.Rocky

Virginia has this: Automobile Repair Facilities Act

I don't know if the following can be applied to machine shops, but I had to pull this out w/ a body shop a couple of years ago when the final went way over 10% of the original estimate w/o any attempt by them to contact us about the additional work:

"B. Where a written estimate is requested, no repair work on the motor vehicle may be undertaken, other than such diagnostic work as may be necessary for the preparation of an estimate, until the written estimate has been provided the customer and the customer has authorized the work, either in writing or orally, and no charge for repair work in excess of the written estimate by more than 10 percent or, in the case of any motor vehicle which is at least 25 model years old, 20 percent or extension of the time for the work may be made unless the additional work represented by such excess charge or the time extension has been authorized, in writing or orally, by the customer."

Nope, we didn't' pay the upcharge...

We have the same law here in Mich

There are a few machine shops here that charge for work they didn't do, wreck your parts, or give you back another block that's not yours.

Paint shops are way worse. Most of them are full of losers that are there because those places don't do drugs tests and will hire anyone who looks like they might show up a few days in a row.

If you go into any shop and the trash cans are full of beer cans take your stuff elsewhere. Also, thick layers of dust on parts means they don't do anything in a hurry so keep looking.

I thought maybe Idaho would have been better than that.

I've been fortunate that I have always had friends that had their own shops or worked in the industry, that and I am able to do some of the work myself.

That said, I've seen and heard plenty of stories about over charging or it taking forever or both. One guy I know, whilst he is very good at what he does, does nothing quickly. They do a lot of Pro Stock and Super Stock stuff here in Australia, anything outside that, usually takes forever. Blocks have sat in the shop for 2-3 years in some cases. His brother is an engine builder as well, and will often work 7 days to turn around an engine in 2 weeks

Been lucky around here with 2 out of the 4 machine shops.The two I have luck with are ran buy guys less than 40 years old and both race.In talking with them their biggest issue is finding good workers as some times they have to turn work away due to being so busy.Dont get me started on body shop jail.

I got started building engines after getting screwed over by a shop on the first 440 I put in my cuda in 1998. After that, it was all me b/c I wanted to know exactly what I was getting. It's too easy for someone to give you a completely built engine and lie about what's in it.

I never understood why someone tells you a week and then it ends up being 2 months for no apparent reason.
I ran a small machine shop for about 6 years and loved doing it. Always stuck to the price quoted and stuck w/ the time frame religiously. If it had to be adjusted, I let the customer know ahead of time. Always treated people like I wanted to be treated b/c I knew all too well how bad it is to be screwed around w/ on an expensive and important piece of your pride and joy. We didn't assemble engines there for liability reasons, but I'd do them at home on my own time.
I found out real quick how expensive the equipment is and how cheap customers are...especially in this area. When you have a $45k head surfacing machine (cheaper floor demo model), charge $30-$50 per head, and people complain about that...it gets frustrating.
Had to send cranks out to 2 other shops to get turned b/c we didn't have a crank grinder. Talk about an expensive piece of equipment right there.

Most of our bread and butter was rebuilding stock heads off anything and everything for local garages and dealerships. A lot of newer stuff can't be rebuilt, it's all just replaced w/ new. Pretty soon all of your business will be people rebuilding older vehicles and, of course, race engines. Here there isn't enough of either to keep a shop going (10-15 years ago anyway), so I went back to school and changed careers. The shop I was at closed 6 months after I left. Of course now there are more and more shops closing so it would seem a GOOD shop could do pretty well. I'll run into some of my old customers and they'll ask when I'm gonna open my own shop. I say as soon as I win the lottery and have money to burn. Even had a fellow racer and business owner offer to buy the equipment and set up a shop for me to run, but that never worked out.
There are only 2 good local shops around here now and I'm fortunate to be friends w/ them. My stuff usually gets done quick and I try hard not to be the nightmare customer that used to do that kind of work.
I have bought stuff here and there so I only have to have minimal work sent to the machine shop. The best thing is to have your own dial bore gauge and micrometers so you can check what your shop machined for you.

