Manager Forum

Is it time to bring this back to make a point about vehicle issues with little or no information making it difficult to help.

Yes steve, it really grinds me when someone calls and says "My car is making a weird sound when I am driving. There must be something wrong. What could it be?" They assume that I know what they are driving. They hang the cell phone out the window and shout "Can you hear the noise?"

No vehicle make, model, not even a name for the caller. So, I ask who is calling, they reply "What the ^&%$#@ does it matter who it is? What's the noise?"

My car quit running...I put gas in it and it wont turn over

Ever since you changed oil in the engine, the muffler bearing makes a noise. oh yes, the tailpipe wiper quit as well. What did you do to it?

One of my favorites from the auto recycling days - "Do you have any blue parts?"

timbre4 wrote:One of my favorites from the auto recycling days - "Do you have any blue parts?"

What do the blue ones look like? I heard about the orange ones. They only fit certain vehicles.

If memory serves, 1971-1974 Mercury Capri (import)

timbre4 wrote:If memory serves, 1971-1974 Mercury Capri (import)

They were a car? Ford product?

Wow. I forgot about them. Were they the ones with the rotary engine? The Wankel as i recall.

Tim Martin wrote:

timbre4 wrote:If memory serves, 1971-1974 Mercury Capri (import)

They were a car? Ford product?

Wow. I forgot about them. Were they the ones with the rotary engine? The Wankel as i recall.

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No that was the Mazda RX. They took purple parts ....

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My second car in high school (after '67 Mustang C4 quit and my dad sold it) was a 1972 Mazda RX2 in ticket getter Red. That car would fly (proven over several Friday nights) but sucked gas pretty hard. Drove it until the internals finally swapped places.

lexus - running issue at WOT - passing.

Fuel pressure down, replaced fuel filter, full of junk. Remove sending unit and look, sock is plugged and tank is nasty. after calling the customer multiple time during the operation he admits that he knew the tank was full of crap. woulda been nice to know up front.

Charge accordingly would be my advise.......

No kidding, sometimes i feel like Kojak. A vehicle will be towed in with a no start and when i call for information it almost feels that some people lawyer up. I get one word answers and a few "i'm not sure".

When they come in with the car and i'm asking questions sometimes i get the deer in the headlight look. I'll tell them flat out that i get $98.50 and hour. My first hour of diagnostic remains at that price and if we feel that the issue isn't within the normal flow of diagnostics it goes up to 150.00 per hour.

One of my favorite stories involves an older ford sedan that the fuel tank is behind the back seat. It came in with an occasional fuel smell and erratic fuel gauge operation. I asked if anything had been done to the car before all this happened. The son had the "look" so i pushed it and the mom got a bit upset that i was directing my questions to the son. Well the long and short of it was after looking it over for a fuel leak we decided to remove the sender. We knocked the retainer to the left and when we tried to pull out the sender it fought us the whole way. Usually you lift it up, twist it 1/2 way around, pull it further and finish by twisting and taking it out. No way, this felt like there was someone in the tank trying to pull it back in. Finally i bulled it out and it was all distorted. I knew i had done some of that but i was shocked to the extent. I saw that one of the wires was sort of stripped and curled like it wrapped around something. Called the customer and said we need to drop the tank, got the ok and pulled straps and hoses. The tank felt like it was fighting us like the sender. On a whim we opened the trunk and there it was. Sonny boy had installed an amp and to save trunk room screwed it onto the nice flat piece of pressed cardboard covering the front of the trunk. There were stains on the fabric from gas and we knew we found the issue. He had screwed it onto the tank. Apparently all his dad had in the shed were 10" deck screws. Even i never have had any use for screws that long. Into the tank they went and two had grabbed the sender. Two birds with one stone. It cost her over a grand for a new tank and sender plus my diagnostic services and dealing with something outside the normal diagnostic guidelines. She was a bit pissed and i told her that as soon as the first screw was put in buy the installer dictated the price. I also told her that if her son had been forthcoming we may have been able to save the sender and a hundred dollars of diagnostic time.

Your account brings back some memories of similar events in our shop.

Car comes in with ABS light on. Often if I suspect someone been under the dash I ask has anybody been under the dash doin wiring or whatever. Answer is usually NO!. What's that to you? When they talk like that I know where this is headed.
Well, come to find out that the reason the ABS light or Airbag Light is on is because someone connected a stereo system and tapped into one of the wires. SO, now we really do have an issue. Wiring is messed up an owner wants the light out. Owner wants car fixed but not much of a bill cause he pleads ignorance.

Gets good every so often. I push car out till he says fix it. Then I learn some more. Car been at other shops before it came to mine.......