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special breed that needs to stay away from the bonnet


shadow79

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there are some by birth automotive technicians and some learned ones here and there some average joes who will not mind to do some light work themself on their cars or others then there are some special people who should stay away from the bonnets or let someone else look at it.

As these machineries and cars run in a pretty complex sync. it is a dangerous occupation for those who don't understand it. just one wrong judgement can get you burned 'amputated or worse killed too if you are not paying close attention let alone damage to the car or property and putting others life in danger

one such light humored incident comes to my mind when a customer bought a car on wiench to my shop who after changing the battery couldn't start the car upon closer inspection i found that the insulation on top of the battery was not removed but the terminals were pushed on top of it

if the spareparts guy had made the mistake of giving him a reversed terminal battery and if the customer had somehow fixed that battery on the car then i guess i might had to do more then removing the insulation to start the car :-D

 

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There are many stories like that I can tell, example a woman in a new camry which wouldnt start, turns out gear was in D. 

A woman's Prado which she said was driving heavy and had a strange light on the dash, turns out the 4wd button was pressed.

A guy who brought his car in on a flatbed, turns out the coil wire from the distributor had come off, causing a crank but no start condition. So on and so forth.

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had a guy come in with complain of sound and soft paddle while breaking he actually had lost a pad  

he should have heard the sounds way earlier but when the paddle became soft he thought to go to a workshop

i changed the caliper as it had the piston out and bit eaten off the side

(had one come in with a piston broken in half don't remember which car but it was american fiber piston pretty creepy)

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Yeah some people. Buddy once told me a guy rolled up in some jap ecobox he had owned for 3-4 yrs for some crap ( can't remember) So he asked him before even opening the hood, when was the last time he changed the oil, guy just had a blank look on his face and said. You're supposed to change the oil? How do you do that!

Although I myself am guilty of wearing away the pads so much that the pad totally got worn away and it was just metal on metal. 

It was on my safari lane cruiser and I knew the pads knew changing but was procrastinating about it. Because you are pretty much working throughout tue week and the one odd day you do get off you don't want to spend working on the car. But then all of a sudden got suuuuper busy. I knew the pads were toast by then as I could hear a nasty grinding noise every time I braked. But for an entire week I didn't get anytime to sort it out. Day, night trip after tripe including some overnighters. Driving a manual. I used the help of down shifts to help me slow down.

Needless to say the discs were also toast when I eventually got to them.

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Guilty of driving on worn out pads myself. I had upgraded to bigger discs and calipers off a JDM model and it was a 2 week wait for pads. No overnight parts from Japan ala fast and furious in those days. I should have ordered them when they were getting low but I would rather spend the money on mods at the time. Eventually ended up running metal to metal. Only had to drive 4 miles to work every day so I figured it would be ok for a few days. Pads came in the end and I got lucky with just fitting the pads and skimming the discs. What I didn’t account for was the damage to my rims. Brand new set of 17” Radius R8s less than a month old ruined. All the hot metal fragments from the pads embedded into the lacquer on the rims. You know how a workbench looks after years of grinding sparks on it? That’s how my rims looked. And nothing that could be fixed without a full refurb. Lesson learned. Prevention is better than the cure.

Another faux pas I made. I had been looking forward to seeing a band for months (the misfits) and I knew they would probably never be back in Ireland again. Morning of the concert, my clutch was fubared from acting the lig the night before doing 4wd donuts on dry tarmac. Could barely get over 20 mph and no way I could have driven up a hill. Got lucky and found one in a local motor factor at 1PM and I had to leave for the concert at 5PM. My Chevette and Starion were in the garage in pieces with no way to move them and I had to do something fast so I put the car up on bricks at the front of the house and got to work. Ever remove a Subaru gearbox on your own without a lift? It was no fun. Anyway, it was getting close to 4:30 and I still had to wash and change my clothes. Just about managed to get finished at this stage, box back in, everything connected and exhaust back on. In my haste I grabbed the air gun and rattled the wheels on, went for a bath and put some clean clothes on. This big fat goth chick I knew from a few towns away wanted to go to the concert too so I went to pick her up. Car was driving fine. Then we set off for the concert venue. Going down the motorway everything was cushty then the steering wheel started shaking and I heard an awful banging noise so I pulled over onto the hard shoulder. One of the front wheels was hanging off. I had overtightened the wheel nuts with the air gun and stripped the threads. I don’t know how I managed to make it so far without a problem. Me being me, I had a complete set of spare hubs with nuts in the boot, but me also being me, I didn’t have the tools to fit one. So I ended up having to call a motorway recovery truck at a cost of £300 (1,500 dhs). To add insult to injury, I didn’t even have any cash on me as I was driving and I knew I wouldn’t be buying beer so I didn’t bring cash. Some random passer by who was kind enough to stop and ask if I needed help was also kind enough to offer to lend me his credit card to pay for the recovery. Yes I paid him back and some extra for his trouble, the world needs more people like that! I got the car recovered to the big fat goth chicks house and her dad lent me some tools to start fixing it. I never made it to the concert that night but on the plus side, the big fat goth chick let me stay in her room that night and “consoled” my sorrows. I became a regular visitor there for a few months. I guess every cloud has a silver lining. 

I haven’t broken anything for a long time and I’m also lucky most of the stuff I’ve broken has been my own.

I did make a bad mistake on a customers car once. This was way back in 2005-2006. The Mk5 Vauxhall Astra had just come out. Almost new car in for its first service. You know how the 2 post lifts have 4 extendable legs with rubber pads on the end? Well I didn’t screw one of the pads up enough. The car was already lifted to eye level by the time I had noticed but by this stage it was too late. The leg of the lift had touched the metal side sill of the car and pushed it in at least an inch. I put the car back down, fixed the pads and lifted it again and completed the service. The whole time I was crapping in my pants wondering how I was going to explain this to the customer and wondering if my salary was going to be gone for the next 2 months to pay for the damage I done. He came to pick the car up the next day. I sheepishly explained what happened, offered to pay for the damage and also offered the service for free. What happened next really surprised me, I guess he saw cars as like buying a washing machine or any other appliance. He was totally meh about it, wouldn’t accept the free service or even the offer to repair his side sill. The guy even tipped me £20 (100 dhs) and told me it will probably get dented in a car park anyway. Very very big lesson learnt that day. Not only to be careful with other people’s cars, but to be a good human because sometimes people heck things up in accident and shouting at them won’t undo the damage. 

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I wouldn't call getting "consoled" by a fat goth chick a silver lining. I Would call that it thats when the day got really bad Lol.

Probably her lucky day, but since you went back for seconds and lots of third I guess you're into that. Hey each to his own, no judgement here.

And I can understand the other customer as well its a vaxhall Astra. Slightly above a non working washing machine! :D

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17 hours ago, desertdude said:

I wouldn't call getting "consoled" by a fat goth chick a silver lining. I Would call that it thats when the day got really bad Lol.

Probably her lucky day, but since you went back for seconds and lots of third I guess you're into that. Hey each to his own, no judgement here.

And I can understand the other customer as well its a vaxhall Astra. Slightly above a non working washing machine! :D

😊

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