engine swap taking ages

[freecar]

ejenner said:

doogz said:

ejenner said:

For example. What if you find one of the engine mounts is split after you have taken the engine out?

Order a new one. If it's not with you the next morning at the latest, find yourself a new supplier.

5 weeks is completely unnacceptable, i'm sure you're not trying to disagree, so what is your point?

I mean, really, getting the engine crane into position? Shifting the engine from one side of the workshop to the other? How long do you think these things take to do?

I already said 5 weeks is too long. I said 1 to 2 weeks is the realistic timescale.

Anyone who wants to bullst over how long it takes to 'actually' do things is more than welcome to go ahead but I've spent my whole career working in jobs doing things where the customer wants to know how long it will take. First in the IT industry and now in the motor industry. It is seriously unprofessional to quote 7 hours for an engine swap. Likewise, to keep a customer’s car for 5 weeks is well beyond reasonable if you've not even started the work as in this case. Maybe if you had a special customer who was going to watch you do the work and wanted his track car ready in time for an event tomorrow then you could say I'll do my best to get it sorted and just work on into the night until it was done. Under the right circumstances it is possible.

In the real world things are different.

Heres an example: Time it takes to take a wheel off and put it back on again in a workshop.

1. Get the car into the workshop from the carpark outside. Maybe have to move another car out of the way first. = 5 minutes

2. Get the right size socket, a breaker bar, remove the wheel cap and loosen the nuts = 5 minutes

3. Raise the car up either on the workshop lift or using a jack. Get the jack or drive the car onto the lift and raise it up. = 5 minutes

4. Switch the socket to an impact wrench (or something other than the breaker bar) and remove the wheel nuts = 2 minutes

5. Take the wheel off, put it back on, centre it on the hub and line up the bolt holes assuming not studs. Using your fingers put the bolts back into the holes finger tight and then tighten up using the impact wrench = 2 minutes.

6. Get the car off the jack or workshop lift = 2 minutes

7. Switch the socket back to the breaker bar and tighten the wheel lugs = 1 minute

8. Drive the car back out of the workshop = 1 minute.

Total = 23 minutes. Even if you divide that in half because you think I'm exaggerating it is still 11 or 12 minutes.

Rally stage mechanics can change engines and gearboxes in very short periods of time because there won’t be any surprises and they have systems which allow several guys to work on a car at the same time with all the right tools and equipment. In a typical commercial workshop you don’t have someone standing there waiting to hand you a 17mm spanner so you have to go to the tool cabinet and get it yourself. = 30 to 60 seconds.

It all adds up and time dissappears very quickly when you're not watching.

Which garage do you work at?

I know we're not allowed to name and shame but I'd like to know the garage that takes 23 minutes to remove and replace a wheel!!

If you're at work go and do the wheel thing with a colleague timing you and then come back and tell us what a spaztard you must have been to estimate such an incredible amount of time!

[mgmrw2003]

freecar said:

Which garage do you work at?

I know we're not allowed to name and shame but I'd like to know the garage that takes 23 minutes to remove and replace a wheel!!

If you're at work go and do the wheel thing with a colleague timing you and then come back and tell us what a spaztard you must have been to estimate such an incredible amount of time!

Must admit, even if I was to do this job on the street, and include time to get changed into works ovvies, open up garage, move 2x classics and find all tools... I could do inside 23mins. And I am a bloody computer jockey with a business degree (by all reports, we cant do manual labour) not a qualified mechanic

[juansolo]

ejenner said:

7. Switch the socket back to the breaker bar and tighten the wheel lugs = 1 minute

I hope you mean a torque wrench there rather than a breaker bar!

[ejenner]

juansolo said:

I hope you mean a torque wrench there rather than a breaker bar!

The point is the time it takes. You don't normally use the same tool to spin the nut in and do the final tightening unless you're at KwikFit.

mgmrw2003 said:

Must admit, even if I was to do this job on the street, and include time to get changed into works ovvies, open up garage, move 2x classics and find all tools... I could do inside 23mins. And I am a bloody computer jockey with a business degree (by all reports, we cant do manual labour) not a qualified mechanic

This is the sort of realistic opinion I'm talking about. The things you've mentioned are all the factors you would have to take into consideration if you were to do the job. Yeah perhaps if you ran down the stairs, didn't bother to move the classics, had someone to hand you the tools and did all the work in your business suit then maybe you could do it in 30 seconds.

[mgmrw2003]

juansolo said:

ejenner said:

7. Switch the socket back to the breaker bar and tighten the wheel lugs = 1 minute

I hope you mean a torque wrench there rather than a breaker bar!

No. I know of a few places where torque wrenches gather dust when in wheel change mode. A breaker bar of 3-4ft long and "fk it that'll do" seems norm

[ejenner]

Probably the same places where some of my customers have been for tyres. I had some wheel lugs the other day which were mental tight! Well over spec, a real effort to remove, should never be the case. Would have hated to have had a flat tyre on that car.

[ejenner]

Other thing to point out is that in a professional tyre fitting workshop all the torque wrenches will be knackered and well out of spec as they're used 50 times a day.

[mgmrw2003]

Windy gun heaven around here too.

I presume by the amount of time you're on here, business is slow this week?

