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Yea I get that all the time too, Reminds me of the tune up thing that no longer applies to anybodys car with a ECM/PCM.
Maybe if it is out far enough I could see a vibration but just your normal small amount I wouldn’t think would cause a vibration.
I’m not much on alignment stuff other than I have a machine and I can get myself through one.
Thats probably because some customers think they know more than techs. Frustrating i know.
They really don’t understand the complexity of todays modern vehicle.
Anybody can turn a wrench, its the smart people who can intelligently diagnose issues.
Another thing I can’t figure out about customers… Why do a lot of them insist on lying to me? They come to me for an oil change and tire rotation for example. As I’m rotating the tires, I notice that their struts are leaking and their brake pads are nearly metal on metal. I have the service manager price out the estimate, and more than half the time the customer will say words to the effect of “No thanks, my mechanic will fix that for me. Just change my oil” My typical response is “What, you trust your mechanic to fix your brakes but don’t trust him to change your oil?” I mean, if a customer can’t afford to fix their car that’s one thing, but I don’t like being lied to. I’m not going to judge someone because they can’t afford to get their car fixed. I understand that it’s an expensive thing to do, but don’t tell me that you’re going to have someone else do the work.
Also, if you’re a customer and you feel that the shop where you’re taking your car for service is either doing sub-standard work, or is staffed by a bunch of scam artists, why do you keep going there? I have a customer with an old, rusted out Ford Tortise wagon who brings his car to my shop all the time, and every time he comes in he complains that we charge too much and that we do shoddy work. If our work is so bad, and we’re constantly ripping you off, why do you keep coming here? No one in the shop wants to work on your clapped-out POS, so please take it elsewhere so we don’t have to look at it anymore.
On a different, but related note, I do have one piece of advice to anyone who wants to get into this line of work. You absolutely can NOT afford to care about your customers. I’m not saying that you should do shoddy work, but when a customer says “nah, I don’t think I need to replace my brake hoses” when they’re frayed out and ready to spring a leak, just say OK and then back the car out of the shop and forget all about it. My wife told me once that I should care about the customers that come to my shop. I asked her if she enjoyed being married to a drunkard, which is what I would have become, due to the fact that I would have had to drink myself to sleep every night if I had to care about the customers.
@ 3sheetsdiesel…If they say no thanks i will have my mechanic fix that for me why do u think they are lying? Maybe their mechanic was busy or maybe they were just in the area and decided to get oil change.Doesn’t mean if u see something wrong with car t
I also get that all the time and hope to make a video at some point to help quell the ignorance, in fact that’s pretty much my job description. S:)
I understand what you are saying, but I can guarantee most of the time it is they can’t afford it and please don’t spit in our faces by saying you will go elsewhere. It really does sound a lot like “doubt your abilities.”
I also don’t like it when the customer comes to me for a diagnosis and then tells me I’m wrong. I do, however, think it’s funny when a customer talks themselves into a corner and I get to make them look stupid. For example, someone brought in a Ford Probe GT with a manual transmission and the V6 engine. You had to roll the car down a hill and pop the clutch to start it, because the clutch safety switch was broken. The customer was bragging that he had “Taken engines out before and probably knew 30% more than anyone working in the shop” I then asked him why his car wouldn’t start without being pushed down a hill. He didn’t have an answer. Even though he knew 30% more than I did, according to him. He had managed to shear the plunger looking part off of the clutch switch, so as far as the car new, the clutch was never on the floor, therefore keeping the key from being used to start the car.
Then, there was the customer who came in with a misfire on his Jeep Liberty. It was throwing a P0305 code, meaning a misfire on cylinder 5. Just as an easy test, I unplugged the number 5 coil while the engine was running. There was no change in the idle. Just for grins, I swapped the number 5 coil with the number 1 coil. The misfire followed the coil, which told me that the coil was NFG. The customer came into the shop to ask me what was wrong with his Jeep. The conversation went like this: It should be noted that I will answer a customer’s question exactly as they ask it, and I don’t sugar-coat anything.
Customer: Do you know what’s wrong with my car yet?
Me: Yes I do.
Customer: Well? What’s wrong with it?
Me: You’ve got a bad coil.
Customer: So you think it’s the computer?
Me: No, you have a bad ignition coil.
Customer: So I need a new computer then. I guess I’ll have to make an appointment at the dealer then.
Me: Sir, with all due respect, what part of “You have a bad ignition coil” did you not understand?
Customer. Don’t worry about it. I’ll have the dealer replace the computer for me.I then closed the hood and drove the Jeep out of the shop and parked it backward in a parking space. I make it a point to back into parking spaces, for safety reasons. The customer yelled at me for parking that way. He told me it was illegal to back into a parking space like that. I pretended I was deaf and went back inside.
@3sheetsdiesel…..As your a mechanic i respect your abilities…As i read your responses i get this vibe that you know it all and customres are dumb..Well thats your job is to know more than the customer,or they woudln’t have their car fixed if they knew
I don’t think hes ‘downing’ all customers, i think hes just getting tired and frustrated with the same type of customers that ‘seem’ to know it all or who are just ignorant to advice in general. He’s just venting.
