Home › Forums › Stay Dirty Lounge › Technicians Only › Technician Pet Peeves?
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December 9, 2012 at 4:19 am #483999
Post the things that really drive you up a wall. I will start.
Mr. drops his second set of wheels off to have winter tires swapped on and then decides when he comes back to have you put them on. You already flagged the job and got paid for it. Now you have to take your place out of line for a new RO with more work to earn a living off of to pull this jackasses car in, for free, and take his old wheels off and put the ones you just put tires on and then pack up the ones you just took off all for free. All the while watching a nice gravy RO go to the guy in line behind you. It’s even worse when you are actually working on a car and have to stop while you are on a good pace to make money to do it.
I also hate when you are working on a car that is paying out 14 hours of work and it’s a Saturday and you need that 14 hours to make a week and you are down to the wire and someone comes in for a waiter oil change that pays 0.3 and 0.3 for a rotate and you end up not finishing the good paying job for a measly 0.6.
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January 21, 2013 at 5:30 am #494573
my biggest thing is a dirty car but i cznt stand the politics in a dealership.and wy so much hate for the newguy. i worked at a d3ealer and a shop. both have really bad politics. i noticed that the guys at the shop were alot more execpting and wanting to teach.when the dearlship was like f*** you. when i was demoted at my dealer job to porter it got worse. the car salesman demaned not asked demanded that their cars should stop the line of thirity waiters get done. in that situation it’s like what do i do u know?. ill be honest everybody even dealers would be better off if we left our ego’s at home
January 30, 2013 at 8:18 am #497043[quote=”nwtech” post=46004][quote=”nickwarner” post=44621]Maybe people aren’t going to Jiffy lube because of all the hidden cameras that have busted them for not doing what they charge for, right down to replacing the filter and greasing anything during a LOF.
Jiffy Lube also has a new ad campaign claiming to be the good guys and all of us are trying to rob customers blind, so add Jiffy Lube to my pet peeve list. Angry mob anyone?[/quote]
That new ad campaign is complete bullshit, they’re the ones who up sell everything and don’t have a clue, i lasted 2 weeks at a jiffy lube when i was like 18 before i just walked out, couldn’t deal with the morons, I say angry mob, but lets ride our toolboxes and cherry pickers like in the commercial, just saying that part looked fun[/quote]
I concur. Riding tool boxes, Cherry pickers, and Creepers looks like a hoot. Can we attach engines to go faster?
January 31, 2013 at 5:54 am #497387I hate Car Mechanics that don’t know what they are talking about and are still trying to rob people. Or the ones that smoke as they work. With all the various chemicals in the vehicle you have to be on crack to smoke as you work.
I guess these pieces of trash have lived too long and don’t value their own lives.
What pissed me off most though is Shop Politics. If they don’t like you. No matter what you are out. So my response to that is STEAL CUSTOMERS FROM OTHER PEOPLES SHOPS. BETTER PRICES AND SERVICE.
January 31, 2013 at 11:08 am #497442[quote=”drthrift035″ post=47697]I hate Car Mechanics that don’t know what they are talking about and are still trying to rob people. Or the ones that smoke as they work. With all the various chemicals in the vehicle you have to be on crack to smoke as you work.
I guess these pieces of trash have lived too long and don’t value their own lives.
What pissed me off most though is Shop Politics. If they don’t like you. No matter what you are out. So my response to that is STEAL CUSTOMERS FROM OTHER PEOPLES SHOPS. BETTER PRICES AND SERVICE.[/quote]
FIANLLY!! someone get the smoking thing and shop politics.i hate “dirty” shops if you get what i mean. if you dont i mean dishonest shops.i hate being the person that had to say well they stripped the bolts out of the caliper braket.they said you need a trans flush cough cough midas. the belts on the inner part of the tires are showing.i had this happen at a shop i used to work at. poor kid didnt know the wiser.i like making money but i wont lie and cheat someone karmas a you know what.i use the moto that scottykilmer uses, be honest with them and they’l spread the word and cars and buissness will bloomFebruary 2, 2013 at 11:38 am #498080Thing I dislike the most is when you try to do things right and be fair to the customer, but you have a greedy shop owner behind the service desk ripping people off. And then they wonder why business slows down and the phone doesn’t ring.. I know we need to make money, but that’s not the way. I say be fair and honest and your business will grow slow and steady.. that’s how the race is won..
