Nightmare Weekend.

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craigsup

Original Poster:

282 posts

101 months

Monday 30th November 2015
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Was meant to have a nice weekend away with my OH in Birmingham's Christmas market on the Saturday and a gig on the Sunday. I had booked into a DIY garage to do a simple service on my BMW - change filters, oil change and change brake pads.

Bear in mind I'm a complete novice - never worked on a car before - so it's been a major learning curve.

I had all the things delivered in time for Thursday - so I headed to the garage and began working on the filters. After about 2.5 hours of struggling to get the Air Filter out, I finally managed. However I ran out of time to do any other stuff so I went back on Friday to 'finish off'.

Just my luck - the brake pads that had been sent to me via ECP were the wrong ones. So after 30 mins of searching through the mechanic's parts catalogue we had to take a trip to Halfords. They ordered the 'right' part for delivery on Saturday morning, 9:30am.

The garage owner is a great bloke who was understanding, and let me keep my car on his ramp overnight - so I went down to Halfords at 9:30 waiting for the pads. Phone call after phone call, they eventually arrived at 10:50am. Turns out Halfords gets them delivered from ECP...

Got a taxi back to the garage and tried to fit them. Wrong fking size again - the two caliper bolts didn't quite fit past the surrounding metal of the pad. A phone call to ECP and got told Halfords had ordered the wrong year...So ECP delivered the correct set within an hour.

Got the pads on, filled up the oil and off I went, back to my house where my OH was furious that I was 3 hours late setting off to Birmingham frown

About 20 mins into the journey and the car started violently vibrating from underneath our feet - first I thought it was the brake pads wearing in, but it was too bad for that. Pulled in and spoke to the mechanic - drove a bit further just to check the pads.

Eventually had to call the AA (which I'd joined 4 days ago - thank god). He found the panel on the underneath of the car had come loose, and was flapping around in the wind. He also said there was oil on the underneath of my car and the dipstick showed minimum...So he said he's going to recover the car.

So, back to the garage we went, but it was closed (5pm on a saturday). So had to get a train to Birmingham and now I'm going to have to check the damage after work today - my mechanic had a quick look and said there is no oil leak - so I had obviously not put as much in as I thought. Hopefully I can just re-attach the plastic panel and it's sorted.

To top it all off, when I got back from Birmingham last night, I dropped a plate full of food all over my carpet...stty weekend.

noell35

3,170 posts

147 months

Monday 30th November 2015
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conclusive proof that DIY stands for Don't Involve Yourself.

craigsup

Original Poster:

282 posts

101 months

Monday 30th November 2015
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noell35 said:
conclusive proof that DIY stands for Don't Involve Yourself.
Depends how you look at it - I've had a stty weekend, but I've also learnt a lot about the general maintenance of my car. Whether or not I use it in the future, at least I now know how long tasks should take and therefore cannot get scammed by garages.

Diablos-666

2,786 posts

177 months

Monday 30th November 2015
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Good effort for trying but next time maybe do this sort of stuff when you have a totally free weekend. That way it doesn't matter how long you take and you're not rushing.


hornetrider

63,161 posts

204 months

Monday 30th November 2015
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As above - best not to try things the first time when you have some place to be soon after, things can and do go wrong! However kudos to you for trying it and learning about the car - it will stand you in good stead for the future. You're now a little further along the learning curve.

liner33

10,642 posts

201 months

Monday 30th November 2015
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Next time , take a brake pad to the parts supplier , there is often a pic in their catalogue

craigsup

Original Poster:

282 posts

101 months

Monday 30th November 2015
quotequote all
Diablos-666 said:
Good effort for trying but next time maybe do this sort of stuff when you have a totally free weekend. That way it doesn't matter how long you take and you're not rushing.
Thank you - yeah I'm certainly going to do it when I've got more time. I now know the Germans like to put many obstacles in the way of things!

hornetrider said:
As above - best not to try things the first time when you have some place to be soon after, things can and do go wrong! However kudos to you for trying it and learning about the car - it will stand you in good stead for the future. You're now a little further along the learning curve.
Cheers smile

liner33 said:
Next time , take a brake pad to the parts supplier , there is often a pic in their catalogue
Yeah, I now know which ones I need (if I need to change this cars pads again, which I probably won't) but for future cars, I'll go to the counter and do that!

Aphex

2,160 posts

199 months

Monday 30th November 2015
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All this story was missing was the rain and the dark hehe

Sounds like lessons have been learnt so onwards and upwards from here thumbup


IanCress

4,409 posts

165 months

Monday 30th November 2015
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Two and a half hours to get to the air filter! It's usually 4 bolts and remove the top of the air filter housing. I'm guessing this is one where you had to remove the whole plastic engine cover and battle with metal clips etc.

