S14-NEO: A Gentleman and a Scholar

I just wanted to put this out there:

Long story short:

Mark is a great guy to deal with. Friendly, knowledgable about the vehicle and honest in all his dealings with me.

Long story below:

S14-NEO (Mark) was a great help to me the past few weeks. I had the dreaded timing chain tensioner whine that I started noticing at the end of March. As soon as I self-diagnosed it and posted up here that I was having issues, he snapped right to.

Since I have reasonably high mileage, I decided to replace pretty much everything that I could under there as preventative maintenance (water pump, thermostat, coolant, all the tensioners and not just the shoes, all the chains, etc, etc.) I don't want to have to open it up again for a long, long time. I am well outside of my warranty, and the dealer wanted an exorbitant price for the work I wanted done.

Mark offered me assistance with getting the parts replaced and the work done at a reasonable price. He may be a relatively new member with almost no standing or history with CF, but I took a chance on him as he seemed to know what he was talking about. As a Nissan Tech down in Vero Beach, he has worked on more than his share of tensioner replacements, and helped me work a preliminary list of parts for me to follow up with. I worked with Brian @ Cherry Hill Nissan to finalize that list and order the parts from.

Unfortunately, the parts did not arrive in time for me to meet Mark at our pre-determined weekend. He was reasonable with me and we re-scheduled, knowing that trying to head down there later and rush a Sunday-only job was asking for trouble. It's a good thing too, since I was missing 3 gaskets in the original shipment, but Brian quickly made that right for me.

We re-set our plans for this past weekend for me to come and get the truck worked on. Long story short, Mark gave up an entire saturday to work on my truck while I lounged on the beach (I was just trying to stay out of his hair, I swear!). On top of this, he gave me a ride from his place to where I was staying for the weekend and back once the truck was done.

Saturday night when he picked me up, he went over everything with me that was done. Showed me the old parts and how badly they were chewed up, let me poke a flashlight around the engine bay to make sure everything was to my liking and then went for a test drive around the block with me. The truck purred like she was new, and I knew I had left it in good hands.

Thanks again for everything Mark. I cannot say enough good things about what you did for me. If anyone needs some side work done on your truck in the Central/South Florida area, shoot this guy a PM. You won't be disappointed.

Anyway, I'll post up some pix later of the tensioners and such. I just wanted this thread to be about Mark.

Thanks for looking!