The car looked all spiffy in it new coat of dark red paint, but it sounded horrible. I contacted the guy and asked him if we should replace the exhaust, as it was way past salvageable.
"Yes, please, but just make sure that it is quiet as I hate a noisy car, and check the performance as old ladies in even older Beetles leave me standing from the robots"
So I found him a Bosal exhaust, complete with new pea shooters - that took care of the noisy exhaust.
Turnig my attention to the engine, I found the no 3 plug wire pulled off and the timing advanced to about 12 degrees.
No wonder that old ladies would beat him from the robots, as the three cylinder 1200 Beetle never was a rocket
Replaced the plug wire and reset the timing to 7,5 degrees with the dwell angle at about 48 degrees and changed the cars character completely.
There it was, a nice looking Beetle, that runs strong and sounds like an aircooled VW with the characteristic whistle from the pea shooters on the overrun.
The point I am trying to make is that the owner did not know what a healthy Beetle
is supposed to sound like, so he never noticed the missfire.
And the two previous "mechanics" (professional nogal) don't know their arses from their elbows. If you can service a Toyota, it does not mean that you know anything about our aircooled marvels. You need to be able to do fault finding without a diagnostic tool.
I've been wanting a professional to have a look at my car for a while now, trouble is I didn't know where to go and I think I've found just the guy! 