Top tip, don't work on the car just before you're meant to be taking the wife out. It will only end in tears. The wife's, literal, tears.

craigsup

Original Poster:

282 posts

101 months

Monday 30th November 2015
quotequote all
Aphex said:
All this story was missing was the rain and the dark hehe

Sounds like lessons have been learnt so onwards and upwards from here thumbup
Oh it was pissing it down and dark (around 5pm) while I was pulled in on the A61. I got drenched while checking my wheels / callipers.

Doofus

25,732 posts

172 months

Monday 30th November 2015
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craigsup said:
but I've also learnt a lot about the general maintenance of my car.
With all due respect (and sympathy), I'm not sure that you have...



craigsup

Original Poster:

282 posts

101 months

Monday 30th November 2015
quotequote all
Doofus said:
With all due respect (and sympathy), I'm not sure that you have...
How so?

Faust66

2,028 posts

164 months

Monday 30th November 2015
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Fair play to you OP for having a go at working on your own car, but (as others have said) you never want to be working against the clock, especially if it's a learning curve for you.

Even after 20 odd years of weekend mechanics, I'm still surprised (and annoyed) at how simple jobs can escalate into a battle which takes up your entire weekend! (and if your missus is on the warpath and telling you to hurry up it'll give you even more stress).

I've used ECP for brake pads etc. in the past and, frankly, I don't think I'll bother again…

Couple of years back when I had a 2.9 Sierra XR4x4 and was giving it a service: ordered some brake pads, was given the wrong type, took them back and the bloke insisted that they were the correct ones. I tried to point out the front and rear calipers tend to have different sized pads, but he refused to believe me! I wanted front pads but he was adamant that the rears would happily go on the front!

The debate went on for some time - in the end I used Google on my phone to prove him wrong, and eventually got the correct pads…they've done similar with pads etc. for my missus's V70.

Mind you, ECP are good for batteries and similar if you use the ebay 'click and collect' service.

aka_kerrly

12,416 posts

209 months

Monday 30th November 2015
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A classic case of having all the right ideas to try an save a few quid, ordering the parts in advance, booking the ramp only to find he was screwed by having the wrong parts.

Sometimes it is possible to double check parts prior to removing the old one to avoid having to refit old parts to make a car mobile again. Others it's just not possible to verify the part is correct until it's too late - usually after you have broken the original trying to remove it !

OP: this kind of crap happens far too often, hence it is always worth cross referencing OEM part numbers and ensuring you know the build date of your car. ( REALOEM is a great BMW site for checking)

Then there is a better chance of you getting the correct parts in the future when for example parts are listed differently like >up to August 1998 with others listed as for all 1995>1998

blearyeyedboy

6,252 posts

178 months

Monday 30th November 2015
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craigsup said:
Thank you - yeah I'm certainly going to do it when I've got more time. I now know the Germans like to put many obstacles in the way of things!
Don't worry, most of us have been there. A friend and I took 2 hours in the pouring rain just to change the battery on a Mk1 Mégane once. Taking apart the plastic under the windscreen and loosening a bolt at the bottom of the back of the engine bay were absurd steps, but necessary. Bloody useless design (or useful if you're trying to make sure dealers make money from servicing, which I'm sure is coincidental...)

When I did the same job on a Corolla a few years later it was a 10 minute, 1 spanner job. Yay Japan.

wormus

14,509 posts

202 months

Monday 30th November 2015
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Cannot be bothered to do anything myself. Cars are serviced by garage(s), house is cleaned by a cleaner; decorating is done by the decorator, oven man cleans the oven and I've now found a gardener who starts this week.

Used to do all of the above myself but what I really value now is free time.

If you cannot stomach main dealer prices you can save a lot by going to an independent specialist.

Monkeylegend

26,226 posts

230 months

Monday 30th November 2015
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wormus said:
Cannot be bothered to do anything myself. Cars are serviced by garage(s), house is cleaned by a cleaner; decorating is done by the decorator, oven man cleans the oven and I've now found a gardener who starts this week.

Used to do all of the above myself but what I really value now is free time.

If you cannot stomach main dealer prices you can save a lot by going to an independent specialist.
Surprised you managed to type this wink

steve2

1,771 posts

217 months

Monday 30th November 2015
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Take along a competent friend who can supervise you as you go along

MTech535

613 posts

110 months

Monday 30th November 2015
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You mean you type your own posts?

You don't have someone for this kind of thing?

Council!

Oooops, wrong thread.😉

Sump

5,484 posts

166 months

Monday 30th November 2015
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Jesus, this guy wants to change pads yet he can't tighten an undertray nor fill up some oil.

I reckon OP is just winding us up.


craigsup said:
I had all the things delivered in time for Thursday - so I headed to the garage and began working on the filters. After about 2.5 hours of struggling to get the Air Filter out, I finally managed. However I ran out of time to do any other stuff so I went back on Friday to 'finish off'.


Edited by Sump on Monday 30th November 22:34