Lazy mechanics
Discussion
I own a diesel vauxhall corsa which packed in (wouldn't start or run). I took it to a local garage which I've used for years and believed to be competent (having used them without issue for years). They spent weeks working on it to no avail. They more or less gave up, handed the problem over to the local Vauxhall dealership, they did the same and finally announced they were 99% sure it was the fuel pump, they wanted several thousands to do this repair so I said no and so it's sat there for about eighteen months...
Until yesterday that is when my brother and I decided to (half arsely) investigate removing the pump and sending it for reconditioning ourselves. We removed the upper cambelt casing, and found the belt (which was nearly new) badly scoured and almost chewed through. Further investigation revealed a shattered belt tensioner lower down, obviously the belt had also gone loose and jumped a few teeth on the pump, causing it to go massively out of time.
Presumably a fair proportion of modern mechanics are too lazy or poorly trained to do a thorough job when diagnosing faults, as this would have been one of the first things to check on a non running engine. I know everyone makes mistakes but for two garages to draw a blank with such a straightforward problem is unbelievable to me.
Until yesterday that is when my brother and I decided to (half arsely) investigate removing the pump and sending it for reconditioning ourselves. We removed the upper cambelt casing, and found the belt (which was nearly new) badly scoured and almost chewed through. Further investigation revealed a shattered belt tensioner lower down, obviously the belt had also gone loose and jumped a few teeth on the pump, causing it to go massively out of time.
Presumably a fair proportion of modern mechanics are too lazy or poorly trained to do a thorough job when diagnosing faults, as this would have been one of the first things to check on a non running engine. I know everyone makes mistakes but for two garages to draw a blank with such a straightforward problem is unbelievable to me.
Many years ago I had an Astra as a company car - put it in for a main dealer service, when I got it back it was misfiring so badly its top speed was 35 mph. It was too late for them to fix it so I had to drive 40 miles home and back the next morning on the motorway. At 35. Not pleasant.
Left it with them all day. Went back after work, to be told "we couldn't find any fault but it's running fine now, we've done a test drive and everything". I didn't even reach the end of the forecourt before it was obvious that it was exactly the same... Back in to speak to the service manager, who took me through to their workshop and pointed to a diagnostic machine "See that, it cost us £30,000, plus the same again to train my guys to use it. If there's something wrong with your car, this will find it. It didn't, so there isn't.
When I got home I decided to have a look (it was a company car and I wasn't supposed to, but...) and withing 5 minutes, I discovered that number 1 spark plug had broken - the ceramic insulator had cracked so the sleeve slid down and covered the electrode gap when the plug was in the car. I put in a spare plug, and all was well.
Back to the garage the next morning, and showed this service manager the plug. I pointed to my head "See this, it cost me nothing, and it cost me the same again to learn how to use it - and I found that in less than 5 minutes, armed only with a rusty plug spanner that's older than I am."
"Erm... I don't know what to say..."
"Well if I was you, I'd be too embarrassed to say anything except 'We're really sorry for our incompetence, and for our patronising attitude, and we'd like to offer you a full refund of the service cost.' "
After a bit more discussion, we settled on half...
Left it with them all day. Went back after work, to be told "we couldn't find any fault but it's running fine now, we've done a test drive and everything". I didn't even reach the end of the forecourt before it was obvious that it was exactly the same... Back in to speak to the service manager, who took me through to their workshop and pointed to a diagnostic machine "See that, it cost us £30,000, plus the same again to train my guys to use it. If there's something wrong with your car, this will find it. It didn't, so there isn't.
When I got home I decided to have a look (it was a company car and I wasn't supposed to, but...) and withing 5 minutes, I discovered that number 1 spark plug had broken - the ceramic insulator had cracked so the sleeve slid down and covered the electrode gap when the plug was in the car. I put in a spare plug, and all was well.
Back to the garage the next morning, and showed this service manager the plug. I pointed to my head "See this, it cost me nothing, and it cost me the same again to learn how to use it - and I found that in less than 5 minutes, armed only with a rusty plug spanner that's older than I am."
"Erm... I don't know what to say..."
"Well if I was you, I'd be too embarrassed to say anything except 'We're really sorry for our incompetence, and for our patronising attitude, and we'd like to offer you a full refund of the service cost.' "
After a bit more discussion, we settled on half...
Most mechanics are simply 'fitters' now - if the computer says no, then tat's where they stop.
