Thursday, March 24, 2016

The One Who Shut Us Down

Our repair shop in Denver has been closed for different things over the years - being sick, adding babies to the family, but not ever from a blizzard. Blizzard Selene shut us down, not only during the blizzard, but today, too! Usually, we dig out of snowstorms with the rest of the city and we are back at it the next day.


Today, we went to the shop and the roads were pretty clear considering how much we got dumped on!


When we got to the shop, the parking lot was cleared out and we were ready to get to work after resting with our family yesterday. We disarmed the alarm and noticed it wasn't connected to power. We checked the connection and everything was ok.


The fish tank lights turned on, but we didn't have any office lights. The shop lights turned on, but flickered and were dim. The lift didn't have any power and the air compressor wouldn't even turn on! We had phone service, but the modem showed no internet service.


We decided to call Xcel Energy to see how quickly we would have power back up and running. The customer service rep said she didn't know, but they had 800 people working on it. We decided to close the shop for the day, since we wouldn't be able to get any work completed. We put a note on the door and forwarded the phone.


We got a text message from Xcel in the afternoon and contacted our neighbors to see if power was indeed completely back up. Good news! We just heard that power is back - yay! We will be back in the shop tomorrow! Thank you, Xcel Energy, and all the crews working through the storm! We appreciate it!

Friday, March 18, 2016

When it's time for a new truck

Even our own vehicles reach the point where they are no longer economically repairable. We often recommend to our customers that they get a newer vehicle instead of repairing their current one. Most people appreciate the advice, some people are insulted. The fact of the matter is that no matter how well taken care of your vehicle is, eventually it will reach the point where it needs more money invested into it than it would cost to replace it. Norm's been driving the same truck, a 1995 F150, for 10 years! It has almost a quarter of a million miles and has been very faithful to our family. Norm's new truck is beautiful with a recent new motor.

We looked high and low for the perfect truck for him. Most Ford trucks are diesels with as many miles as his old truck, while others are taken off-road or used as work trucks. Good thing, Heidi is good at searching the internet. She found this babied gem weeks ago, but Norm wasn't sure about the color blue. Luckily, the truck was waiting for him.

Norm said he didn't want a new truck and would keep driving his F150 until it died. This week the exhaust broke in his old truck. The exhaust fell down and was dragging the ground while he was driving. Norm had to pull over and tie up his exhaust on the way to the shop. This was the final straw for him. He told Heidi to start looking for a truck and she kept coming across this F250. The rest is history.

This truck will be getting a 4" lift, new tires and wheels, performance tuner, high performance cams, intake, ignition, and exhaust. Stay tuned!

‪Happy‬ ‪Friday‬!

P.S. If you're in the market for a newer vehicle, we offer pre-purchase inspections for only $95 in Denver.