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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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[quote=”EricTheCarGuy” post=41262]The service writer not asking if the customer has a wheel lock. Then spending a half hour looking for it in the car only to find the customer didn’t even know they had wheel locks.[/quote]
lol
service writers and service managers that sit around playing on the computer all day, then when they decide to wander into the shop, they say “You about done with that?” or “Are we going to have the Lexus out today?”
service writers that forget to order your parts..
waiting on parts
ANY waiter of any sort, especially LOF
BS AllData times
Re-checks from techs that don’t work there anymore
when customers take 2 weeks to come pay for the work, so you have to wait to get paid
RO hogs – they’ve already got more work than they can handle, yet they still take the next RO in the box
wrong parts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WTF stupid ass parts guys
aftermarket cheap parts, that just dont seem to fit the same
Volkswagens
Cheap, or broken shop equipment
Free diagnostic because “well we are already going to be in there anyway..”
we get paid .2 for state inspection here (texas). I can get most done in ten minutes, but the problem is, like everyone says, very rarely do they buy anything that is recommended. all they care about is that sticker
They never ask about a wheel lock key!!!! Ive spent 20 minutes looking for a key, called the customer, just to realize that the key is not even in the car, or it is in some ridiculous spot that makes absolutely no %$#$#% sense.
you know.. wheel locks, in general, just piss me off
I had a good one today, I had 3 trucks in at the same time today (only 2 guys on Saturday). When a guy comes in with a lawnmower tire then asks me if i can fix it right away, I just pointed to the 3 trucks and said no but if I get your number I can call you when it is done. He got mad but left his tire and walked back out, He came in an hour later and asked if it was done yet and once again I said no. He just couldn’t get it that we were very busy with what was scheduled and couldn’t drop what we were doing to fix his tire right away.
[quote=”vbtoytech” post=63487]Agree with many of the above and could add many more. The biggest one not mentioned so far is state safety inspections (VA in my case). Rant follows…
-Inspection stations are only allowed to charge $16 for a passenger car, but most dealers do them for free if the vehicle was purchased there. We see many cars only 1x a year for their free inspection & these ‘customers’ never buy anything.
-We are paid .3 per inspection. To actually check everything you are supposed to + enter the information in the system + write the sticker, in addition to the courtesy inspection, service pricing, etc. takes an absolute minimum of half-an-hour. One must risk getting in trouble with the state police or lose one’s shirt doing things properly.
-There is almost no enforcement/penalty for expired inspections, even though they are all in the database – the state police know if your safety approval expired. Either make it required and enforce it or get rid of it.
-My #1 source of negative surveys is customers whose cars fail state inspection. Customers often go to another, less-scrupulous inspection station and pass, after I have told them $xxx.xx in work is needed. I never fail a car for a bogus reason to make a sale, and everyone has 15 days to make repairs at any shop they choose. When another shop passes a car I have failed, w/o requiring any repair, it reflects poorly on both me and the inspection system.
-The state inspection code has many arbitrary and illogical provisions. There are things that I do not perceive as an actual safety threat that are supposed to fail and several things I believe are dangerous that are allowed.
-Inspection stations are allowed to inspect by appointment, but must always have a ‘first-come, first-serve’ inspection lane open. Read: waiters all day, every day. Oh, and we have to inspect whatever comes in (any make/model, motorcycles, trailers) even if we don’t generally work on it.
-Vehicles should be serviced a minimum of 2x a year. Safety inspection is required at least 1x a year, but can be done at any requested interval. Customers come in one day for an oil change, then 4-1/2 weeks later for a state inspection (just long enough we have to fill out the MPI again).
-I hate telling people they have to do something. There are dangerous cars on the road with or without the inspection program. I am in the business to fix and maintain cars, not to enforce the law. With inspections on a solid third of service orders, one is forced to walk the line.[/quote]
I agree that state safety inspections are a joke. Where I live, the shops are using them to milk more work out of their customers because there is no money in checking all the crap that is required. There are also customers who will not fix anything unless their sticker is expired or their car gets tagged with a rejection.
