This just got interesting. Pulled the valve cover and was at first disappointed that I didn't see anything obviously out of the ordinary. I then started to turn the engine over slowly with a ratchet and voila! One of the intake valve springs on cylinder 1 was broken. The valve doesn't appear to be bent, either. I moves smooth and easy.
However, cylinder 3 valves are just fine (as are all the others on that bank). So, why did the tech get a vacuum on cyl 1 and 3? I'm actually wondering how he didn't see the exact opposite and say there was a lack of compression on cylinder one since the one intake valve couldn't close all the way.
I'm starting to wonder if:
A) the tech miscommunicated what was going on
B) he read the gauge wrong in some way (not sure how) aka, bad diagnostic
C) he was an idiot/dishonest/lazy
I've always had really good experiences with this shop, so I'm going to give them a call on Monday and talk to the tech and try to get an even more in depth answer on what exactly he did and see if what I found sheds more light on the situation.
Good news is, it's possible I'll be able to bring this baby back to life with just a new spring! I really hope that's the case and the valve didn't get hammered to the point where it wont seal correctly.
p.s. PM me if you need some hand modeling work