Customer states…

Names of vehicles and companies (poorly) obscured in an attempt to hide from my corporate overlords. 

39 day old to the customer "Waymaker" needs an engine and trans... "Varcanna's" super ultra service contract doesn't cover anything but the jankiest of used drivetrain parts. 

BHPH special 08 "Ultrama"... Needs EVERYTHING. Has Carshield... On week three of them trying to figure out they're not going to pay for anything. 

2020 "Punches" 53,000mi never an oil change. Customer beside themselves as to how it could need an engine. 

Cabin filters and wiper blades both inexplicably unavailable in the aftermarket on backorder

Names of vehicles and companies (poorly) obscured in an attempt to hide from my corporate overlords. 

39 day old to the customer "Waymaker" needs an engine and trans... "Varcanna's" super ultra service contract doesn't cover anything but the jankiest of used drivetrain parts. 

BHPH special 08 "Ultrama"... Needs EVERYTHING. Has Carshield... On week three of them trying to figure out they're not going to pay for anything. 

2020 "Punches" 53,000mi never an oil change. Customer beside themselves as to how it could need an engine. 

Cabin filters and wiper blades both inexplicably unavailable in the aftermarket on backorder

I broke it, but it's your fault!

Weeeeell..... I can kind of relate to that last one. Or perhaps I'm reading it wrong. 

I had new tires installed at a tires shop many years ago. Afterwards, just as a test (and with the fact that I'd be changing to winter wheels about a month later in mind), I checked the torque on one of the lug bolts. It was massive-hyper-gorilla-high. My rattle-gun did nothing. The lug wouldn't budge even when I used the jack handle as an extension. So, naturally, I drove back to the tire shop and asked them to loosen all lugs and re-torque them to the correct spec. 

They agreed to do so, but the tech also came out and (in a rather condescending manner) started explaining how to use a longer wrench or a pipe as an extension the next time I wanted to remove a stuck bolt. I answered that I was very well aware of that, but I sure as hell wasn't going to risk having to deal with one or several broken lug bolts, just because they obviously wasn't competent enough not to over-torque the lugs. He answered "That never happens. Those bolts are so strong that you pretty much can't over-tighten them"........ 

...... Less then 3min later, his colleague comes out and says: "Is the Silver BMW yours? Sorry, it's going to take some time. I just snapped three lugs." 

I asked that they now replace all 20 lugs for me, since they were obviously pulled hard enough to risk breaking. Shop manager agreed. 

^ that is my biggest pet peeve about getting tires done shops.  When I have to put 300+ ft lbs on it to loosen the lugs after getting the tires mounted, you've way overdone it.  

Thankfully, I've found a guy that understands that just down the road and uses torque sticks and a torque wrench to make sure he doesn't overdo it.  

A guy at the VW dealer gorilla'd the lugs on my e-golf.  Except the locking ones.  Those he left hand tight.  Maybe it averaged out.

He also left a ding in my hood that left a pattern exactly like an air chuck.  

93 Capri

no start

found no fuel pressure

found inertia switch tripped

started after that, ran terrible

went to check cap/rotor etc

found coolant overflow hose attached to distributor cap vent, cap was full of coolant

jmabarone said:

^ that is my biggest pet peeve about getting tires done shops.  When I have to put 300+ ft lbs on it to loosen the lugs after getting the tires mounted, you've way overdone it.  

Thankfully, I've found a guy that understands that just down the road and uses torque sticks and a torque wrench to make sure he doesn't overdo it.  

Go to Walmart or Sam's. They use a torque stick initially and then get out an actual torque wrench and have two people check the torque on all the lugs. 

I was surprised. 

Toyman! said:

 

Go to Walmart or Sam's. They use a torque stick initially and then get out an actual torque wrench and have two people check the torque on all the lugs. 

I was surprised. 

 

Good to know!  I like my guy but he's in his 80s and I don't know how much longer he's going to keep doing it.  

To be fair this is not a customer states thing it is more of a the so called experts are trying to scam my client. 
 

Last week a customer called and told me that there roof is leaking at one of there Propertys and they have had four experts look at it. Three were roofers and one a local consultant.  They call me (they are one of my best and longest clients). I take a look at it using google earth and get some background and then tell them they don't need a new roof as the experts are selling them. They just need some minor repairs and the leeks are at the scuppers along the roof edge. (Directly where the leaks are reported)   But no I have to drive down there (5) hours spend 60 minutes on the roof and drive back (7) hours due to traffic accident that closed I84. Get back to the office at 20:00 and spend 5 minutes sending an email telling them it is the scuppers and here are photos of the sub industry standard flashings that are open. Then I generated an invoice for $2,800 and sent it off via a 2nd email.  Then I went home.   Yesterday I got the check and a call for me to put together a bid package for the repairs.  
 

Repairs should be 20k or so.  New roof would be 150-200k.  

Torkel said:

Weeeeell..... I can kind of relate to that last one. Or perhaps I'm reading it wrong. 

I had new tires installed at a tires shop many years ago. Afterwards, just as a test (and with the fact that I'd be changing to winter wheels about a month later in mind), I checked the torque on one of the lug bolts. It was massive-hyper-gorilla-high. My rattle-gun did nothing. The lug wouldn't budge even when I used the jack handle as an extension. So, naturally, I drove back to the tire shop and asked them to loosen all lugs and re-torque them to the correct spec. 

They agreed to do so, but the tech also came out and (in a rather condescending manner) started explaining how to use a longer wrench or a pipe as an extension the next time I wanted to remove a stuck bolt. I answered that I was very well aware of that, but I sure as hell wasn't going to risk having to deal with one or several broken lug bolts, just because they obviously wasn't competent enough not to over-torque the lugs. He answered "That never happens. Those bolts are so strong that you pretty much can't over-tighten them"........ 

