It was raining, although not too hard, but it created a bit of a traffic headache getting from A to B. As it was we were late getting into LAX due to ATC delays for weather. All this put me a bit on the back foot because I had to then get the car back across town from Chino to Culver City during a wet rush hour. Joy! But I get ahead of myself.
As I say with these types of purchases, on faith, over the Internet, they are seldom as good as you hope, but rarely as bad as you fear. I'd say this was a little closer to the latter than the former. There were a few items which seem to just happen to occur from the time of purchase to the time of pick-up. Go figure. I would't say Mike actually misrepresented the car; however, he wasn't as forthcoming as he could have been. The condition of the cladding and the wheels were enough of a surprise as these defects did not show in the pictures. The interior was not terrible, but worse than I expected with a loose headliner and a faulty seatbelt retractor. I knew about the recalcitrant pax window going in (more on that later).
Anyway, I didn't have as much time to go over the car as I would have liked as time was running short, so after a quick look and chat with Mike it was off to Rafi's Autotech. I found Rafi's on BenzShops.com. Again, it takes a bit of faith to choose a repair shop 2,600 miles away online; however, I vaguely remember reading something about this shop some time ago and the reviews were good so I took a chance. I did ring them up before heading west to discuss who, what, where, when and how and Rafi was completely open to helping me out.
Despite the LA rush hours traffic and rain I was able to get it to the shop with twenty-five minutes to spare on a Friday afternoon and almost got killed along the way only once. Some jack-ass in a white Porsche Cayenne with a Porsche Downtown LA tag in the license plate frame pulled right out in front of me as he kept darting in and out of traffic. Whether he was a mechanic or salesman or just some pecker-headed delivery boy, I'll never know. Fortunately my brakes worked well enough and so did the person's behind me. What an asshole. Upon arrival, much to my chagrin, I found another defect on the exterior of the car. Some paint bubbling on the rear of the hood, obviously from some small under-hood fire. I neglected to see it when I picked up the car in all likelihood due to the rain. Oh well, by that time it was a moot point. I handed the keys off to Keith and after a bit of an explanation of what I wanted, I Ubered off to my layover hotel.
By Monday afternoon I received a work-order of all the things they thought needed doing. I was about twice the amount I thought would be required to drive across country, but what are you going to do? Turns out the car was more neglected than loved of late. It's all good though as I think of this as something other than an investment. Almost a calling, if you will. At the end of the day this will again be one fine automobile. It's not always about the money. Hell, if I played golf I'd spend more on green's fees, clubs, balls, memberships and the 19th Hole. I don't. This is my thing.
Coincidently, as I am writing this, I received an email from Rafi saying the car is ready. The adventure begins 02/13/17.
Mike & Me 02/03/17
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