Why wont they just fix it.

The local mechanics shops are pissing me off. I don't work on my company vans. I don't have the time or the inclination. I took the one I drive to a local shop with a very specific list of problems I wanted fixed. Front brakes, off idle miss, rotate and balance, change the oil and a coolant leak. I got it back and they had put plugs and wires on it, fixed the brakes and that was it. It was better, but not fixed. It still had a miss, the coolant leak, the out of balance tires and the tires weren't rotated. They didn't charge me for any of the work they didn't do, but that doesn't help. I wanted the damn thing fixed. They lost their one chance to take care if it. It's a pain in the butt to move all the parts and tools to pull a van off the road. I've been through this with three shops in the area and always end up back at the Ford dealer. They are the most expensive, but at least they want to fix everything, even the stuff I don't want done. Someone please explain why when a shop has a billable repair a customer wants done they don't do it.

Laziness? Not surenwhat other reasons there might be.

For mechanics on commission tossing darts to try and fix something is just a waste of money for them, Granted it does not make it right but they are not going to waste their time on something that may or may not be an issue.

If you can find the place that pays their mechanics on an hourly you may (and i say MAY) have better luck.

Don't you know that you're supposed to be ignorant like all the other customers and blindly accept whatever they say and do?

Unfortunately, most mechanics now are just parts swappers and have neither the training nor the inclination to actually "repair" something. The want tne OBD to give them a code and then replace whatever part it says. Sometimes the best "repair" shops are the ones that look like you might catch a life threatening disease from just touching the floor...sadly the only way to see if they're any good is to try them.

I could just be the idiot behind the counter not relaying all the information back to the shop. I deal with this way too much with the FNG. I have a nice spot for his corpse all picked ou.....I've said too much. Nevermind.

The last shop, I dealt with the owner. He was complaining about not being busy. Rotating and balancing tires isn't exactly hard to do. Neither is changing the oil. You really don't need a OBD code to take care of that. It's easy money that can be done in less than an hour. Hell, they had the front tires off to do the brakes.

The rest of the miss fire I took care of with a can of Seafoam. He could have got me for a "injection system cleaning" and I wouldn't have minded as long as it was fixed.

As far as forgetting or not telling the guys doing the work, there's no excuse. Especially when you're complaining about lack of work. I gave him a list on a post it note that he stuck to the service ticket.

Edited to fix stupid spelling errors.

Jeez, I thought it was hard to get shops to touch my aw11. I've never had senseless omissions from the ticket like that though.

Maybe they had other cars needing work at a higher profit margin. Doesn't excuse the ommissions but may be the "reason".

Toyman01 wrote: As far as forgetting or not telling the guys doing the work, there's no excuse.

I agree 1000%!

Especially since I'm the guy doing the work. BRB, gotta load the shovels. I'm taking the FNG to "lunch" tomorrow

One thing that really bothers me is when we don't get information until we're calling the customer with the estimate for what (we thought) we were supposed to check out. Or worse, when useful information is condensed down into "Check steering problem" on the ticket.

The mind boggles at being given information and not doing anything about it.

Those last two posts are symptomatic of something that permeates the business: the idea that any idiot can write a service order so they hire someone cheap who knows nothing about cars and expects them to get things done right. Not so.

I work with a girl who will write RO's if I am at lunch or ?? and I run across the same thing: 'check steering' or 'check shocks' or 'check battery' or 'check A/C' or whatever. So I have to call the customer and ask a bunch of questions. I've tried to get her to ask a few basic questions, I don't think she's capable of understanding the concept.

The flip side: not so bad with the crew I have now but I have known lots of techs who would blow off an RO line that had plenty of information with 'could not duplicate', knowing that if it came back with that weird problem reoccurring that since they had not even attempted a repair most likely someone else would get stuck with it.

Jensenman wrote: So I have to call the customer and ask a bunch of questions. I've tried to get her to ask a few basic questions, I don't think she's capable of understanding the concept.

What bugs us is that we printed out drivability or noise worksheets, and they don't get used.

The flip side: not so bad with the crew I have now but I have known lots of techs who would blow off an RO line that had plenty of information with 'could not duplicate', knowing that if it came back with that weird problem reoccurring that since they had not even attempted a repair most likely someone else would get stuck with it.

Wow, what a loser.

We thrive on weird problems. Solving the mystery is fascinating and half the fun of this job. Plus, we get a reputation for being the guys to go to, so we get a lot of word of mouth business, both from pleased customers (latest: a late model Kia that'd been to two dealerships and one independent) and from other shops, including some dealerships...