It seems diagnostics and repairing things doesn't count for much - they just charge the consumer a fortune for complete units/sections of cars - they don't even seem to bother with component parts anymore.
It seems diagnostics and repairing things doesn't count for much - they just charge the consumer a fortune for complete units/sections of cars - they don't even seem to bother with component parts anymore.
We had a bad experience with our local Vauxhall dealer. My misses took the car in and they tried to take advantage of her giving us a quote for over £1k.
I knew the repair was going to be a couple of hundred but this was too much.
She told me the workshop manager had been abrupt and condesending too.
I thought, well, I live with her, it was probably her fault for being a bit off with him. I'll give him a call, a bit of man bonding and it'll be fine. I was wrong. He was a nightmare, and the Astra was a wreck. Even the new tyres needed replaced. My alarm bells were ringing very loudly.
After returning home that evening I drove past the dealer. The salesmen were still working so I popped in, asked for the keys and removed the car.
Took the car to the mechanic I use for the MG and Lancia, he uses the dealer quite regularly so didnt want to get involved. He fixed the car and billed us for £250 incl tax. Then told us the garage had been speaking poop.
A week later we got our first phone call from Vauxhall "Would you like to have the work completed?" Then came more phone calls, "If you dont want to have the work completed can you please collect your car as its taking up space in at the garage."
Strange that, taking up space? Funny that as I'm driving the car.
So the misses and I gave the garage a visit. Asked for our keys so we could remove the car, I let the workshop spv look for our keys for a good five minutes. Then let it rip,giving him a good shouting at for his ridiculous quote and horrible manner.
We had planned to replace the Astra with another Astra, twintop, this never happened. We would never buy another nearly new Vauxhall as we could never use that garage again.
I seem to hear a lot of bad things about Vauxhall dealers.
I knew the repair was going to be a couple of hundred but this was too much.
She told me the workshop manager had been abrupt and condesending too.
I thought, well, I live with her, it was probably her fault for being a bit off with him. I'll give him a call, a bit of man bonding and it'll be fine. I was wrong. He was a nightmare, and the Astra was a wreck. Even the new tyres needed replaced. My alarm bells were ringing very loudly.
After returning home that evening I drove past the dealer. The salesmen were still working so I popped in, asked for the keys and removed the car.
Took the car to the mechanic I use for the MG and Lancia, he uses the dealer quite regularly so didnt want to get involved. He fixed the car and billed us for £250 incl tax. Then told us the garage had been speaking poop.
A week later we got our first phone call from Vauxhall "Would you like to have the work completed?" Then came more phone calls, "If you dont want to have the work completed can you please collect your car as its taking up space in at the garage."
Strange that, taking up space? Funny that as I'm driving the car.
So the misses and I gave the garage a visit. Asked for our keys so we could remove the car, I let the workshop spv look for our keys for a good five minutes. Then let it rip,giving him a good shouting at for his ridiculous quote and horrible manner.
We had planned to replace the Astra with another Astra, twintop, this never happened. We would never buy another nearly new Vauxhall as we could never use that garage again.
I seem to hear a lot of bad things about Vauxhall dealers.
For this with a mind to try and sort things out themselves, the internet and all of the myriad marque / model specific forums are a very useful tool when it comes to diagnosing problems.
My wife's Ford Focus kept cutting out on her and a bit of checking revealed it was likely to be one of two things - a sticky ignition barrel (a dose of WD40 - sorted) and a failed speed sensor in the gearbox (a s
tty job due to limited access, but DIYable).Parts were about 25 quid and time was half a day messing around getting the old one out.
Now, I *know* if I'd gone to my local Ford dealers I'm not sure they'd have known what the problem was and would have spent ages trying to find out, and inevitably I'd have been about 250 quid lighter in my pocket !
I know this approach isn't for everyone, but like someone earlier in the thread said, at least you know it's been done properly if you do it yourself.
tvrgit said:
Many years ago I had an Astra as a company car - put it in for a main dealer service, when I got it back it was misfiring so badly its top speed was 35 mph. It was too late for them to fix it so I had to drive 40 miles home and back the next morning on the motorway. At 35. Not pleasant.
Left it with them all day. Went back after work, to be told "we couldn't find any fault but it's running fine now, we've done a test drive and everything". I didn't even reach the end of the forecourt before it was obvious that it was exactly the same... Back in to speak to the service manager, who took me through to their workshop and pointed to a diagnostic machine "See that, it cost us £30,000, plus the same again to train my guys to use it. If there's something wrong with your car, this will find it. It didn't, so there isn't.
