I love to fix Volkswagens.

Walt Fortney • January 6, 2019

I’m not afraid to admit it, I love it. More than any human should probably. As I sit in the shop at 8pm on a Saturday evening, right as I finished cleaning up, I sit down and think to myself – “Self, why are you working until 8pm on a Saturday evening? Particularly when you aren’t even open on the weekend?”. The only answer is, I just truly love fixing Volkswagens.

You see, we woke up this morning and started making coffee at home. Today, we were going to stay home because we had spent so much time here these past few weeks getting set up. Truth be told, I can’t even remember why we stopped making coffee there and decided to drink coffee over here (keep in mind, we live 0.4 miles from the shop – we walk/bicycle over here, so it’s really just a home away from home). Regardless, we came over here, brewed a fresh pot, and just kinda breathed a bit and relaxed. We reviewed the (short) first week, what we liked and didn’t like about it, and planned different processes and such that we wanna implement. Then, at some point early in the afternoon as we were debating our plans for the day, something magical happened. A flatbed pulled into our parking lot with a Volkswagen on the back. Now, don’t take that the wrong way – we love fixing cars. All cars. That’s why we’re here, that’s what we do. But, I spent 17 professional years wrenching on nothing but those pesky German cars so I got particularly excited when I saw one coming to me. My first VW in my own shop. I hadn’t wrenched on a VW in almost 5 weeks at this point, so I definitely missed the familiarity and the crazy engineering that I’ve grown so fond of.

Karie continued talking about dinner, my mind was elsewhere. I couldn’t stop thinking about what it might be. What I might get to do. I was like a kid in a candy store, it was awesome. I waited maybe 2-3 minutes before I ran out the door to greet the driver and find out what was going on. Long story (and future blog post) short, 5 hours later, the car is 95% fixed (missing a couple parts that won’t be here until Monday) and I finally got to wrench on a VW again.

With that said – I better take my wife out to (a late) dinner before she discovers my secret love affair with a quirky German car brand and starts second guessing my sanity.

The post I love to fix Volkswagens. appeared first on Walt's Garage.

SHOUT OUT!

By Walt Fortney • March 21, 2019
It’s been awhile since our last blog post, and for that, I do apologize. Everything is happening so fast, we’re busy, and it’s just seemed non-stop. We try to make time for ourselves also, but that isn’t helping the poor little neglected blog here either. With that said, and with Karie’s prior plans of a […] The post SHOUT OUT! appeared first on Walt's Garage.

Did you know?

By Walt Fortney • February 15, 2019
We’ve been busy, as evidenced by the lack of entries on our blog, which we can’t thank you all enough for. But, it seems every day in conversation, we tell customers certain “features” we have or services we offer that we haven’t made public to all. This post is an attempt at describing some of […] The post Did you know? appeared first on Walt's Garage.

WOW.

By Walt Fortney • January 19, 2019
Just wow. There aren’t alot of words to describe it. We’ve been in business for a tick over two weeks now, and, well, wow. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a bad “wow”. Quite the opposite, it’s actually a very good “wow”. I’ve always thought this was the endgame, and I’m starting to think I […] The post WOW. appeared first on Walt's Garage.

Day 1 in the books…

By Walt Fortney • January 3, 2019
Well, we did it. We survived day one. I’m sure every technician, at some point in their career, dreams of opening their own shop. I can imagine it’s a small percentage that actually pursue it, and a way smaller percentage that actually succeeds. I also bet most (myself included) think they know everything they need […] The post Day 1 in the books… appeared first on Walt's Garage.

Engine swap? Manual transmission conversion? What do you do?

By Walt Fortney • December 29, 2018
You’re picky about your cars, we all are. We know what we like, and we know what we want. So, what do you do if the car you have isn’t exactly what you want? Or if the car you want isn’t even manufactured/imported into this country? Now, that’s a tiny bit misleading, but let me […] The post Engine swap? Manual transmission conversion? What do you do? appeared first on Walt's Garage.

Renovate, refit, and refresh

By Walt Fortney • December 29, 2018
We’ve been here exactly 16 days now. Sixteen days. It’s almost hard to believe, time is just flying by. The short and the skinny – I threw my back out hardcore with the move, to the point I had to be carried in the house at one point. Both the house and shop were not […] The post Renovate, refit, and refresh appeared first on Walt's Garage.

SNOW DAY!

By Walt Fortney • December 10, 2018
Of course, it was bound to happen. Three days before we hit the road to begin this new chapter in our lives, Mother Nature decided to take a 20″ dump on us. I guess we’ll take this as a final cold, and yet still beautiful, good-bye. I’m sure a few years from now we’ll look […] The post SNOW DAY! appeared first on Walt's Garage.

Turning dreams into reality

By Walt Fortney • November 23, 2018
Hello and thanks for visiting! I’m Walt, U.S. Army veteran, automotive enthusiast, VW/Audi master technician, and founder of Walt’s Garage (previously known as Bennett’s Automotive). Tony Bennett’s father started the business in the 70’s, and then Tony took over and kept a solid reputation in 1999. Tony is now retiring, and the transformation into Walt’s […] The post Turning dreams into reality appeared first on Walt's Garage.
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