...... Less then 3min later, his colleague comes out and says: "Is the Silver BMW yours? Sorry, it's going to take some time. I just snapped three lugs." 

I asked that they now replace all 20 lugs for me, since they were obviously pulled hard enough to risk breaking. Shop manager agreed. 

Along those lines, my wife had a shop put new tires on her car. Guy at the desk says that he drove the car around the parking lot, and it felt like the shocks were bad (too stiff). I call BS and say that'll check them out later. My wife drove her car home, called me, and asked what the tire pressure normally is.

Apparently 10 extra psi will negatively impact your ride quality...

In reply to solfly :

A Chevy Alpaca?  The closest I can get to that  is an Impala.

In reply to Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) :

Yeah I think that's what it was. It was a few years back, came up in memories. 

Working IT, one time I get called into a packed bigwig meeting in the board room, there is some kind of technical problem during the board meeting.

I run up there quickly, not knowing what to expect, thinking about what spare equipment can be substituted quickly if needed. A very indignant executive reports that the display isn't working! It's a laptop hooked up to a big-screen TV. There is tense silence in the room.

One glance at the status lights on the laptop and the TV and I know what to do. In front of everyone, I raise my index finger, then reach out and touch it to the mouse. Everything flickers to life, since the display had gone into sleep mode.

The rest of the room breaks out in laughter. The executive who reported the problem was not amused.

No, I didn't really care about that job, why do you ask?

Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:

In reply to solfly :

A Chevy Alpaca?  The closest I can get to that  is an Impala.

Somebody needs to redraw the Impala logo to match.

Toyman! said:

jmabarone said:

^ that is my biggest pet peeve about getting tires done shops.  When I have to put 300+ ft lbs on it to loosen the lugs after getting the tires mounted, you've way overdone it.  

Thankfully, I've found a guy that understands that just down the road and uses torque sticks and a torque wrench to make sure he doesn't overdo it.  

Go to Walmart or Sam's. They use a torque stick initially and then get out an actual torque wrench and have two people check the torque on all the lugs. 

I was surprised. 

 

To my knowledge, Costco tire centers have always used torque wrenches to tighten lugs.  Never had an issue with them.

My Walmart tire guy would zap the lug nuts on  and then check that they were torqued.....
 

But he did not do it correctly , you need to loosen the nut some and then pull it until it clicks , 

He would just pull it , of course it would click , but he had no idea if it was at the set 140 ponds or  over tight at 250 pounds.

Pet Peeve ......

In reply to MadScientistMatt :

There is a restaurant here that has it 90% done.

In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :

I had a similar experience.  We had a family friend, older lady and single, that would babysit for us from time to time.  In exchange I would work on her car for her.  One evening she same over and said she was due for an oil change, the last one had been done at a quick change type place.  I figured it would take 20 min or so, had to jack up the front to get my pan under the car.  The filter was on so tight that I ended up cutting the housing away used a chisel to turn the base plate off.  She ended up being at the house for a couple of hours and from then on I told her to just come over when she needed an oil change.

My co-worker had a customer ask for a hidden code blender.

Turns out they needed a blend door actuator.

Noddaz said:

My co-worker had a customer ask for a hidden code blender.

Something like this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProGuard

Kind of the other end of the stick but...  I opened up a case with the software vendor because I couldn't get sync-to replication to work.  The case stated that it just didn't work and in the detail, I noted that there was a "region" field that was mandatory for which I did not have a valid value and if I did just put bogus data in there, I would get a certificate error.  Before the tech picked up the case, I added another note that I could get it to work in reverse - the site that I wanted to be the source would work as a target for the replication - but that it didn't always perform the sync-to replication operation.  Sometimes the file would be replicated, but most of the times it would not.  So even when I was able to get past the setup, the feature still wasn't working right.

So the guy at support runs down the region thing for me and also figures out that even though the interface says the certificate is loaded, the services need to be restarted to actually do that.  So cool.  I ask him "So, what about those files that aren't syncing when it does connect?"

Oh no, he says, that is a totally different issue than trying to figure out what should go into the region field.  In fact, says he, the whole thing with the certificate was something that he researched out of the goodness of his heart.  He "let it slide" because that should have been its own issue.  I need to close this case and open a new one. 

After typing several snarky emails and deleting them, I finally settle on telling him to go ahead and close the case but I definitely called out the certificate issue in the original case comments, but whatever.  So I open a second case.  Right away, I get this email:

Hello Bill

This case appears to be duplicate of a previous case that was recently closed (xxxxxx).

Was the resolution of that case not adequate? What are the new issues?

thanks

IT:

recent contract gave me a company computer (used to troubleshoot Digital Valve Controlers ). They use webX for meetings. I was scheduled for a webX meeting at 2:00 PM 9/12 (Notified by webX) for orientation with IT. 
Boss nor I could get on webX with my laptop. He notified IT. Couple days later, I had gotten no called from IT, but got webX going. 
Had a webX notification 2:30 PM 9/12, saying: Sorry to hear you can not get on webX. Make an appointment with me (on webX) to start a meeting (on webX) to discuss (through web X) how to resolve this. 
No, it was not a auto reply. Obviously typed to me. 
Are people making money, really that dumb these days?

In reply to Toyman! :

Wally's got sued a number of times, by people doing stupid with their own cars, and blameing them! So they are super carful to follow "the book" to the letter. 
Doesn't mean I trust 'em, but I bet their lug tighting is pretty good.