I guess my assumption was that while they would "eventually" have discovered the line swapping error it would have taken many more minutes of cranking before they finally gave up and decided to check their work. I mean, of course they would have to eventually fix it since the car was running before they did their work and we all knew that it would have to run again. But cars tell you something when they don't react as expected to changes. I knew, based upon my 25+ years of DIY that if the lines don't fill after 2 minutes of pumping something is WRONG. Don't keep pumping. These "pros" didn't agree. These guys were about to just keep cranking and cranking. Maybe they would have realized the error before doing serious damage to my starter or maybe not. Still, I doubt they would have owned up to it had the starter mysteriously died a day or two after the service had I not been there to witness it.

I guess I am agreeing with them that the biggest mistake was being there, but a close second was not doing the work myself. It's not the money. I can afford to have anyone work on my cars, even the dealerships, but I know from my experiences that rarely do you find a mechanic who does everything the way you would do it yourself - the way THEY might do it if it were their own car and not yours.

And, to the owner's credit he did take 10% off the bill at the end recognizing my "contribution" to solving the problem. I just found it unprofessional to behave as though it was unthinkable that this error would have occurred if I were not there - the only reason they made a mistake was because of ME.