When I got home I decided to have a look (it was a company car and I wasn't supposed to, but...) and withing 5 minutes, I discovered that number 1 spark plug had broken - the ceramic insulator had cracked so the sleeve slid down and covered the electrode gap when the plug was in the car. I put in a spare plug, and all was well.
Back to the garage the next morning, and showed this service manager the plug. I pointed to my head "See this, it cost me nothing, and it cost me the same again to learn how to use it - and I found that in less than 5 minutes, armed only with a rusty plug spanner that's older than I am."
"Erm... I don't know what to say..."
"Well if I was you, I'd be too embarrassed to say anything except 'We're really sorry for our incompetence, and for our patronising attitude, and we'd like to offer you a full refund of the service cost.' "
After a bit more discussion, we settled on half...
Brilliant, but think how many people wouldnt or couldnt find the solution, there must be a ton of cars out there with mis-diagnosed faults. Left it with them all day. Went back after work, to be told "we couldn't find any fault but it's running fine now, we've done a test drive and everything". I didn't even reach the end of the forecourt before it was obvious that it was exactly the same... Back in to speak to the service manager, who took me through to their workshop and pointed to a diagnostic machine "See that, it cost us £30,000, plus the same again to train my guys to use it. If there's something wrong with your car, this will find it. It didn't, so there isn't.
When I got home I decided to have a look (it was a company car and I wasn't supposed to, but...) and withing 5 minutes, I discovered that number 1 spark plug had broken - the ceramic insulator had cracked so the sleeve slid down and covered the electrode gap when the plug was in the car. I put in a spare plug, and all was well.
Back to the garage the next morning, and showed this service manager the plug. I pointed to my head "See this, it cost me nothing, and it cost me the same again to learn how to use it - and I found that in less than 5 minutes, armed only with a rusty plug spanner that's older than I am."
"Erm... I don't know what to say..."
"Well if I was you, I'd be too embarrassed to say anything except 'We're really sorry for our incompetence, and for our patronising attitude, and we'd like to offer you a full refund of the service cost.' "
After a bit more discussion, we settled on half...
Had an early Laguna Mk II as a company car. I'd left my job and the car, and then returned a couple of months later. Fuel consumption of the car had increased dramatically, not explained by the temporary custodians lack of care.
Took 3 trips back to the dealer, until they found the dirty air filter. One of those trips was supposed to have been a service. No one ever explained why the filer had not been replaced then.
Took 3 trips back to the dealer, until they found the dirty air filter. One of those trips was supposed to have been a service. No one ever explained why the filer had not been replaced then.
With modern vehicles having so much computing power in them it is becoming harder to diagnose which requires diagnostic equipment to fault find but more & more i see mechanics that plug it in rather than do basic fault finding they seem to have forgot the basics (or never been taught) i recently had a fault with a 2.0tdi passat with a dsg gearbox, the tech in that car is unreal & the intermittent fault was very time consuming to find eventually being traced to the gold plate on one of the ecu connections wearing off 
total repair cost was @£500 including a service.
Vw just wanted to replace the ecu & wiring loom which would have cured the problem but at a cost that would have written the car off.
total repair cost was @£500 including a service.Vw just wanted to replace the ecu & wiring loom which would have cured the problem but at a cost that would have written the car off.
As was said earlier, most mechanics could now be called fitters. We live in a disposable era where
things are replaced rather than repaired.
Classics and older vehicles aside, when was the last time an alternator, for example, was repaired.
Garages are too obsessed with diagnostics to tell them what the problem is theart of fixing things is dying out.
Sign of the times with new technology.
things are replaced rather than repaired.
Classics and older vehicles aside, when was the last time an alternator, for example, was repaired.
Garages are too obsessed with diagnostics to tell them what the problem is theart of fixing things is dying out.
Sign of the times with new technology.
andym1603 said:
As was said earlier, most mechanics could now be called fitters. We live in a disposable era where
things are replaced rather than repaired.
Classics and older vehicles aside, when was the last time an alternator, for example, was repaired.
Garages are too obsessed with diagnostics to tell them what the problem is theart of fixing things is dying out.
Sign of the times with new technology.
Quite often high labour costs mean its cheaper to buy a new or recon alternator than pay to have it repaired.things are replaced rather than repaired.