Where i work, some customers really insult our intelligence and i have to bite my tongue very very hard as they seem to ‘know it all’ or there back yard mechanic is the BEST when in fact when you start talking technical terms with these backyard mechanics, they just look at you dumb-founded but still leave thinking they know it all.
This does NOT apply to every automotive customer out there but i think i can relate somewhat to what hes trying to communicate.
You should consider that many of these customers have been burnt by mechanics less competent and less honest than you and are just on guard to prevent that from happening again. Believe the times that I have been burnt, I wished I had questioned them more.
But thanks to ETCG, I am acquiring knowledge helping me to understand the good mechanics better and make better decisions at their shop.
20 years in vacuum science has never made me a better mechanic. When my customer comes to me with a problem, I have to remind myself that I have been at it longer than they have. Props to mechanics who work on cars all week. I have seen at least three TV commercials in two months that give mechanics a bad name. After awhile, the general public thinks it is the norm. I did see an article once called “Dr. Goodwrench”, basically describing the required high skills of the modern mechanic as new technology goes into the automobile.
When it’s the ignition coil and the customer thinks it’s the computer, then throw in the doobler valve to really confuse the diagnostic.
“The computer is working great, because the doobler valve told me it was a bad ignition coil.”
Unfortunately this type of customer behavior happens in far to many industries
I am a Certified Public Accountant, licenses, regulated, must take continuing education, pay for malpractice insurance —-
Yet I too have customer that heard this or that about the tax law and they want me to do it on there returns. Then they get mad when I will not. (I am not going to risk my livelihood for anyone.)So while I do care about my customer, I also know that not everyone can be my customer. I have been know to quick a client and give them back their money.
So I learned a few rules, that may also apply to you
If a customer thinks that I don’t enough —- I don’t
If a customer thinks I am too expensive —– I amThere will always be a good paying customer behind that one. Sometimes the best business is that which you do not get.
Care about you customer, choice them with care.
All right jbone, you wanted to hear about some of the mistakes I’ve made over the years, but you don’t like it when I write novel-length posts. Fair enough. I’ll write out some of the long line of mistakes I’ve made over the years, condensed down to a few sentences each. I’m not trying to be mean or sarcastic as I write this, I’m just trying to bring some humor into this place. Ready? Here we go. In no particular chronological order…
Winter time, I’m attempting to do an alignment on a Toyota Camry. It’s been snowing most of the day, and the wheel wells are packed full of snow. I don’t know if you’ve ever done an alignment on a Camry before, but 9 times out of 10, it requires the use of a torch to loosen the jam nut on the tie rod. I lit the torch and proceeded to warm up the jam nut, but I had forgotten two very important things. Thing number 1, the wheel well was packed full of snow. Thing number 2, heat rises, and as snow melts, it falls off of the thing that it’s attached to. Apparently I scream like a girl when a large chunk of snow falls on my head and runs down the back of my shirt.
Replacing rear struts on a third generation Ford Explorer, marking the strut mount to the spring, but not marking the spring to the strut, only to have to disassemble everything again to get the lower strut hole to line up with the bolt hole openings in the rear suspension.
Attempting to replace the alternator on a first generation Ford Focus with the DOHC engine. It’s actually worlds easier to remove if you unbolt the motor mount and pull the engine forward a bit and then put one of the mount bolts back in it’s hole to hold the engine forward, rather than not doing that and banging a dent in the frame rail to get the lower bolt out. Toom me three hours to remove the alternator, and 10 minutes to put the new one back in.
Not looking close enough at the tires I was mounting on a Mazda Miata. The tires I was installing were asymmetric, meaning that they had a side labeled Inside and a side labeled Outside. I had to re-mount three of them.
Replacing ball joints on a Dodge Durango, getting the upper ball joint out of the knuckle, then moving the brake caliper way out of the way, only to have to remove the upper ball joint a second time because I forgot that the brake hose goes between the upper and lower control arms, and not over the upper one.
Replacing the inner tie rods on a Ford Tempo, and not putting the jam nut on the inner tie rod before I screwed the outer tie rod on, then, after taking it back apart again, breaking the outer tie rod when I went to tighten it’s nut down. The threaded portion sheared right off.
Draining the transmission on a Mitsubishi Galant instead of the engine while doing an oil change. In my defense on that one, both of them use a 17mm drain plug, and in the dark it’s hard to tell which is which.
Spending a day and a half diagnosing a headlight issue on a Subaru Legacy, and completely missing the cause which I should have seen right away. The driver side headlight would only work as a high beam, and as a DRL, the normal lowbeam opearation was inoperative. Well, originally the light didn’t work at all, so I replaced the bulb and all I had was high beams and DRLs. I spent a ton of time tracing wires, only to eventually find a burned out fuse. I should have checked the fuses first, rather than waste all that time tracing wires.
Note, my car has an aftermarket exhaust system on it, and it’s easy to tell when it’s running. This is important for this next little story.
Sitting in my car, with it idling, frantically searching my pockets for my keys. I actually called my wife to bring me the spare set out so I could get to work. She came out of the apartment and laughed at me, because my car was already running.Those are all the ones I’m going to share right now. I’ve got more, but this has proably gotten long enough as it is.
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