Alright, I'll confess I did something similar once. Moving out of the dorms Freshman year of college. We stopped to eat lunch, we're walking back towards the car and I go "my suspension is berkeleyed up!"
My buddy can't tell if I'm serious.
"Dude, literally everything you own is in your trunk right now."
"oh...right."
sometimes I'm not sure how I made it into college.
Meh. I have had things in the back of the Rondo that would make an F-150 blush.
In college, I (briefly) had a job delivering phonebooks. At the time I drove an e28, and as we all know A: phonebooks are super heavy and B: e28s have like 10 degrees of negative camber when the rear is on the bumpstops. One day, the supervisor saw my car after it was loaded and ready to go out, and told me I needed to get a new car or I was fired, as my rear suspension was clearly broken. After a heated debate regarding the finer points of 1980s trailing arm suspension, I quit.
Unloading the phone books all at once was not fun at all 
.
As long as everyone was a concenting adult what you've done in the back of your Rondo is your business
ebonyandivory wrote:dean1484 wrote: Famed if you di famed I you don't. Tell them there wheel may fall off and you ate trying to scare them in to a repair and rip them off. Don't tell them and you are libel.Ummm, what?
Auto spell on my phone does some weird stuff. Fixed it now that I am on my computer.
dean1484 wrote:ebonyandivory wrote:Auto spell on my phone does some weird stuff. Fixed it now that I am on my computer.dean1484 wrote: Famed if you di famed I you don't. Tell them there wheel may fall off and you ate trying to scare them in to a repair and rip them off. Don't tell them and you are libel.Ummm, what?
I dae na see a prooblem ...
In reply to dean1484:
Autospell prevents proof reading?...That certainly is weird. 
dean1484 wrote: Dammed if you do dammed I you don't. Tell them there wheel may fall off and you are trying to scare them into a repair and rip them off. Don't tell them and you are libel.
I also wonder if their car had crashed over there, where the damned beavers dammed the creek, so that you wouldn't be liable for your libel. 
Driven5 wrote:dean1484 wrote: Dammed if you do dammed I you don't. Tell them there wheel may fall off and you are trying to scare them into a repair and rip them off. Don't tell them and you are libel.Autospell prevents you from proof reading?...That certainly is weird.
Give the guy a break. You have never misspelled, or forgot to proof read something? I find it hard to believe.
Chris
You've never been able to laugh at you're own misteaks? I find that hard to belief.
Driven5 wrote: You've never been able to laugh at you're misteaks? I find that hard to belief.
Never! I just laugh at other people's mistakes!
HaHaHa, I've done that.
In reply to Mazdax605:
Normally I don't care as I know I'm far from perfect but it's a serial phenomenon. I don't mean to come off like a jerk here but when I stop reading a thread (not this one) because it's too difficult to comprehend... Ya know, it's just too easy to get right.
Driven5 wrote: You've never been able to laugh at you're own misteaks? I find that hard to belief.
I've never missed a steak.
ebonyandivory wrote: In reply to Junkyard_Dog: And to think: I actually wash the car or truck I'm getting fixed so the mechanics don't have to deal with oily dirt, mud, grease etc. when working on it.
I don't often have my cars worked on, but if I did, it would be clean. In my mind, it sends the message that "I care about this, so you should too."
Not to derail the thread, but any professional wrenchers on here have perspective? Do you approach your job differently if a car is spotless vs trashed?
In reply to Tyler H:
I'm interested in this as well. In addition to cleaning it up, I'll leave my name, cell and home number and a brief description of what I'd like done with the permission to fix or mention things that need attention.
I think most people feel like mechanics are either out to screw them or beneath them. To me it's a partnership and I'm lucky enough to have found a long-time shop that I trust.
I was working in the service department at a Nissan dealership a long time ago. A person that lived literally three streets away wanted to buy a new Xterra but instead of getting one at our dealership, went 40 miles away to save less than $100 on the deal. So within a week of buying their vehicle at another dealer, they come to ours for service. Actually, they are only coming in for warranty work and they are livid.
They hear a noise from the rear of the truck when driving over bumps. All sorts of complaints about what a crappy truck "we" sell. Uh, we didn't sell it to you.
They expect us to give them a free loaner car. Sorry, only for people that buy from here. But you can wait in our lounge while we look at it for you.
Standard operating procedure is to explain at service write up that we charge a minimum diagnostic fee of $85 to cover any work that is not covered under the manufacturers warranty. Customer is pissed. They refuse to agree to that, only had their new truck for a week, it has to be a defect. I explain that we cannot look at the vehicle until they consent to this and they reluctantly agree, complaining the entire time.
