Negligent shop failure

Automotive
#1

Continuing the discussion from Drilling hex head in Grade 8 bolts:

So no names, what “humanized” failures have you seen on your vehicles? My humanized I mean forgot to tighten a bolt, installed wrong, etc…

So about 6 years ago in my company van, Chevy Express 3500, was one of my experiences. I had an issue with my security key in my van, so it wouldn’t start. I kinda knew what the issue was because I have seen it before. So I call the leasing company to have it towed, which I said I wanted it to go to the dealership. They decided that they wanted to take it to another well known shop. They had that damn thing for two weeks before they gave up & sent it to the dealer. They said they replaced the fuel pump assembly and still couldn’t get it to run, I told their ass what it was. Chevy had it a day & then back on the road. So I’m driving a couple weeks later down Mockingbird when I hear something dragging/rubbing. I pull over & look, the gas tank was hanging down & rubbing against the drive shaft. I wired it up to make it the two blocks to my customer. Then at lunch, a coworker took me to fastenal for a bolt. Got that sucker bolted back up.

I will never, short of a battery, step foot in that chain again. Dealership only for my company vehicles regardless of what they think. Not that they won’t make mistakes.

On another side note, if you ever have to have your vehicle towed from the Infomart, you have to be there. Security over there will not let them tow.

2 Likes
#2

I had a instructor in college who’s wife always had crazy car problems like this. One time she bought a full set of tires for her SUV and 3 or 4 weeks later complained that at low speeds there was a terrible shaking in the front end. Come to find out after my instructor drove the vehicle to work there was only 1 lug nut holding the front tire on. Full inspection of all tires showed that 8 lug nuts in all had backed out and been lost over the weeks of driving.

The instructor went back to the three letter tire shop to bitch about the issue and found out the shop had recently fired the tech that worked on the vehicle as multiple customers had similar problems often returning with studs sheered from rims falling off. The tech was tightening the lug nuts on with a 12v cordless drill for weeks before anyone noticed.

My sister also had an issue with this three letter tire chain, as a sales rep refused to release her vehicle claiming it was unsafe to drive unless she had $4500 worth of suspension repairs made. I came out and rescued her vehicle, having to call the police to get them to release the vehicle.

2 Likes
#3

They always say that…

4 Likes
#4

Our Quality Control Manager where I worked had some engine maintenance work done on his personal car at a dealership. When he got the car back he kept hearing a rattle under the hood. There he found lodged under some of the hoses was a very expensive Snap-on pneumatic wrench. He went back to the dealership, showed them the wrench, and told them “Thank you”. The wrench is now mine. He still has that Snap-on wrench.

4 Likes
#5

Used to work at Infomart. Can confirm: security is useless.

#6

Drove Hondas for a long time.
Took Civic to dealership for maintenance work and inspection.
Car returned with crack in windshield right in front of driver.
Yet there it sits with a new inspection sticker.
Got the choreographed dance of denial.
One of several reasons why I no longer drive a Honda.

#7

I once took my Saturn into the shop for routine maintenance. Paid and was handed my keys back. Just as I got onto Mopac (in Austin) from the shop, I heard the most awful rattling sound I have ever heard from a running engine…

Turned around and returned to shop and said WTF? The supervisor did a quick inspection and found a few wrenches and sockets had been left in the engine compartment…

#8

Back in the old days when you pulled into a gas station, a cheerful attendant would run out to your car; pump the gas for you, check the tire pressures, check the radiator and battery plus the oil. Now this was back when a gas station was called a Service Station and gas was at 23 cents per gallon. Heck, you even got a free glass and Green Stamps. One day after I paid the attendant and he gave me my change back, he walked back into his office again. I pulled out and Ka-Thunk…the attendant forgot to take the gas hose out of my gas tank. The gas nozzle on the end of the hose broke off and fell down into my gas tank, plus gas was running all over the place at the pump. No explosion like you see in the movies. Their insurance paid for a brand new gas tank because they couldn’t get their nozzle out of it.

5 Likes
#9

The youth of today are incapable of being ‘cheerful’ if they are working…

5 Likes
#10

That explains all the cheerful millennials I see…

In my (very small) home town, there was a prominent member of the community who was a bit scatterbrained. He was (in)famous for it. I personally saw, twice, him leave the nozzle in his car and drive off. This was well after the “service station” era, and around these parts, you pumped your own, so he did this all on his own. Both times, big flames. No explosion, but as a youngster, you duck and cover just the same (even though that’d make roughly zero difference, right, but what else can you do?)

1 Like
#11

From experience around explosions, Duck and Cover 100% better than standing and taking shrapnel. The key is that you make yourself a much smaller target and you get close to the ground as the majority of the shrapnel is headed in an up and out direction. Also in the case of a fire ball, still a better option than taking burns across the whole front of your body.

#12

Does this count?

Quite a while ago I had burned up the clutch of my first car, a yellow 1982 Ford EXP. Being in the military where my only responsibility was attending training classes gave me plenty of evenings free so I decided to change it myself. I went to the auto hobby shop on base and rented a stall. With a Chilton’s manual in hand, a box full of tools, and illusions of grandeur I commenced to repair my car. I was thorough. I replaced the clutch pads, throw-out bearing and even had the flywheel resurfaced. Of course not realizing the immense undertaking I had started it took me nearly two weeks to finish the job.

