Brought a prospective ST into the Ford dealer to get looked at, some minor fun ensued…

[XR650R]

Makes me sad I had to move out of the Bay Area and where I had one of the most trust worthy mechanics in all of the US. Not at all hyperbolic.

A good mechanic is worth their weight in gold. So few seem to exist around here. They have to make money.

They'd make more if they were honest and not so greedy. They'd have a slew of repeat customers.

 

[Intuit]

I’ve read from others that mods shouldn’t really be a concern for the most part with a few exceptions?

If you don't mind dealing with the problems associated with them, sure. Just depends on the person. Ordinarily when troubleshooting an issue your goal is to return things to a preestablished base parameter. But if someone has altered those parameters, you don't know exactly what all they did and you no longer have that base, what then? You might not have the knowledge to DIY a solution and finding a tuner can be a challenge for certain areas. Then there's finding the time to do these things. If you have another vehicle to fall back to and a workspace to operate, that's fine. But if you don't or simply unwilling to put up with downtime...

Then you have normal maintenance on top of that; not to mention that the additional stresses may shorten normal time frames for maintenance intervals. If you're running 230hp (+15%) more power, do you really want to wait until 150k on that timing belt? 7k on that oil change?

 

[XR650R]

7k on that oil change?

 

[SpeedandPower]

A good mechanic is worth their weight in gold. So few seem to exist around here. They have to make money.

They'd make more if they were honest and not so greedy. They'd have a slew of repeat customers.

Absolutely! My old mechanic is worth his weight in saffron! I brought used beater in once to him and he checked it out and only charged me $10 for more coolant. Telling me I shouldn’t buy it and he wouldn’t recommend working on it because so much was wrong that if addressed the initial issues, more were likely to pop up and I was just going to have more problems and spend more money fixing the car.

Called him twice when I wasn’t even the area to ask his advice. Such a good dude and I hope he gets all of the business he can handle.

 

[Intuit]

I tip the ones that are helpful.