The salesman that they were dealing with (who didn't get the sale) comes back and is VERY curious. I fill him in and he chats up the customer in the lounge, determining that he lost the sale over less than $100. Meanwhile, the tech drives the truck, hears a noise and pulls it into the shop for a quick check. Opens the hatch, checks all around, can't find anything wrong. Crawls under the truck, looks at everything and still finds nothing wrong. Intending to go for another test ride with the customer, he slams the hatch and hears the noise. Then he comes and gets me and shows me that the other dealerships license plate frame is rattling. Sweet irony!
We get the customer and all three of us go for a ride. The tech asks, can you hear the noise? Yes, she hears it and is giving us crap for "our" bad vehicle. Tech stops the truck, gets out and stuffs a rag between the frame and the plate and gets back in. We start driving and asks again, do you hear the noise? Customer is elated! No noise, we are awesome.
We pull back into the dealership and she thinks that she is going to just drop us off and head home. BZZT! Tech walks her around and shows her the fix. Says that the other dealership improperly installed their license plate frame. I remind her that it's not a warrantied repair and that she owes us $85.00 for the diagnostic. Would she like us to remove the frame or leave it on with the rag tucked into it?
Salesman is standing there with a E36 M3 eating grin on his face. He points out that we'd have taken care of that for free if she had bought the truck at our dealership. Customer pays the bill and never comes back again for service. I sleep very well that night.
One of my good friends in high school had a solid thunk when going around turns that he just couldn't figure out.
He got his dad to ride along with him to diagnose. He commented that perhaps the bowling ball rolling around the back seat area had something to do with it.
Tyler H wrote:ebonyandivory wrote: In reply to Junkyard_Dog: And to think: I actually wash the car or truck I'm getting fixed so the mechanics don't have to deal with oily dirt, mud, grease etc. when working on it.I don't often have my cars worked on, but if I did, it would be clean. In my mind, it sends the message that "I care about this, so you should too." Not to derail the thread, but any professional wrenchers on here have perspective? Do you approach your job differently if a car is spotless vs trashed?
I'm not full time, but I see a lot of customer cars and have wrenched on a few. Of course, most of the cars that come into our shop are pampered little toys so I know we don't see a typical cross-section. I think some of them get dressed up for prom before coming here.
Dirty happens. No worries. An interior that's all gross, not so much. I'm not talking change in the glovebox or a hair scrunchie around the gearshift, but takeout food bags in the footwell, ashtrays/gloveboxes stuffed with receipts and stuff so they're overflowing or seat covers crusty with sweat. With those cars, you have to remember to do a quality job. The owner may still love the car - it comes to us for a reason - but it's easy to forget.
The ones that show up detailed and spotless definitely motivate you to do that extra 10% for a super-sanitary job.
I once replaced every bushing and ball joint in the suspension of my car trying to find the source of a clunk on braking. 2 months of frustration and being sure a wheel was going to fall off.
I had left a spare alternator in the rear footwell so whenever I stopped it rocked forward and hit the seat frame which felt EXACTLY like a suspension knock.
Jumper K. Balls wrote: I once replaced every bushing and ball joint in the suspension of my car trying to find the source of a clunk on braking. 2 months of frustration and being sure a wheel was going to fall off. I had left a spare alternator in the rear footwell so whenever I stopped it rocked forward and hit the seat frame which felt EXACTLY like a suspension knock.
The good thing about DIY is no one knows . . . unless you post it on the internet.
Tyler H wrote:ebonyandivory wrote: In reply to Junkyard_Dog: And to think: I actually wash the car or truck I'm getting fixed so the mechanics don't have to deal with oily dirt, mud, grease etc. when working on it.I don't often have my cars worked on, but if I did, it would be clean. In my mind, it sends the message that "I care about this, so you should too." Not to derail the thread, but any professional wrenchers on here have perspective? Do you approach your job differently if a car is spotless vs trashed?
if a car is trashed, I generally expect that they probably won't fix anything.
In reply to Knurled: Exactly, or else I think there isnt much sense in doing the thorough inspection, they are only going to buy the bare minimum to keep it rolling.
The other one that blows my mind is the customers that wont fix their bald tires, wore out brakes, and steering linkage that is only being held together by gods grace, but they can afford to get the ac fixed.
I chased a noise in my '94 miata for weeks. tightening and re-installing suspension parts, etc....
Came to find I left a 3/8th's ratchet in that tray by the firewall/wiper-linkage. Man that made some confusing noises.
We had this older customer come in to my last shop I was a tech at, in an older Jag, saying he heard a "rolling" noise... drive it sure enough it sounds like a marble rolling the frame rail, pop his trunl, he has about a dozen golf balls rolling around and one managed to get inside the rear quarter panel!
My personal favorite "WTF was that noise" was right after I bought my Miata (first time owner).
Previous owner had kept it garaged, for the most part.
I left it in my driveway (no garage), and it rained quite hard. Get in it to drive to work - WTF is that water sloshing sound?
Drains were, of course, clogged. Had to google it.
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