Cheap Motor Owner Gets Pwned

[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.

[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.

[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...

[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.

[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]

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Sapphire Silk]

With that said, I've always found it interesting that some owners don't bother taking care of their vehicles...and then flip their shit when it throws a rod. Apparently, a $50 is more expensive than a $500 engine repair. Never understood that mentality, since a properly-maintained item will last for years.

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). It was a lemon (literally, it was a bad year for the model). It was such a piece of shit car, even with all the maintenance done it was always in the shop. I finally bought a new car after I got stuck in Pennsylvania for FOUR days when the alternator blew (there were no German car repair shops in the area, the part had to be shipped in).

I'm not big on washing my cars, but the routine shit gets done. I've never had a car break down on me since.

[Chromatix]

The problem is that they don't perceive the $500 expense as being in *their* future. Broken-down cars happen to *other* people - or else, they are things that "just happen", and they don't see the connection with being a maintenance cheapskate.

[mikoyan29]

With that said, I've always found it interesting that some owners don't bother taking care of their vehicles...and then flip their shit when it throws a rod. Apparently, a $50 is more expensive than a $500 engine repair. Never understood that mentality, since a properly-maintained item will last for years.

"We've thrown a rod."
"Is that bad?"
"Yup"

[protege]

But buying a whole new motor? That ain't cheap. It WOULD have been cheaper to go to a marina for your gas. (It didn't even have to be us.)

Even rebuilt engines aren't cheap. A decade ago, I spent roughly 2 grand getting the 1.8 in my MGB rebuilt. The block was in good shape, but worn, and the cylinder head was cracked. Totally standard, except the valve seats are hardened items...so it can run on unleaded. Since then, I baby the hell out of that car. I run it on premium and use the best oil I can get.

With that said, I've always found it interesting that some owners don't bother taking care of their vehicles...and then flip their shit when it throws a rod. Apparently, a $50 is more expensive than a $500 engine repair. Never understood that mentality, since a properly-maintained item will last for years.

[Cooper]

My Johnson 3.3 was held together with bolts. However, there were no lock washers or locking nuts. Once you loosen a bolt, you better tighten it every other trip or so or the lake would soon have.

Generally, Mercuries, Forces, Chryslers, and Jetskii motors are held together by bolts. Johnsons and Scott Attawaters generally are held together by a mixture of screws and bolts, while favoring screws. And I hate them for it. Screws are harder to "break" (meaning the initial loosening), then they often do the bad kind of breaking very easily, and then your only recourse is to drill them out; which is a long and loud process.


So your Johnson would have been loved by me (until it was in pieces) but it's a rarity, in my experience.

[earl colby pottinger]

Johnson bolts

There's several brands of motors, the most common being Mercury and Johnson. (I could go on a rant about how evil Johnsons are for not using bolts at all, only screws, but that's a rant for a different place). But they should all tell you that they're not running the right gas. And anyone at a marina can tell you what gas your motor needs with a few simple questions, if not by looking at the motor itself.

My Johnson 3.3 was held together with bolts. However, there were no lock washers or locking nuts. Once you loosen a bolt, you better tighten it every other trip or so or the lake would soon have.