Once I had torqued my last bolt and picked up all the tools, I excitedly lowered the car off the jack stands. This is where things started going downhill. I jumped into the driver’s seat and with the e-brake on and the car in neutral I started it. It was great to hear that the engine running again. I pressed in the clutch which felt great and moved the shift into first gear, or at least I tried. For some reason the transmission would not go into first. I checked the other gears and found no problems. Dumbfounded I shut off the engine. I asked my friend to get in the car and move the shift around while I got underneath to see if I could notice anything wrong. As he did so I noticed that I had put one of the shift linkage bolts in backwards and it was hitting the other bolt. Happy I found the issue I quickly fixed my mistake. I jumped into the driver’s seat again and fired the car up. I took off the e-brake and eased the shift into first. It was like butter! I slowly eased off the clucth and the car began to move forward. Elated with my triumph I continued to pull the car out of the stall until I heard the unmistakable sound of crunching metal. I immediately stopped, shut the car off and jumped out to find out what happened. That’s when I noticed I had just driven over my air filter housing…UGH!

4 Likes
#14

Note quite up to the scale of hurt suffered by others, but I don’t let the local [name brand franchise] shop work on my cars any more.

I used to get good service from the shop and it was even within reasonable walking distance of my house. But it started to decline over the years with bills creeping up and conspicuous upsells becoming more frequent.

What broke it was the last major service I had performed. It should have taken less than 24 hours taking more than 48 hours. Multiple callbacks and resulting permission to proceed did not happen - presumably because all of their office staff was new. Since I have multiple vehicles, this wasn’t a huge inconvenience. The real issue was the petty theft they committed: when I got into the car a day later than expected, the ~$5 in loose change in the ashtray had disappeared. When confronted about it, they gave me $5 out of the register without protest and blamed the nearby high school. The implication they wanted to make was that high school kids were ninja-jimmying car doors during the day too fast to notice; they wanted me to ignore the somewhat more likely explanation that they were leaving vehicles unsecured and definitely wanted me not to reach the almost-certain conclusion that one of their employees swiped the cash.

In addition to the usual post-service survey, manager sent me an e-mail afterwards beseeching me to maintain trust. I’ve yet to do anything other than inspections since then.

Employee churn is bad for business. The Mazda dealer in Denton I used to trek to from Lewisville swapped out all of their service writers on me between visits and I found myself a stranger to the business in all the ways that mattered: the bills were higher, the coordination worse, and the experience all the more frustrating. I then decided that I didn’t care to cross the lake for service anymore.

2 Likes
#15

You went to Fastenal…for a bolt.

How many Lowe’s, Home Depots and Tractor Supply locations did you pass on your way to Fastenal?

Anyway, NOT to defend your stealership or its employees, I will tell you I’ve had that exact same thing happen after changing fuel pumps on 2 different American cars of my own. What happens is the “spring” of the tank strap’s “omega” shape makes the retainer bolts (usually one per strap) back out if they are not torqued to spec. Your stealer mechanic probably went in until the bolt stopped and made his Chicago Pneumatic air ratchet whine in protest for half a second and he called it good.

In both of my cases, the tank was plastic and the straps were rigid with no take-up spring or even a hinge, just a dovetail into the floor.

Again: no excuses, just a little post-mortem in absentia.

#16

There were a couple of independent shops near where I used to live, that on several occasions, a few weeks after having preventive maintenance done, I would discover at least one wheel would have loose lug nuts. :frowning:
The same shops also always overfill the oil by at least half a quart.
I took it to a third shop a little further away for an oil change.
Same story, even after having asked them to be a bit more aware on the amount of oil required. :disappointed_relieved:

1 Like
#17

I think one of our best stories is one more of fraud

My hubby had an old Datsun, he took it out to Sears to get it inspected
They found 3 issues, I think tires was one and a couple of other thing the he took care of

Next weekend he went back, and they found 3 MORE issues, He brought it home
and repaired them, , Then he tried again, 3 more issues, including one of the first ones
that had been repaired!

Time for a change of tactics here, I took it in, and asked about why they were finding problems that
didnt exist, Now as many will know, I can bet loud easily and my voice carries, I was polite but not
agreeable, I demanded to know why thy were finding problems that did not exist and I
asked if "he had had it repaired here, that I expected it would hve passed inspections:
They tried to tell me that they were just being real accurat, I asked why they didnt find
all 6 the first time, They got the store manager to come deal with me since my now, folks had stopped
their shoppin to listen to the convo! Wat I wanted, The manager asked to see the car (he had to get me out of the store)
He treid to tell me tha taccurate crap again and claimed that he didn t even ask they to inspect his care because
or of that, He gave the money for inspection back, against rules and I drove over to K Mart and left with an
inspection sticker in less that 30 min! No more Sears repair for us

The other bad case was on my Fairmont Futura, I took it to a brake chain (internals JB) for a brake job, Everything was fine or a couple of weeks, then the brakdw sent out again, this time they said it was the master cylinder So I paid
for that repair, Two weeks later, brakes fail again, this time they claim the brake line is leaking, I didn t believe the
they claimed it was under the back sear, but no evidence the seat had been removed, So I had a friend shcek it, No leak, Then I called and got the regional manager and they had anothe store
replace the master cylinder again, They stayed fixed that tiem
A friend then convinced me that I could do my othe disc grake joabe and do it riehg
and save money and so I did for many years!

#18

Yep I went to Fastenal for a bolt. Didn’t pass a single HD or Lowes, we have an account with Fastenal, so I don’t have to pay out of pocket.

This is the reason why I do all my own work. I am even paranoid if I forgot something, I will usually recheck everything I did.

1 Like
#19

There was the time the moron that changed my oil left the filter gasket stuck to the engine, and screwed the new filter on on top of it. Then when I got it about 3 blocks away, all the oil blew out between those two gaskets and I had to have it towed back to the place. (Luckily I shut it down as soon as I heard the “whoosh” because what the heck was that?)

Oh wait, that was me, doing my first “by myself” oil change when I was in high school. :smiley:

5 Likes