[pinchmeimdreamin]

mgmrw2003 said:

Windy gun heaven around here too.

I presume by the amount of time you're on here, business is slow this week?

No he's just waiting for his mate who's fetching the engine hoist.

[Huntsman]

Nevermind all this tittle tattle, has he got the car back?

[ejenner]

Indeed! Changing a wheel bearing on a stty VW Polo. It's taking ages.

[john12091986]

I would go down during the week but i cant get time off work at short notice most of my colleagues in my department are on holiday at the moment so leaves me with stacks of work. I have rang him about 15 minutes a go to confirm that i will be collecting the car saturday. I also asked him to email me any documents i have to sign so i can have them read through properly but he refused which caused abit af an argument. told him i dont trust him time its taken etc etc he then mentioned he is not one of them heathrow people. He also said only reason it took so long was becuse of renault not supplying and taking too long give him a fuel filter housing or filter as they are 3 types. he then told me he has replaced the clutch a brand new one at 200 and somthing quid also flywheel (recon)as mine was knackered. said its cost him around 900 quid and he is not making much profit. he also said during the argument to bring anybody i like to check over the car and somone who can decifer the stuff i have to sign.

[Bonefish Blues]

john12091986 said:

I would go down during the week but i cant get time off work at short notice most of my colleagues in my department are on holiday at the moment so leaves me with stacks of work. I have rang him about 15 minutes a go to confirm that i will be collecting the car saturday. I also asked him to email me any documents i have to sign so i can have them read through properly but he refused which caused abit af an argument. told him i dont trust him time its taken etc etc he then mentioned he is not one of them heathrow people. He also said only reason it took so long was becuse of renault not supplying and taking too long give him a fuel filter housing or filter as they are 3 types. he then told me he has replaced the clutch a brand new one at 200 and somthing quid also flywheel (recon)as mine was knackered. said its cost him around 900 quid and he is not making much profit. he also said during the argument to bring anybody i like to check over the car and somone who can decifer the stuff i have to sign.

Hi Omer

[ejenner]

doogz said:

Odd, my mate owns a tyre fitting place. They have theirs calibrated on a fairly regular basis to counter this problem.

Really don't like the sound of this place you work in.

Everyone’s got a mate in a tyre fitting place haven't they! My scalps itchy, wanna come over?

Your 'one' mate in this 'one' tyre fitting place has something done on a 'fairly regular basis' so by association everything in my garage where I work must be skit? Is that really what you're trying to say? Really?

[MigX]

john12091986 said:

he then told me he has replaced the clutch a brand new one at 200 and somthing quid also flywheel (recon)as mine was knackered. said its cost him around 900 quid and he is not making much profit.

how nice of him to do something for free considering you didn't asked him to change the clutch.

[robm3]

MigX said:

john12091986 said:

he then told me he has replaced the clutch a brand new one at 200 and somthing quid also flywheel (recon)as mine was knackered. said its cost him around 900 quid and he is not making much profit.

how nice of him to do something for free considering you didn't asked him to change the clutch.

But who is thinking the other Espace in the workshop needed a replacement clutch and flywheel???

[wolf1]

The part availability line is usually used by garages that are on stop by their suppliers for lack of payment.

[anonymous-user]

john12091986 said:

I would go down during the week but i cant get time off work at short notice most of my colleagues in my department are on holiday at the moment so leaves me with stacks of work. I have rang him about 15 minutes a go to confirm that i will be collecting the car saturday. I also asked him to email me any documents i have to sign so i can have them read through properly but he refused which caused abit af an argument. told him i dont trust him time its taken etc etc he then mentioned he is not one of them heathrow people. He also said only reason it took so long was becuse of renault not supplying and taking too long give him a fuel filter housing or filter as they are 3 types. he then told me he has replaced the clutch a brand new one at 200 and somthing quid also flywheel (recon)as mine was knackered. said its cost him around 900 quid and he is not making much profit. he also said during the argument to bring anybody i like to check over the car and somone who can decifer the stuff i have to sign.

Did he explain why he didn't turn up at the weekend to give the car back or did he just ignore that pretty major point?

It worries me that he says he's doing stuff for free but is clearly losing money on it. It's not like you'd recommend him to anyone now!

[pinchmeimdreamin]

john12091986 said:

I would go down during the week but i cant get time off work at short notice most of my colleagues in my department are on holiday at the moment so leaves me with stacks of work. I have rang him about 15 minutes a go to confirm that i will be collecting the car saturday. I also asked him to email me any documents i have to sign so i can have them read through properly but he refused which caused abit af an argument. told him i dont trust him time its taken etc etc he then mentioned he is not one of them heathrow people. He also said only reason it took so long was becuse of renault not supplying and taking too long give him a fuel filter housing or filter as they are 3 types. he then told me he has replaced the clutch a brand new one at 200 and somthing quid also flywheel (recon)as mine was knackered. said its cost him around 900 quid and he is not making much profit. he also said during the argument to bring anybody i like to check over the car and somone who can decifer the stuff i have to sign.

he should have gone on ebay
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Renault-Grand-Espace-2-2-dCi...

[ChiChoAndy]

Get the car back ASAP. Stop stalling, and get it. The longer you leave it, the more chance you'll lose out.