That is an interesting perspective Chip. Thanks for sharing it from the machinists' point of view. My 511 went through three shops before it found a fellow that follows through with his projects because a) he enjoys accomplishment and b) he likes money. My kind of guy. That and he has a sense of humor so it ends up being a pretty fun experience. I feel pretty fortunate after getting jacked around eight ways. Now that I said that he will probably retire and dissapear to a far off island where golf courses are a plenty and hemi valve trian issues are not discussed lol.

So true. Most people think building engines is a money maker. It's a money loser. Most of the customers are whined little babies, who are so cheap it's not funny. Everybody is a winner and wants a sponsorship, because of course, they will drive so much business your way you'll get wealthy. Yep.

The cost of equipment is horrendous. Tooling is just as bad or worse. I can't tell you how many times I've sat on completed work that wasn't picked up. And certainly wasn't paid for. Since companies like Jegs and Summit will sell parts cheaper than most engine builders, the little profit there was in parts is gone. Can't have the shop make any money. Of course, when the [censored] doesn't fit, or isn't what it's said to be, the customer wants ME to call THEM and deal with it. How does that work? Now I'm taking money out of my pocket to build your engine.

Then you have the good old Internet. Obviously the customer is the smartest dude on the planet. They never make a mistake. Your junk converter can make my engine look slow, but the customer has no problem walking through the pits bitching about how [censored] my engine is. And then they go on the web and tell everyone how slow your engine is. Of course, when the truth comes out, there is no repeat ions made. No walking through the pits and telling everyone it was a junk converter that was killing ET and not the engine. No web posting doing the same.

There is no such thing as a loyal customer, especially in this game. You have the customer who thinks slamming an engine together takes an hour or two, and a competent engine builder who charges 1k (or more) is still making barely above poverty wages for that money. Of course, the home hobby engine assembler doesn't know how to degree a cam, fit cam bearings, check piston to valve clearance or even own a set of micrometers, let alone a set of standards. So they have no way of knowing anything about what they do.

And when said assembler has issues, like the engine is an underachiever, the same old, same old happens again. It had to be the [censored] machinist who is stupid and can't do anything. Doesn't matter that the valves are hitting the Pistons because the cam wasn't degreed correctly, or the file fit rings are butting or a dozen other issues.


It gets old listening to guys bitching about not being able to find a machinist. If you are so smart, and so good, open your own shop. Like the guy above, when you get tired of picking [censored] with the chickens, you'll get smart and walk away. It's silly that grown men actually thinks it's a privilege to build their engine and we should be thankful we get to do it, and we should just do it because it's so damn fun. Like anything else, it's a job. That's it.

Just my .02 from personal experience. Glad I'm done with it.

I believe it was said in a post a few years back about engine/chassis work.
If the customer thinks you did a great job, a dozen people may hear about it.
If the customer thinks you screwed him over, everybody hears about it.

thats true in all aspects of life,i found that as far as work time goes dealing with CASH and a rep as a promt payer goes a long way.i dont think you could pay me enough to be an engine builder,too many variables.

Against all odds, I've run into a couple of guys here in northern Idaho who I've been real happy with:
One was Lee Sixt (now retired), who was half of the Beebe & Sixt TF deal back in the '60s. He just loved that I'd worked with Kent Fuller, I guess, but his work was spot-on, reasonably priced, and pretty much on time.
The guy I've used since Lee retired is not inexpensive, but fanatical about detail & accuracy, and also pretty much on time, depending on how busy he is.
My theory is to be friendly, respectful, but upfront about expectations, look around the shop, get the expected costs & timelines, and don't grind on the money.
Only time that didn't work was with a well-known SoCal racer/engine guy, whose 1st build for me was excellent, but the 2nd was a $10,000 time-bomb that was horrible.
The post-mortem on the thing (3 easy passes) was so full of screwed-up stuff that my buddies still want to kick his a** 20 years later.