Classics and older vehicles aside, when was the last time an alternator, for example, was repaired.
Garages are too obsessed with diagnostics to tell them what the problem is theart of fixing things is dying out.
Sign of the times with new technology.
Don't have any choice with the alternator on my 944, nobody makes them any more so it's rebuild time when they fail. Luckily all the bits are made by Bosch so should be fairly easy to source, I also have a place local to me who specialise in refurbing alternators and starters.
I've had pretty poor experience with garages in the past which led me to getting my hands dirty and teaching myself how to fix cars myself. A few years later and I've pretty much completely rebuilt my old Porsche and enjoying the fact that when it goes wrong I can just pop it back in the garage and sort it myself.
I've had pretty poor experience with garages in the past which led me to getting my hands dirty and teaching myself how to fix cars myself. A few years later and I've pretty much completely rebuilt my old Porsche and enjoying the fact that when it goes wrong I can just pop it back in the garage and sort it myself.
Another story - my brother bought a fairly old car a few months ago (I had better not mention the brand because they would make the dealer easy to identify). 2 weeks after he bought it, it started overheating, really badly.
He found a crack in a plastic housing in the cooling system, and changed it himself. Then the car wouldn't start - dead as a dodo, no sign of life whatsoever. He thought he'd screwe something up, but phoned up a company who tunes and races the same model, who said "trailer it in, we'll have a look".
They had it a week. They said that they couldn't get any diagnostic signal out of the ECU. They said they had dismantled the ecu to connect to it directly, but still no signal. You can't just change the ECU, it's part of the car's overll system, so there are a pile of other bits you have to replace as well - total repair cost was more than he paid for the car, 3 weeks before...
They suggested that another garage might have a different diagnostic set, and that might get a signal - so he had it trailered there. Total bill so far was over £500 including the two trailers.
The second guy phoned him 10 minutes after the car arrived - there's a double bulkhead, water runs off the screen and into a channel and drains through a hose under the car. What happens if the car has been parked under trees, is the channel fills with leaves and the water then overflows through grommets etc into the second bulkhead... where the ECU is. Your ECU is floating in about 2 gallons of filthy water, no wonder it doesn't work. Fortunately, it's blown the main fuse in the car, so that's why it's completely dead, but that's maybe saved the ECU.
He removed the ECU cover and dried it out in front of a radiator for a couple of days, replaced the fuse and the car was fine. His bill was an hiour and a half labour, £90.
How did the first garage, the specialist with a race team FFS, not find something as simple as that? They would have written that car off...
He found a crack in a plastic housing in the cooling system, and changed it himself. Then the car wouldn't start - dead as a dodo, no sign of life whatsoever. He thought he'd screwe something up, but phoned up a company who tunes and races the same model, who said "trailer it in, we'll have a look".
They had it a week. They said that they couldn't get any diagnostic signal out of the ECU. They said they had dismantled the ecu to connect to it directly, but still no signal. You can't just change the ECU, it's part of the car's overll system, so there are a pile of other bits you have to replace as well - total repair cost was more than he paid for the car, 3 weeks before...
They suggested that another garage might have a different diagnostic set, and that might get a signal - so he had it trailered there. Total bill so far was over £500 including the two trailers.
The second guy phoned him 10 minutes after the car arrived - there's a double bulkhead, water runs off the screen and into a channel and drains through a hose under the car. What happens if the car has been parked under trees, is the channel fills with leaves and the water then overflows through grommets etc into the second bulkhead... where the ECU is. Your ECU is floating in about 2 gallons of filthy water, no wonder it doesn't work. Fortunately, it's blown the main fuse in the car, so that's why it's completely dead, but that's maybe saved the ECU.
He removed the ECU cover and dried it out in front of a radiator for a couple of days, replaced the fuse and the car was fine. His bill was an hiour and a half labour, £90.
How did the first garage, the specialist with a race team FFS, not find something as simple as that? They would have written that car off...
I've been quite fortunate. Mazda were USELESS though. Car needed a part under warranty that wasn't in stock. Took umpteen phone calls and hassle to get them to order it and it still never got sorted. Really pants service.
A local indie once tried to charge me £600 for a replacement cat for my MK5 Golf though. Bought it myself for £110 and got it fitted for £40.
A local indie once tried to charge me £600 for a replacement cat for my MK5 Golf though. Bought it myself for £110 and got it fitted for £40.
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