[Pencil.Fight]

My first Camaro, the second car I owned, was purchased from a mechanic. It lasted about a week before it suddenly wouldn't start at all. I replaced the fuel filter, checked the lines, and all the sensors. I knew it was a fuel problem, so I finally took it to a shop to check the fuel pump. Anyone who's had an '85 Camaro knows that it's not the easiest thing to access. When the guy got to it, he found that the guy who sold it to me had tried to fix the pump himself, but rather than remove the old one and add in a new one, he just spliced the new one in on top of the old one.

After that, it worked fine, for the most part, until I had to sell it due to rising insurance costs and speeding tickets. It was lucky for me that I did. Within a couple of weeks the radiator "blew up". It's now sitting outside with leaky T-Tops and puddles of water and ice all over the seats and floorboards.

The worst part about it is that as soon as I bought the car, the guy I bought it from disappeared off the face of the earth. He stopped showing up for work at the shop, and his Cell Phone was cut off.

1 year later...

Not having learned my lesson, I bought another car from a mechanic where my car had broken down 250 miles from home. This car lasted me about a month before one of the tires blew up on the freeway, and it slowly started losing horsepower. Turns out the transmission was crap.

My next car was bought new from a respectable dealership. Needless to say, I'm never buying anything from a mechanic again.

I think Navy's got the right idea, I'm hoping to get some training myself so I can not only know what half you guys are talking about, but I can fix and mod my own cars without worrying about getting cheated.