Comebacks

[EricTheCarGuy]

Here’s a topic that many professional technicians have dealt with. There’s also quite a few of you that have dealt with it from the other side of the counter as well. I look forward to your comments and experiences.

Topic

[Dylan]

Just finished up the video and first thing that came to my mind was trying to fix a problem and in the end the work you did not fixing it. hence people coming back. I havent had anyone come back to me for mechanical work ive done mostly because I dont do a lot of that, Im a detailer that does some work on the side. Anyway, I remember having to “come back” to my self over the course of a year and a half due to my old truck not running right, I first had it looked at in a shop, they couldnt find anything wrong and retimed the engine and it didnt fix anything. I started doing my own work after that because i was rather pissed at them. I eventually sold the truck though and never figured out what the problem was.

[Pete Baird]

Plain and simple: comebacks suck! My last one I was written up for and it didnt even leave the shop! Amongst fixing a myriad of other things on the small excavator, I changed the rear main seal. The new one was updated from the one I took out and looked completely different. Instructions and tooling were hazey at best. Ended up installing the seal backwards. Put everything back together and ran the engine a few minutes. When I saw the small puddle of oil, I knew I messed up. I stayed late and came in early to fix it but I managed to fix it before the customer came to get it. That was three months ago and it still hasn’t come back. My brilliant boss decided he had to classify it as a comeback even though it never left so that my labor could get paid for (not by the customer) and wrote me up for it. Not cool!

[dave]

i just want to point out the comebacks are also undesired when it comes to women.

[Andrew Thompson]

Who pays if you replace the wrong part on a customers car and the original problem remains?

Can you use the manufacturers warranty?

Can you use an car extended warranty?

Can you bill your your customers?

[Dave]

I just had one today, The customer came in having lost his trans fluid. The other day he brought his car in for a wheel bearing (had his own part) :angry: anyway it wouldn’t come out (rusted tight to the hub/axle shaft) and ended up cutting the axle shaft out to change the bearing, He got his own shaft and brought it in but I wasn’t available (alignment for another customer) so another guy put it together and sent him on his way. When he came back with no fluid I checked and the shaft was an inch away from being seated in the trans. The spord shaft splines were twisted thankfully not broken off in the trans, (boss very angry) had to special order a new shaft (that was cheap). I put it back together with the boss watching and had no problem the other guy never checked to make sure everything was back together right.

BTW the car was a 2003 Mitsubishi Galant AWD

Imports are almost nonexistent in our area so the only place we could get one was the dealer which said that we got the last one in the country.

The boss tried bitching at me about it but couldn’t because I didn’t put it together the first time and proved it by showing him the time stamp for the alignment I was doing.

And no for shop made mistakes the customer pays nothing the shop has to take care of it for free.

[Paul R]

Had a nice comeback this week. 2000 Buick Lesabre. Towed in crank/no start. Starts runs and dies. Plug in scan tool got a code for fuel sender. OK common GM fault, bad sender not the first time I’ve had a empty tank due to this. R/R fuel pump unit. Gauge now reads dead empty, fuel it up runs ok test drive ok done! Next morning… Towed in car died. Now no spark. Can’t directly see crank sensor on a scan tool. Sensor goes to Ignition control module first. Tell the service writer order a crank sensor and module. Sensors cheap module not so much. Install crank sensor car runs. Test drive ok. I tell the service writer do not release the car. I’m off Wednesday and so is the service writer. I need to extensively test drive the car to verify repair. Wednesday the car was towed back. The other service writer decided it was done and released the car on Wednesday. Installed the module Thursday and ran the car on a good long drive. Fixed? I hope so
Next time I’ll hide the keys 🙂

[Author]

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