I remember Lee Sixth when he was in SO CA, that was a long time ago

As far as pricing, charge what you need to charge to make money doing the job, just be honest.
Don't tell someone that it is going to be $400 to bore and hone a block then blindside them with a $900 invoice

So I go to pick up the align honed block today. A 2 guy shop, one guy was working on an engine torquing down a head, other guy standing there watching him.
I say I'm there to pick up the block, let him know that he really misrepresented the cost and that this was a budget build and if he was upfront on what he was going to charge I would have found another source.
The story changed, today he didn't claim that they charge per main cap, today they story was that they had to cut the caps to get the bore in spec and that drove the cost up.
I found this very odd considering I bore gauged the main bore and found it was in spec, the reason I wanted it align honed was because the surface of the cap that mates to the block was not flat, it rocked a good bit on my surface plate and I replaced the factory torque to yield fasteners.
I personally surface ground the mating surface of the caps making sure that the same amount was taken of each one relative to the radius.
Pics below

And my super clean redi-stripped block looks like they got it wet and did nothing to try it off, flash rust everywhere

BES is only 90 miles from Indy.

No offense, but I would not have line honed your block after you cut the caps. That's part of the line hone, if they need it. There is no way your surface plate cuts a cap like a dedicated cap cutter.

You should have asked them how long it took to clean up the caps after you cut them.


Again, no offense.

WOW that guy is pricy! Not many blocks are worth $900.

I think you misunderstood what I did, I cut them on a surface grinder and removed .0023 of material, just enough to make the surface uniform and consistent. A cap cutter may do better but being that they ones I have seen "side wheel" grind I don't see how

Not sure if these prices are up to date.

BES service prices

Double here !


Some people think towing charges are per mile THEN they get hit for over TWENTY TIMES that !!

The old saying: One bad apple spoils the whole bushel. Not just a saying the truth. Automotive machine shops catch more flack than our government. It is hard to find a good shop and I feel that goes hand in hand with how our country has turned to lies and dishonesty. That goes with customers as well as shops. We all expect something for nothing. Some guys should not be building their own motors. Example, the machine shop hot tanks a block after all the work is done. How many guys consider that clean and put it together? I would wager 50% to 60% then they blame the machine shop when the bearings get wiped. Then the shops that promise delivery dates. The customer comes in and wants it tomorrow . So the shop says sure, just to get the work. Honesty and integrity will feed your family. I feel the customer is more at fault than the shop in most cases. I have felt for years that most Automotive machine shops do not charge enough. They have to charge more for their work in order to hire top notch workers. Suck it up fellas. If you want to drag race it is going to be expensive. A little kindness and integrity goes a long ways. My rant for the week

Walk around Machinary Row at PRI. Look at what machines and tooling costs, on top of a building and everything it takes to keep the door open. Then imagine being between a rock and a hard place - racers who don't understand what's involved and use Chinese made crap for price comparisons, and the need to pay bills, make a profit and have some kind of decent life.

Guys who are still doing it must love it.

and that list is getting shorter by the minute. It seems like I here about another shop auction every week or so. Just like a lot of racers a lot of shop owners are hanging up their spurs. I have the pleasure of dealing with some really top notch shops and the vast majority will privately tell you that they are done or thinking hard about being done. A LOT of them. One even made the comment that in 10 years you will not be able to give shop machines away. It also speaks to our society, no body fixes or builds things. Just toss it and get another.
Todd

30 years ago there were 3 automotive machine shops within 6-7 miles of my place, now the closest one is 42 miles away.

I deal with an industrial machine works, they do great work. I cant see them ever closing up. I cant ever see some of the huge industrial diesels getting replaced as a unit vs overhauled..

This ^^^^^^^

The times, the are a.....nah, they've already changed.

And they gonna change even more.

