Cheap Motor Owner Gets Pwned

[protege]

I don't get that mentality either. I used to drive a VW Rabbit, 1980 (it was my dad's car, I "inherited it" when my first car went to car heaven).

Even better, are the ones that refuse to take their car to the dealer (or even a specialist) because it's "too expensive." Instead, they'll take their expensive ride to Joe Blow up the street because it costs less. There's usually a reason why it costs less, usually because the mechanic in question might be able to fix a Chevy...but not a Volvo. So naturally, the car breaks down *again,* requiring more money thrown at it.

Yes, I'm speaking from personal experience here, and no, my mother was *not* amused when the "fixed" car broke down yet again.

[Luna Baby]

Even better, are the ones that refuse to take their car to the dealer (or even a specialist) because it's "too expensive." Instead, they'll take their expensive ride to Joe Blow up the street because it costs less. There's usually a reason why it costs less, .........

I am a prime example. I hate to admit it, but it's true. Bought a loaded '08 Altima at a heck of a deal. Hubby had checked out the car prior to the purchase so we knew we were getting a good deal. It happened that we were friends with the dealership manager so that helped seal the deal.

Two years into owning the car, I started hearing a noise. Called the dealership, wanted $XX just to look at it. I politely declined and then took it to a repair shop that I was referred to by someone else I trusted. He diagnosed one thing. It wasn't. It was the transmission. In the meantime (prior to discovering the tranny problem) I had a SES light come on and that was for the catalytic convertors. Repair shop did the repair, charged me $500+ and sent me on my way. I then had the transmission replaced at the dealership and because of how the "Brand Name Corp" handled my issue with the tranny, they did cut me a break on the entire bill.

The SES light would still come on intermittently so I decided I had had enough, took it to the dealership shop and paid the money to have it checked out. Turns out, repair shop only replaced 1 of the 2 cat convertors. I paid for 2! I called him and asked about warranty, played dumb, etc. Long story short, I finally got my 2nd cat convertor and will never take my car back to them. Dealership only.

I learned my lesson the hard way.

[Aethian]

See Luna this is why I'm glad I have my mechanic, he's one if the honest ones.

His guys get to go to paid training, he gives them a small bonus if they specialize in one kind or another of a car, and he treats them well. So I would trust his guys and him over the half dozen dealerships around here.

[mhkohne]

It's hard for the average person to easily tell if a given mechanic is useful or not. I generally work with the dealer, but even there I'm not sure sometimes. When my car was newer to me I went in for something else and a tire pressure light was also on. They couldn't figure it out. The computer reported a tire low, but none of the tires were low, and they couldn't figure out which tire had the sensor that was reporting low.

I went home and started digging around online, only to eventually realize that the SPARE also had a sensor, which they apparently were unaware of. It was fine after I pumped the spare up to proper pressure.

So even a 'good' mechanic can have 'off' days, making it really difficult to differentiate.

[Chromatix]

Part of the fault for that last one has to lie with the manufacturer - the computer must have access to the individual pressures in order to report any of them, so why not do the obvious thing and report *which* one is low, and also indicate any others that are *near* the low-pressure threshold?

I see a lot of these short-sighted UI decisions, unfortunately.

[mhkohne]

Part of the fault for that last one has to lie with the manufacturer - the computer must have access to the individual pressures in order to report any of them, so why not do the obvious thing and report *which* one is low, and also indicate any others that are *near* the low-pressure threshold?

I see a lot of these short-sighted UI decisions, unfortunately.

Well, the UI from the driver's point of view is a single lamp saying 'pressure low'. If you want to deal with it yourself, you just have to guess which tire.

I think that the computer in the car doesn't actually know which sensor is on which wheel, it just has a list of 5 sensor ids that it cares about. I think it DID tell them the id of the triggered sensor, but for some reason they took their stupid pills that morning and didn't realize that the spare also had a sensor (there's a tool that lets them poll the sensor on a given tire by gettng near it. But of course, none of the 4 real tires were low, and none of their ids matched the triggering sensor!)

If the car would at least differentiate between the 4 real tires and the spare, that would be VERY helpful.

[Gizmo]

Dealers aren't all they are cracked up to be sometimes....

Had a dealer wreck my car once. Took it in because of a repair needed which meant they had to remove and drain the sump gasket. Covered under warranty so all well and good right?

Until I'd driven it (with hubby as I was only a learner at the time) and it started juddering on the backroad down to his parents and steering got heavy. I Manhandle it to the side of the road.

Breakdown services come out and tell me its because the sump is empty because the screw was loose and all the oil has come out.

Get it back to the dealer. They "fix" it but it has little guts and we give it to them to properly fix. they admit the engine has been damaged and order loads and loads of parts... which they just chuck in the trunk of the car loose.

A few days later they go bust... and all the cars are moved to a dealer 30 miles away. Yep, wrecking the parts that they didn't realise were in the trunk....

Short story: Lost £4k on that car because they could never quite fix the damage and the new dealership couldn't do it for free so I still had to pay their labour fees...

[ADeMartino]

Reminds me of the neighbor we had who blew up his riding lawnmower's engine because instead of putting oil in the crankcase, he put in 2-cycle engine oil, on the basis that "it was cheaper and oil is oil, right?"

I had a customer years ago who insisted that automatic transmission fluid was suitable for a brake system. He was buying a brand-new master cylinder for his car and came to the register with both it and two quarts of Type F automatic transmission fluid. When I pointed out to him that ATF was NOT a proper substitute, he insisted that 'it's hydraulic fluid, right?'. Well, yes, technically, but that does not change the fact that it's not the stuff you put in a brake system. Well, the ATF was on sale, and the brake fluid was not, so the matter was 'settled' in his mind.

