Our little Ford Fiesta is over twelve years old but has served us well over the past two and half years. The previous owner was the true “little old lady” who only drove it on weekends and the car had low kilometers and was mechanically sound. Since then I have only had to deal with replacing a few minor items and make sure I have her checked over regularly by my mechanic whom I was fortunate to be introduced to in Ascoli Piceno.
Soon after our arrival in Santa Maria di Castellabate I noticed a small oil leak and asked locally about un meccanico and was referred to an older gentleman working out of a garage under a housing complex, fortunately he is within walking distance. This week he was able to repair the oil leak for us and hopefully that is the last of that problem.
The lights on the dashboard also decided to quit working recently and for that I had to find un elettroauto, a shop that does automotive electrical repairs. Again I was fortunate to find one within walking distance who was able to quickly diagnosis and repair the problem in less than a day.
Both repairs combined came to only 50 euro! Try and find a mechanic in the US who would do that work for those rates.
Since I visited una gommista earlier this winter in Ascoli Piceno we won’t be in need of tires anytime soon. You see, in Italy you go to un meccanico for engine related issues, un elettroauto for electrical issues (including batteries and headlamps) and una gommista for tires. Full service facilities to do all of this work are not the norm.
2 comments:
Bryan,
Paul's driving a Honda Civic that I bought in 1990. Starting to show its age but Paul loves it. He's talking about buying it from me when he graduates. It's getting more difficult to find parts for it.
Martin
Martin, That Honda is almost as old as Paul. One thing here is that they are more inclined to repair things than replace parts as I was accustomed to in dealing with mechanics in the US.
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