A timely post for me. I am anticipating having the belt job done sometime in 2021, and since the Baltimore region dealership closed, I called the Faulkner one up in Mechanicsburg, PA about 2 weeks ago to get a quote for the job. Service manager took my car info down and would get back to me with the price. Two days later with no response, so I call again, get his voicemail, and leave a message. Two days later still nothing so I send him an e-mail. Tried calling the following week, but always get voicemail. Tried calling a few more times this week, still voicemail. Always amazing when you need to pursue people to potentially give them money.
Before everyone chimes in with "just use a private shop", I usually do that, but there aren't many options around here, and the car is under warranty for 4 more years, so not willing to try and teach a mechanic how to do this job, and hope he doesn't damage the body panels while taking the car apart. There is a very good local shop that deals in all kinds of high-end foreign cars (Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, vintage Alfa, etc), but he does not work on the 4C's at this time. I am hoping he decides to start working on them since the local Alfa shop closed (and was close to his shop).
I used to do almost all car repairs myself, but now that I have a family and a larger stable of automotive toys, I tend to only take on some of the projects, as I don't often have time to spend an entire weekend on a repair project, and when I do it tends to be my daily driver. Plus the last time I did a timing belt job was on my Alfa Milano many years ago, and my back never recovered from leaning over the engine for the duration of the project.