Until those brakes utterly failed on him and resulted in a pretty bad accident - FOR which he tried to blame US. Nope, nope, nope, sorry chump. I WARNED you that it wasn't the right stuff. YOU ignored me, and that means the whole thing is YOUR fault. There are people in the world who should be legally banned from handling any sort of tools - ON PAIN OF DEATH. And oddly, they all seemed to shop at MY store.

[bbbr]

blood is a hydraulic fluid, don't really recommend it as a brake fluid replacement either. Although I'm starting to think a blood sacrifice may be required to get the hydraulic disc brakes on my fiancees mtn bike to work correctly.

[protege]

Although I'm starting to think a blood sacrifice may be required to get the hydraulic disc brakes on my fiancees mtn bike to work correctly.

Nah, you need to sacrifice a live chicken, turn around 3 times....

[pzychobitch]

Part of the fault for that last one has to lie with the manufacturer - the computer must have access to the individual pressures in order to report any of them, so why not do the obvious thing and report *which* one is low, and also indicate any others that are *near* the low-pressure threshold?

I see a lot of these short-sighted UI decisions, unfortunately.

If I remember correctly some manufacturers have certain models designed with this technology. Not only to tell you when a tire's pressure is low, but *which* tire is the culprit. I'm pretty sure Audi has a few models like this.

Honda (to my knowledge) just has the basic "your shit's low, tough luck finding out which one bro!"

[sms001]

Well, the UI from the driver's point of view is a single lamp saying 'pressure low'.
If the car would at least differentiate between the 4 real tires and the spare, that would be VERY helpful.

lol. I thought the same thing myself, Chromatix. Extra frustrating in my case as it's a 4x truck, so there's already a visual of the four tires on the dashboard. Wouldn't have been that much more work/money.

idk, mhkohne. I can SEE the four on the ground. I might not be able to tell if one is a pound or two low, but once it gets in the sensor's range (3lbs?) I might be able to. I would LOVE knowing that the one I never look at is nice and full and holding pressure though; nuthin' worse than going to change to the spare and discovering that it's flat too.

[wolfie]

Dealers aren't all they are cracked up to be sometimes....

Can vouch for that - many years ago (it was replaced by a '78 Horizon, which was replaced by a '94 Axxess, which was replaced by a '09 Patriot that outlived her) my mother owned a Fiat 128. She took it to the dealer to get the snow tires installed (this was back in the days when it was normal to only put snows on the driving wheels). When she came to pick up her car, its stance looked odd - the dealer had put the snow tires on the rear wheels (128 was a front-drive that superficially resembled a 124, which was rear drive). Cue the service advisor rounding up a mechanic to re-do the job RIGHT NOW.

I had a customer years ago who insisted that automatic transmission fluid was suitable for a brake system. He was buying a brand-new master cylinder for his car and came to the register with both it and two quarts of Type F automatic transmission fluid.

Until those brakes utterly failed on him and resulted in a pretty bad accident - FOR which he tried to blame US.

Any way of getting a policy that incompatible items will NOT be sold on the same bill? In other words, he would have had to make 2 transactions - ring up the master cylinder, then ring up the ATF separately? Alternately, before giving the customer the receipt, write on it "Customer has been advised that ATF is NOT a suitable replacement for brake fluid". You can be sure that the customer (or their lawyer) would try to use the receipt as evidence "you guys gave faulty advice, saying that he could use the ATF as brake fluid" - and it would look awfully bad to have the receipt showing brake parts and ATF. The handwritten notation would be a simple CYA.

If I remember correctly some manufacturers have certain models designed with this technology. Not only to tell you when a tire's pressure is low, but *which* tire is the culprit. I'm pretty sure Audi has a few models like this.

The trouble with this is that the way it knows which tire is the culprit is that it's been programmed to associate a sensor ID with a wheel position. If it's not reprogrammed when you rotate the tires (i.e. flat-rate mechanic saves a couple minutes on the job) it will report that the WRONG tire has is low. I've read about a case where it reported that the front tire was low, but the pressure checked out on a gauge. Mechanic figured the sensor had gone bad, so he replaced it ($$$ for parts, plus labour to dismount/remount tire). The last step in the job was to reprogram the system (since there was now a new sensor in place that the previous programming wouldn't know about), at which point it started reporting that the rear tire was low (i.e. thanks to the reprogramming, the system now associated the sensor reporting low with the wheel position it was actually on) - and a gauge check confirmed this. Wasted money due to a lazy guy doing the tire rotation.

[mhkohne]

The trouble with this is that the way it knows which tire is the culprit is that it's been programmed to associate a sensor ID with a wheel position. If it's not reprogrammed when you rotate the tires (i.e. flat-rate mechanic saves a couple minutes on the job) it will report that the WRONG tire has is low. I've read about a case where it reported that the front tire was low, but the pressure checked out on a gauge. Mechanic figured the sensor had gone bad, so he replaced it ($$$ for parts, plus labour to dismount/remount tire). The last step in the job was to reprogram the system (since there was now a new sensor in place that the previous programming wouldn't know about), at which point it started reporting that the rear tire was low (i.e. thanks to the reprogramming, the system now associated the sensor reporting low with the wheel position it was actually on) - and a gauge check confirmed this. Wasted money due to a lazy guy doing the tire rotation.

Well, Mechanic should have checked all tires manually before he started swapping sensors, too. He knows how it works and he knows not everyone is smart.

[CorneliaMarieRocks]

hey OP, you do know what BOAT stands for right?

highlight for answer: Break Out Another Thousand

tell that one to your next customer to bitch about needing maintenance, sit back & laugh when their head BSOD trying to figure out what the hell you're talking about