It is super expensive to custom build an engine these days. Shops have a lot of expenses that they have to cover so someone has to pay for it. The shop I work with has cut way back on "oddball" jobs since they usually don't pay very well. He doesn't do Flathead Fords anymore or old tractor engines or weird stuff like 50's Cadillac engines. The weird stuff requires a ton of time and most of the customers aren't willing to pay for it. A lot of guys who have weird engines are guys who have owned them for a long time and they still think that a full engine rebuild should be around $1500. So the guys who have the weird stuff that takes a lot of extra time are the same guys who don't want to pay much.

Crate engines wiped out a bunch of business around here. The local tracks switched over to crate engine racing which is probably good for everyone but it does wipe out a lot of business for the shops. There are still a lot of bracket racers who want custom engines built and there are a fair number of guys with muscle cars who aren't afraid of spending $10,000 to $15,000 for a ground up stroker build. But most of the rebuild business has gone away over the past 20 years. The engines in new cars last a long time now so there is no need for rebuilds. I have a Toyota 4Runner with 220,000 miles on it and it doesn't use any oil. Still has the original exhaust system on it. When I was a kid my dad rebuilt the engines in our cars at 100,000 miles. They just didn't last much past that back then.

To add one thing to andys very well written post, very few people today will rebuild an engine from a car or truck. Walk through a wrecking yard. They are full of late model stuff that looks like with a wash and wax you could drive them. 8, maybe 10 years old, almost perfect in every way and there they are. Today, when a car is 10 years old the owners look at the value of the vehicle and say why spend 7-8k to R&R and rebuild the engine in this thing when the whole vehicle is worth less than that? So they junk it and move on. No reason to put cash in something that doesn't meet the value.

Our society has lost what value is. Most stuff today is just junk. That's why it has so little value. Decades of manipulation of the money, artificially low interest rates, credit to anyone with a job without regard to ability to pay has devalued everything. The hidden tax of inflation has so devalued the dollar that it's worth about .02 of what it was just over 100 years ago.

Unless something big changes quickly, the engine building business will be essentially dead. The machines and tooling will be worthless here, but third world toilets will buy them up, as they will be rebuilding the junk they have. Or tuning out low grade reman crap for poverty wages for use in the US market.

It's just the sad fact. The automobile, once the proud banner of American pride, freedom and affluence has become a Marxist utilitarian tool at best. Kids today would rather have a phone than a cool car. Hell, most of my 17 year olds friends don't drive yet. Some don't think they ever will! Or want to. They plan on going to a college where they can walk or ride mass transit where ever they go, and for something else will use an uber. If they want to travel, they will rent a car. When questioned on who in the hell will drive it, most never think that far. You can't rent a car if you can't drive. I think they suspect they will always have a friend or two who can drive and will be willing to do the rental and drive. Driving is a chore. An unnesessecary expense.

Most major cities today are building areas that are wholly self contained. You can live, work, shop, go to the theatre or movies all within walking distance. No one will own a car. And retards are flocking to these places. I only live a few hours from the Pacific Ocean. Most of my sons friends have never seen the pacific and it's literally in their back yard. Never seen a pro football or baseball game and it's a bit over 2 hours for that. And they really don't care. They talk about comicon and goofy crap like that. When I point out you have to travel they say they'll fly in and then rent a car.

It's a losing proposition. Idiotic regulations, manipulation of the money and credit, raising people who are just indifferent at best to driving, untold BILLIONS spent on worthless mass transit, refusal to update roads and highways, traffic flow patterns that in the late 1960'and early 1970's would have had people kicking ass are tolerated today as just the way it is.

There not getting around it. Just one of the many reasons three score and ten years are appointed to man to live. Most of my dads generation are dead. The rest are too old to drive. Could they see the way it is today, IMO, they'd be stunned and saddened. Not many countries around the world have a road system to make driving what it is/was here. So they just don't know. It's a lost part of Americana that is slowly being eaten away.