February 7, 2013 at 5:16 am #499883Too many to list, I’ll go with most recent. Ford Focus towed in DOA. Broken timing belt. Service writes it up $900.00. Customer promptly tows it out. Shop gets $0.00. Seals, water pump, timing kit all nice things to do. Needed a belt. In this economy some is better than 0. Maybe they overfeed the service writers in this shop. The tech was not happy.
February 7, 2013 at 7:10 am #499906I get what you are saying. I used to work at a place that would do stuff like that and then we loose the sale. They lost more sales than they got. But IIRC that motor has plastic idler pulleys, so the timing kit is a necessity, alot of times its not the timing belt that breaks its actually a pulley has come apart.
February 7, 2013 at 4:00 pm #499940[quote=”Mechtech” post=48897]Too many to list, I’ll go with most recent. Ford Focus towed in DOA. Broken timing belt. Service writes it up $900.00. Customer promptly tows it out. Shop gets $0.00. Seals, water pump, timing kit all nice things to do. Needed a belt. In this economy some is better than 0. Maybe they overfeed the service writers in this shop. The tech was not happy.[/quote]
I can totally agree with the statement. Something is better than nothing. More people need to stand up and do the same thing.
February 12, 2013 at 8:09 am #501364Found another on that makes me crazy. Crank no start or no crank Why is that little bit of info so hard to get out of people.
February 12, 2013 at 9:52 am #501375Dropping/losing my tools that cost big $ into the “black hole” .. Anything can apply here 😆
February 12, 2013 at 4:24 pm #501391Noises, most annoying gremlin ever
customer complains about a “noise when driving” You hear a noise and find it, customer approves the repair, customer comes back and it is one of the other 10 noises his 15 year old unmaintained POS is making, and worse when it actually only does it stopped and in gear, that is not while driving. Since my shop opened I make the customer come with me and point it out, It is usually not doing it with a tech in the car either, lol
February 13, 2013 at 5:07 am #501657People who refuse your recommendation to do the timing belt claiming you’re ripping them off. Then 4 months later come in on the hook with a broken timing belt on their interference engine that now needs a head too and accuses you of sabotaging them for not going the belt when you told them to. Never mind the fact that the car has the factory belt with 150,000 on it. But good thing they have Facebook, Twitter and god knows what else to spread the truth about the evil scam artist mechanics! They can operate complex software programs, get college degrees, can’t read with their own two eyes the maintenance schedule the factory put in a fucking owner’s manual. Oh wait, those guys are in on the scam too I guess even though the factory didn’t make a dime on it.
I’m thinking of getting some prison jumpsuits with DOC numbers on them to replace my shop uniform and see if that makes them trust me any more or any less. Maybe they’d be less likely to say it to my face if they thought I was on parole anyway.
February 13, 2013 at 5:27 am #501662that is so true, ran into that one many times on belts and other things
February 18, 2013 at 8:15 pm #502923Great thread, haven’t been on this forum in a while and I’m liking this technician’s section. I can relate to basically everything I’m reading.
Some of my personal pet peeves in the trade.
There’s a window so customers can see in the shop 10 feet from my hoist, and I’m always center of attention trying to work. Pounding the crap out of a seized wheel bearing or rotor, or trying to remove a bumper cover as gingerly as I can on a $70,000 Cadillac to change a warranty headlight bulb or ballast with the owner standing there watching every move I make. Gets on my nerves real quick. Go down to the damn waiting room and sit on your ass and watch tv, the advisor will be down when I’m done. Some customers will stand there and stare at you for 2 hours while you do all the work on their car. Drives me nuts! Shouldn’t even have a window looking in, if they have a question when the car is going to be ready go to the advisor.
