It never ceases to amaze me...

Yup, good thing it was a cheapo that I grabbed at autozone on the to the track.

Yeah, I didn't bother to ask how exactly they did an oil analysis in 2 days flat....I didn't have to...I had the order still that said they did the maintenance anyway.

Yeah that.

Forget politics, the lack of pride in doing something right is America's biggest challenge.

I am no longer welcome at my local tire mart because I bring my own specs when I want something done and they don't like it. I wanted my 5- wheels rotated and made a chart including torque ratings. Then I watched. I wanted hand tools used and got into an argument right away when the air impact wrench came out.The shop didn't have a hand crank tool and the tech grumbled as he spun each lug by hand. The tech took my direction sheet and put it on the windshield and proceeded to move the wheels to the wrong locations. I had marked the tires so knew what was going on. Oh, he brought out the torque wrench and then proceeded to tighten each lug in a circle instead of an alternate pattern. I didn't say anything, but at the end when they told me it would cost double next time, I told them there would be no next time. And the only reason I was there in the first place is because I had a sore back and didn't want to lift my heavy truck wheels. If a tech doesn't know the basics or the shop just doesn't care, ditch-um.

My bike takes 8.8Kg/M in the rear axle nut, thats pretty much a lot, right?

Well, I took it to the "official Honda service" and while doing the walkaround on the bike before they deliver it back I found that the rear brake pads were almost out of spec so I got closer to inspect them and check if they would last until the next service, only to find out that my swing arm had a dent where the axle nut goes. I asked for a torque wrench to check that nut's torque and they gave me the look. Happens that they "didn't have one at the time because it was being calibrated" (big fat liers) and they were "torqueing" nuts "by eye" I asked for the swingarm to be replaced and they refused. When I got home I took my torque wrench and it kep clicking at 13 Kg/M that's where I stop took my impact gun, maxed it out and took the damn nut out. Next day I called Honda and complained about this service and my bent swingarm, they send me a new one and told me to go to another shop to change it. The service where I took the bike doesn't have the Honda logo since a month after my complain... An my bike was never serviced in a Honda shop again, after all I'm a mechanic...

It's pretty simple actually. You can teach someone the proper way to do something or a few tricks to help them save time on a repair or service and therefore increase thier billable shop time but as I have learned you can never ever ever teach someone to care or take pride in their work. It's sad really.

From the other side of the story...

working part-time in an independent shop, it gets to be a real head-shaker at times seeing some of the things people do to their own machines. Then they bring the machine in and give the usual "I don't know what's wrong, it just started doing that." or something similar. Then we dive in to discover that we're not getting the entire story. Give me a pair of pliers and call me Doctor, it's like pulling teeth trying to get the "real" story, especially when it's patently obvious that, "Somebody has been here before." Then comes the denial and finger pointing.

Our position when folks bring something in to us is, this is now MY machine, for me to fix, and I will do just that as best I can. And You are not getting it back until it's right. That means a road test by me, at least, if it be a road bike. We have taken watercraft out on the lake following repairs, sleds on the trails, you get the idea. What really bothers us is when somebody brings something in for a cheap fix instead of doing it right, because they're going to sell it. Then not much later the new owner brings it in for us to make right because we were the last ones to touch it. Anymore we refuse to take in work of that type.

Honestly, we will sell you anything you want, but won't try to sell you anything you don't need.

The first new car I ever bought was a '91 Honda Civic Si hatckback. Great, fun car. Unfortunately for me, it suffered two warranty related issues during the first 3-yr./36K interval.

First was the ceramic core inside of the catalytic convertor collapsed. The car started making a weird rattling noise during deceleration which, oddly enough, sounded like broken dishes inside of a tin can. I verified it was a bad cat by removing it and trying to look through it. Yep, bad cat. Called the dealer, explained the problem, they need me to leave the car "so they can verify the problem" before they order the part. A second trip to the dealer was required once the part arrived to be installed.

I call the next day to make arrangements to pick up my freshly repaired car. They told me that they had replaced the catalytic convertor, "because it was bad", but they couldn't release the car to me because the bolts holding the heat shield on the cat was stripped, and they'd now have to order a heat shield set. That's odd, because I had removed and re-installed the heat shield when I took the cat off to inspect it, and they weren't stripped then...


Second was the ignitor module in the distributor. Common vendor/supplier issue during that period, recall was later issued, switched manufactures.

Being aware that these were suspect, I removed to distributor cap to verify that my OEM module was the "bad" brand, after the car started randomly stalling. Made an appointment to take it into the dealer to have it replaced. A day or two later I the removed the distributor cap again to verify the correct part had been installed.

That's when I discovered that one of the treaded holes in the distributor body were stripped. Not only that, but the "mechanic" had used a die grinder to lop off the corner of a laminated transformer core inside of the distributor, because he was too fucking lazy to remove the four spark plug wires necessary to re-install the cap. So now, not only is the entire distributor body junk, the inside of it contaminated with steel filings.

Back to the dealership to have a little face time with the Service Manager, not the Service Writer. Demanded that the distributor be replaced, and had him inspect the damage. When I asked him why the mechanic would go to the trouble of grinding a perfectly good part, when it was clearly unnecessary, he tried to pass it off as possibly a "time saving" technique. I told him that it didn't leave the factory that way, and it's not leaving his shop again this way either.

He asked who worked on the car, and I pointed out the the blissfully ignorant fuckwit across the bay, who, as we watched him, was using a 3/8" drive pneumatic ratchet wrench with a 3/8" to 1/4" reducer, and a 6"' extension to drive a tiny socket and was busy fucking up someone else's car. I told him about heat shield story and made a point of saying: "I don't want that motherfucker ever, EVER touching this car again." The service manager installed the new distributor himself.