I use 2 machinists. One local that does mostly commercial/construction repair & automotive. He'll tell you straight out it's not a race shop. I pay his price & don't complain. Usually done in 1-2 weeks. Last week, dropped off a 2 cyl set of sleeves, pistons and upper block, something he previously said over a year ago, he never does, after his approval to take it on, he called to pick it up in less than a week.
Pressed out sleeves, bored, honed, pressed sleeves, machined surface of deck & head......$290. Seemed a tad high, but I just paid the bill and trusted his word & work.
2nd machinist is farther away, does more extensive work & takes his time. I got worried & dropped in on him. My stuff was on the bench & partially done (In progress). Which was good enough for me considering the beauty of the work & I don't want a rushjob. When he's done with that project, I got a block for him next.

I'd think all that would ruin at least 3 hours. $290 seems pretty reasonable to me.

Kevin

Well, I haven't seen any evidence of that even starting. Obsolete valve machines like an IDL that hasn't been in production for decades is still $3k+. But I don't disagree with your point. Around here we had 7 machine shops within a 75 mile radius. Now there are two.

The “bread and butter” work that kept the typical automotive machine shop going...... is almost non-existent anymore.
Rebuilding heads and the machine work associated with engine rebuilding is now a tiny fraction of what it was 25 years ago.
Automobile engines often outlast the cars they reside in, in many parts of the country these days.
And the motors are now quite a bit more complicated than they used to be, and are more expensive to rebuild ....... to where the cost of doing so is well beyond what the vehicle is worth in many cases.
It’s usually way cheaper to find a used motor and just swap it out.

Add in that many of these late model engines require machining processes that are beyond the capabilities of a lot of 30-40 year old machines that many of those old school shops had, and the cost for new machinery is beyond the reach of those shops, especially when you consider the return on investment with the shrinking market for the services.

There were just more shops than the current market can bear.

In my hometown we had 4 machine shops. Now we have one.

Being in the automotive business, and knowing/ dealing with a ton of auto repair shops..... i can state more and more people are getting that big laundry list of things the car they have needs( when they cant ignore the issues any more) fixed. Rather than getting rid of the car and replacing it.
Had a shop owner tell me recently those 2000-3000 dollar estimates he gives, more people than ever are saying...” go ahead and do it” that didnt used to OK it. They know what they have, and that admittedly large large bill will keep them motoring along for a couple more years.... or longer. Typically way cheaper than any other alternative.

And those saying engine rebuilding is becoming rarer are correct. People buy a used motor and have it installed.
We deal a lot in Subaru’s. Couple years ago had a turbo itself grenade. Cheapest way out ended up being buying a brand new Subaru shortblock right from the dealer. Was under 2 grand. Had the heads checked, new turbo,lines cleaned, away we go.

The number of local shops has taken a big hit. Too bad it doesn't mean the ones that are still around were the best of them. One shop does "OK" block work, but the cylinder head work I had done there was... "not OK", IMO. So a shop about 15 minutes from my house gets my block work, and I still ship my heads 500 miles up to Dwayne since I know that work will be done right.

There is a guy here who does cranks better than anyone so you give him the rotating assembly and take the block to a different shop.

The guy that turns cranks doesn't do block machining, but the shops that do blocks and cranks don't do great crank work so you have to split the parts up to get it all done right.

The guy that does cranks thinks the other shops here do sloppy block work so he freights his own blocks for his personal race cars to a shop in California where he used to live to get them done right.

One day these guys will retire and you'll settle for crappy work ,or have to mail you stuff off someplace else.

Yeah around here it has become impossible to get good crank work done anymore. The good machinists have all retired over the past 10 years in this area and nobody has stepped up to fill the gap.

I'm sitting here reading through these posts. And it dawned on me. Think about it you guys. All the complaints I'm reading apply to more than Machine shops. Over my 76 years I have the same complaints about : Building contractors, Plumbers, Electricians, Automotive repair shops, Landscapers, Delivery services, and when ordering parts from just about anyone. Am I wrong? I'm sure I've stepped on just about everyone here's toes. Final note, ya think it has anything to do with the morality in this country???????