In April of 2020, almost one year ago, I wrote a blog post article about an independent auto repair shop in Dickinson, North Dakota that I could no longer use anymore because of a truck repair estimate that they messed up.
I have owned this particular 1/2-ton 4×4 pickup truck for the past eleven years. In 2016, this pickup truck was stolen by a well-known truck thief in Dickinson who intended on keeping this truck, and while he had it he replaced the front axle half-shafts with used ones from a salvage vehicle. When he installed the passenger-side half-shaft, he damaged the axle-seal which caused it to leak gear oil from the center differential.
(Note: On 4×4 pickup trucks, the front axle universal joints, also known as CV-joints, constant velocity joints, these wear out every 50K miles or so. The bearings in the universal joints wear out, break apart, and fall out, which causes the front wheels to make a clank-clank-clank sound while driving at low speeds. You can look at and feel the universal joints to determine if the bearings are bad. Both front universal joints were very bad on my 1/2-ton pickup truck before it was stolen, the front wheel clanking noise was loud. Replacing the entire half-shaft assembly is less costly in time and labor than trying to replace just the worn-out universal joint.)
When I got this stolen truck back, I wanted to just get its front axle leak fixed at first, because I didn’t know if there was any other damage. If it turned out that in order to get at this front axle seal on the passenger side, its half-shaft had to be taken out, I wanted the half-shaft assembly to be replaced too because it looked old and worn-out, it came off a salvage vehicle.
The independent repair shop in Dickinson that I took this truck to for an estimate, they told me that in order to replace this passenger-side axle-seal, they would need to take apart the center-differential, so I might as well get both sides done. Since both axle half-shafts would have to come out, I said that I wanted both of these half-shafts replaced.
The independent repair shop worked up an estimate to replace the front axle-seals on both sides, for $900. Keep in mind that the axle-seals only cost about $10 each, the cost of this repair is mostly labor to disassemble and re-assemble everything, that is why I wanted the half-shafts replaced too, because they looked worn-out. I noticed in this estimate that the cost of the half-shafts was not included. The service writer said to me, “What, you wanted the half-shafts replaced too?” This would have added at least another $200 to this $900 estimate.
Here is why I was so angry:
- At a dealership service department in Dickinson, I had already been given an estimate in the past to replace both front universal joints and seals on this particular 1/2-ton pickup truck for a total of $750. I could have gotten this whole job completed at the dealer for $750, with new universal joints.
- For this repair, most of the cost is labor, taking everything apart. If I am going to have to pay over $500 in labor just to replace two $10 axle seals, and the axle half-shafts are now out of the vehicle and look old, now is the time to replace them, instead of spending $500 in labor all over again to take everything apart a year or two from now to replace the half-shafts or universal joints.
- This estimate got up to $900 to replace two $10 seals, and even though I said at least twice that I wanted the old, salvage-vehicle half-shafts replaced, they left this out of the estimate and weren’t going to do this.
The point of this long story, this week I got the passenger side front axle seal replaced on this 1/2-ton pickup truck for a total of $165. $165!!!
Since this long story happened a year ago, and because of my experiences with dealership service departments in Dickinson, North Dakota giving me high-price repair estimates for work that I didn’t ask for and didn’t want to have done, I began looking to buy vehicles and have vehicle repair work done far away from Dickinson.
At this time, I am not going to give out the name of this repair place that is inexpensive because I have a lot more work that I need to get done on other vehicles and I don’t want them to become flooded. I suggest that the readers try to begin looking and asking for repair estimates far away from Dickinson.
Dickinson58601 
people who don’t acknowledge who they are when they make posts, particularly critical posts of other people or practices, have no right to make said posts. That’s the rule
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June Fisher,
Your comment is very flippant, I don’t know if you thought about what you wrote. I hope you read my explanation.
Locally, from some of the complimentary and flattering articles that I wrote, the subjects of these articles knew who I was. People, especially women who didn’t like me, asked some of these people who I was, and it became known. Some of these women tried to cause me problems by posting my name and address on the internet, trying to instigate others to cause harm to me or my property.
A short time after this, a woman who lived in Arizona made a YouTube video about me, publishing my name, address, and photograph, going on and on about how people needed to be concerned for their children, people needed to warn my neighbors, warn the school, contact the authorities.
Most women are stupid. Women ran with this story, embellished it, began contacting everyone, the school, law enforcement. The problem is, I have never been accused or charged with any crime whatsoever. Law enforcement had to tell everyone who called them, that I hadn’t done anything.
The woman in Arizona who made the YouTube video about me, she didn’t say that I molested anyone, she just did everything to make it seem that is what she was saying, in an attempt to lead people to think this, so that someone would do something to me. In the comment section of this YouTube video, people were trying to instigate and enrage other people to do something to me. For instance, one commentor would write things like, “I saw him in a mini-van parked at the school looking at little girls.” And then comments would be made about killing me.
One afternoon, some woman was parked in the alley behind my house, looking, taking photos. The following day this same woman came after me with an axe when I was in my front yard. When I was speaking to law enforcement about this, they told me that this woman “had problems”. Not from law enforcement, because they were not permitted to tell me, the day prior to coming after me with an axe, this woman had been denied a shotgun and shells when trying to obtain them, she had been involuntarily committed before, and subsequent to this incident, she was involuntarily committed to a mental hospital again.
So when women try to publish my name, where I live, and instigate others to harm me by trying to lead them to believe that it would be justified, they would be thought of as a hero, probably not be turned-in or arrested, there are other women who jump on this band wagon, and men as stupid as women who try to start talking about how they’re going to be a hero and shoot me. Meanwhile, all I did was write blog post articles that people don’t like.
What many of these women and commentors don’t know, is that this video and all of these comments have been copied by myself and law enforcement. Many of these people don’t understand that they are in fact criminally and civilly liable for defamatory statements, threats, and acting as a bulletin board for these statements and threats. It is easier for these people to be arrested, prosecuted, and sued the longer this stays up and the more evidence of actual actions against me are documented by law enforcement, but that doesn’t mean that I like it.
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