I've never been so happy to have a vehicle go out of warranty.

Wow, 20 years ago, cars and bikes were not as good as they are now. Ya think?

I've never figured out why so many people think motorcycle rear axles have to be torqued to 1,973.8 foot-pounds.

I think you kinda missed the point.

It's for safety. Damn, man, think of the children.

As the spouse of a 2011 Civic owner, I hope the Honda dealer network has improved a little since then.

I think you kinda missed the point.
I was delighted when the warranty ran out, because I knew that I'd be the only one working on it. Those two issues were the only issues that I ever had with that car, and were unnecessarily compounded by someone else's incompetence. Someone who was getting paid to be a professional.

It wasn't the fault of the dealer, per se, but of a single person. We've all met similar individuals in every trade, occupation, job, or discipline that makes you want to snatch away whatever tool they are holding at the time, beat them savagely about the head and shoulders with it, and make them go sit in a corner while you salvage whatever is left of their task.

ever read"zen and the art of motorcycle maintance"....lol.just because they have a name tag on their shirt doesnt
mean they should be trusted..

You triggered a memory.

A few years ago we had a new warehouse built adjacent to the main building where I work. One day I walked in the control room to find a contractor with a battery powered sawzall cutting a piece of conduit, using the console as a workbench. He was one of these fat, slack-jawed mouth breathers you see around. I said "Hey, we've got a maintenance shop right out the door there for that kind of stuff". He just gave me a vacant look and wandered off.

A few weeks later, toward the end of the job, I look out the window to see the same guy with the same sawzall. This time he's using the brand-new air conditioning unit as a workbench while cutting a piece of plastic pipe held in his other hand. I'm thinking to myself "This ain't going to end well...". As I headed out the door to straighten the guy out again, the saw blade bound in the plastic pipe, as you would expect. WAPAPAPAPAPAPAP and suddenly there's about six holes in the coil and refrigerant is spraying all over the guy.

The best part is, he stood there in the cloud until someone told him to move!

haha... now you triggered a memory...

Torque wrenches, ratches and even wrenches are considered a "luxury item" in some toolboxes here in Argentina, most of the maitenance mechanics and even some vendors tend to fix EVERYTHING with and adjustable wrench, a couple pliers, a couple screwed screw drivers, a tongue and groove and a hammer...

So I was manager in a supermarket where we had changed the refrigerators for a new set, and also had changed the air conditioning unit to use the same heat exchanger, so this had a real big tank and compressor, our maintenance team came in to check the vendor's work and one of the guys started inspecting one of the refrigerators vacuum valve, with an adjustable... :huh turns out that the new valves were very very tight and the pipe was not that flexible... he managed to get in a position where he can grab the adjustable's handle with both hands and pulled... the pipe torn and you can imagine the rest of the history... it cost up to $2000 to refill the compressor with gas and almost $1000 more to change the pipes in the refigerator unit. Funny thing is that the guy tried to blame the contractor because of a "Stuck Vacuum valve"

That's some funny sh*t right there. Makes you wonder how they made it this far in life without ending up on that show "1000 ways to die".

Years ago I worked at an independent shop. There was a mechanic there from Columbia South America...Jose. Jose was replacing a right side engine mount in a VW Rabbit. The mount is press fit into the mount bracket. He manages to cut the old mount and knock it out of the bracket just fine. He takes the mount bracket and new mount over to the press and sets the two parts on the press table. He then proceeds to beat the mount into the mount bracket with his biggest hammer. I said...Hey Jose...why not lower the press table so you can get a better swing at it....LOL. After he manages to sufficiently beat the new mount into the now deformed mount bracket. He takes the assembly back over to the car to install it. Instead of using the proper engine support to hold the engine from under the hood, Jose thought he would improvise by using a floor jack with a 2x4 stood up on end and support the engine from below with the 2x4 placed on the oil pan. He struggled for some time and was unable to get the mount/bracket assembly positioned properly in the tight confines between the right side of the engine and the frame rail from underneath the car. I always installed the mount from above. Jose walks over to the lift control to lower the car forgetting about the jack and 2x4 he has under the oil pan....you guessed it, he flipped the car off the lift. The lift was a two post electric hydraulic above ground lift. So now the poor customers car is trapped between the two lift posts with all the glass blown out of it and a new trapezoid roof line shape to it. The shop owner had to buy the customer another car...the customer was waiting for the car during all this excitement.

Over the years I have witnessed some incredible acts, even more amazing is they were done without the loss of life or limb, some even done by the mechanic to their own personal car. One dealership I worked at burned to the ground because of carelessness working around fuel.


Tech23

I had a high school metal shop teacher wailing away on something in a vice with a ball-peen hammer, missed the work, hit the vice, and the hammer bounced back with enough force to knock his ass out.

In 8th-grade metal shop, one of our projects was sand casting a small shop turntable in aluminum. I was a small kid and got tired trying to saw through the sprues with a hacksaw, so I grabbed the part I was trying to saw off and gave it a twist and a yank. I broke the part free, but pulled it straight back into the middle of my forehead and gave myself a huge knot.

Had to chuckle at this one.

I fell victim of my own axle tightening "problem" a number of years ago. New bike to me, after a tire change I torqued the rear axle on the bike by the book. A couple of weeks later I was on a ride and cut the rear tire about 200 miles from home. Sitting on the side of the road, I couldn't get the rear axle nut loose to get the wheel off to save my a$$. Fortunately, a local rider stopped and ran home to get his 1/2" drive ratchet and socket so we could get it off. From that point forward, I tightened stuff on my own bikes with tools I carry on the bike so I know I can get them loose.

Working on bikes for others is a different story; everything is torqued by the book. Can't take the chance of someone coming back on me later because $hit came loose and fell off.

.