He Was Willing To Repair His Sister-In-Law’s Car, Until A Reasonable Requirement Somehow Sparked Major Drama Across The Family

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Helping family with car trouble feels generous until the same favors start becoming an expectation instead of a kindness.

One skilled technician offers to repair his sister-in-law’s wipers, but when she ignores his conditions, would you still do the job or step away?

What begins as a simple repair request quickly turns into an argument over responsibility, boundaries, and who should actually solve the problem.

See why one broken wiper motor created far more friction than the car ever did.

My sister in law, let’s call her Jane.

Over the years, she’s “borrowed” money from me (on a family trip, I think I paid for a large group expense and she didn’t pay me back $400 for like months).

I gave her furniture for her apartment that my wife and I no longer were using.

I had to pick it back up again when she didn’t need it anymore and it was really inconvenient.

She’s about 25, about 6 years my junior.

I honestly like her but her behavior is really immature and selfish sometimes.

Sounds like it.

She was having issues with her VW ( it breaks down a lot and she gets ripped off by mechanics often).

I’ve changed the lights on it at least once (her now fiance doesn’t even ATTEMPT do do easy DIY jobs that most people could do).

Anyways, I am an electromechanical tech and a pretty good one, that stuff is pretty easy for me.

The part that got me is that she thinks because I can do it, it’s like my job or something.

She’s asked me to do her brakes for like $50 and a case of beer.

I said no politely (I hate doing brakes, that’s not my hobby lady!).

She seems to have no concept of value.

Clearly.

Anyways, I still have tried to help her a bit.

Her windshield wiper motor was on the Fritz.

I told her it’s not hard to replace, buy the part and bring it over and me and her can look at it.

This was summer I believe.

She waits until the dead of winter (and I now have a 3 month old baby).

The windshield wiper motor finally totally dies and she basically can’t drive it.

I tell her to come on a fairly warm day and I specifically said bring her fiancé and he can learn a thing or two.

Reason being is I don’t want to be doing stuff like this for them if they aren’t going to at least attempt it themselves.

Fair.

Day comes, she didn’t even tell her fiancé. I send him some texts along the lines of “are you too busy for this?”

He says he doesn’t appreciate that and that he has a secret Santa with his frat brothers that he’s planned forever.

He tells me that he doesn’t need me to do this and just that I could “be that friend” who helps them.

We kindve get into it over the phone as I tell him this is more his problem than mine.

He spins it saying he “trusts Jane can handle her problems and is not controlling like that.”

Oh brother.

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I tell him she’s not solving it…she’s bring it to me. He gets mad and says his friend who’s a mechanic can do it.

I still expect Jane to come but she doesn’t, her and fiancé get into a fight over this and have their friend do it (who fails and it’s still broken).

I wind up apologizing to just smooth things over and my wife doesn’t really take my side 100%.

She winds up having her step dad do it. I never even said don’t come over. AITA or am I dealing with a bunch of babies?

He wonders if he crossed a line by refusing to swoop in last-minute when they ignored his terms—or if it’s just not his job to play mechanic for people who can’t be bothered to help themselves.

This person asks them to teach her to do it herself.

This person flat out calls him out.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a single person who is dumbfounded when her friends insist couples count as one person when splitting a check.

But this person says NTA, and to stop doing everything for her.

The technician offered free help, but only if his sister-in-law and her fiancé showed up and participated instead of handing him the problem.

Neither followed through, another mechanic failed to fix it, and her stepfather eventually handled the repair instead.

One way to go about it would have been simply telling Jane to learn the repair herself, which several commenters also suggested.

The wipers did eventually get fixed, but the family relationship needed a much bigger replacement part.