Filthy vehicles for sure, even though I’m not the cleanest person in the world either, but holy crap. Bringing their car in to have a power seat checked and there’s spilt milk smells, dirty diapers and the underside of the seat is crammed full of garbage. Yeah, smells great in the 90 degree heat and yeah, thanks for making me clean all your crap out of the way so I can diagnose the problem.
People blaming you for a scratch or dent that was on their car for 10 years.
People who come back complaining or blaming you for something totally unrelated to what you fixed. “Ever since you repaired my transmission I have a brake pulsation”
Anything to do with the Enclave/Acadia/Traverse platform. Seems like anything you gotta do to these things you have to drop the engine out, then the LR cradle cage nut brakes free and spins, gotta cut a hole in the floor under the brake pedal to weld it all back together. Also on these 6T70’s when the 3/5/R wave plate breaks and the shop expects me to bastardize tools together to do all the required work to repair them and don’t buy the right tools and I lose my shirt on them.
When GM comes out with these stupid maintenance specials with LOFs and we get paid jack to do them, the answer from the service manager is to sell work to make the time up. Yeah that’s really fiesable on a 2012 with 5000 miles on them. “Oh yeah you need a coolant flush, brake services and may as well do a trans service while you’re here”…. give me a break.
I could go on forever, gotta give it a break for now, blood pressure is getting high lol.
February 18, 2013 at 10:22 pm #502936[quote=”Shaun_300″ post=50381]Great thread, haven’t been on this forum in a while and I’m liking this technician’s section. I can relate to basically everything I’m reading.
Some of my personal pet peeves in the trade.
There’s a window so customers can see in the shop 10 feet from my hoist, and I’m always center of attention trying to work. Pounding the crap out of a seized wheel bearing or rotor, or trying to remove a bumper cover as gingerly as I can on a $70,000 Cadillac to change a warranty headlight bulb or ballast with the owner standing there watching every move I make. Gets on my nerves real quick. Go down to the damn waiting room and sit on your ass and watch tv, the advisor will be down when I’m done. Some customers will stand there and stare at you for 2 hours while you do all the work on their car. Drives me nuts! Shouldn’t even have a window looking in, if they have a question when the car is going to be ready go to the advisor.
Filthy vehicles for sure, even though I’m not the cleanest person in the world either, but holy crap. Bringing their car in to have a power seat checked and there’s spilt milk smells, dirty diapers and the underside of the seat is crammed full of garbage. Yeah, smells great in the 90 degree heat and yeah, thanks for making me clean all your crap out of the way so I can diagnose the problem.
People blaming you for a scratch or dent that was on their car for 10 years.
People who come back complaining or blaming you for something totally unrelated to what you fixed. “Ever since you repaired my transmission I have a brake pulsation”
Anything to do with the Enclave/Acadia/Traverse platform. Seems like anything you gotta do to these things you have to drop the engine out, then the LR cradle cage nut brakes free and spins, gotta cut a hole in the floor under the brake pedal to weld it all back together. Also on these 6T70’s when the 3/5/R wave plate breaks and the shop expects me to bastardize tools together to do all the required work to repair them and don’t buy the right tools and I lose my shirt on them.
When GM comes out with these stupid maintenance specials with LOFs and we get paid jack to do them, the answer from the service manager is to sell work to make the time up. Yeah that’s really fiesable on a 2012 with 5000 miles on them. “Oh yeah you need a coolant flush, brake services and may as well do a trans service while you’re here”…. give me a break.
I could go on forever, gotta give it a break for now, blood pressure is getting high lol.[/quote]
dont forget the lovely oil filter location burnsarm and hand just getting the darn thing out. -
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