I moved to Virginia last year and the safety inspections run by the state police seems to be quite anal when it comes to certain things. I have also known the State Police to demand repairs are made when there is nothing wrong, its just abuse of their authority.
Had a nice surprise waiting for me on the center console of a Jeep Grand Cherokee at work yesterday. Customer brought in the car complaining of noise when braking. Go to the Jeep, open the door, and the wheel lock is sitting right there. Did a fist pump, felt like a boss.
I don’t know if this has been posted before but it annoys the hell out of me when women have 1 key on a dozen key chains.
[quote=”brokemechanic3000″ post=66018]I don’t know if this has been posted before but it annoys the hell out of me when women have 1 key on a dozen key chains.[/quote]
It’s not even always just women, but yeah when the keys weigh 5 pounds, but it’s just one key and a dozen worthless trinkets
Customer brought his car in yesterday. 2001 VW Golf. GIANT subwoofer in the trunk that literally filled the entire trunk space….. wheel lock was trapped underneath this thing and I wasn’t going to take it out.
Lived in VA for 10 years… failed a couple of state inspections on a couple vehicles. On one vehicle I had a friend clear the CEL and pass the vehicle (1998 Ford Probe I believe.)
I was young, stupid, and automotively ignorant back then. Glad I don’t have to put up with that state inspection anymore though.
[quote=”Grease_monkey92″ post=57688]Customers leaving their car right outside my shutters, especially when they can see me bringing one off my bay.
Customers removing service books/locking wheel nut keys from their car, losing them and not telling me, leaving me to search their car for half an hour. The service book only needs to be removed by me or another tech. The locking wheel nut key lives in your car, if you really have a genuine reason to remove it, then FFS put it back
Kids/pets in cars…both leave nasty smells and mess
When supervisors ask “Is it done yet?” when the car is still in bits, and I am still wrenching…does it look like its done yet? It’ll be done when its done and not a second f***ing sooner!
People losing my tools, returning them dirty or just dumping them in a pile in my bay, tool thieves but worst of all when I lose a tool and have nobody to blame but myself.
When somebody volunteers to hold my light for me and then promptly shines it so they can see what I am doing, but I cannot.
Customers that think they know better.
Customers that wan to watch, up close in my bay, suggesting things for me to do.
Customers that insist on a specific time because they can only come at that time, and then show up an hour late.
But really not much gets on my nerves and I am usually a pleasure to work with :)[/quote]
Shit dude, it’s like I was reading my own post there for a while…
I’m gonna say:
Wheel locks with cheap-ass factory wheels. Honestly, they’d be doing you a favor to steal them.
Warranty audio system repair when the entire system is aftermarket.
-Actually, trying to repair anything aftermarket pisses me offSenior techs shitting on me by giving me all of their tires.
Going over to the Q Lube to fetch Dexos or Mobil 1 only to find no cars inside, and/or everybody playing a game of “grab ass”. Motherfuckers.
MPI on a car with under 30K miles.
Fucking GM Tech2 wants you to build the year/make/model/platform/options/engine/trans/HVAC/Radio/every other God Damn thing when my $200 MATCO scanner only says: “2011 Chevrolet Silverado 6.6L Automatic. Press (button) yes or (button) no.” Yet, the Tech2 costs north of $1,000.
Customers “fish bowling” me. -What do you do when you see a fish in a bowl? You stare at him & piss him off while he’s working on your car…
Washington State Emissions Tests. Somebody told me that certification is “Voluntary”. Well, I was VolunTold to get it. Fucking horseshit is .2 per car. They charge $45 when these idiot customers could go 10 minutes down the road, for $15! Every single time you use the damn thing, the radar bar-code reader won’t read the VIN, it wants to update or test every fucking component of the system. I have to drop everything to do it. The computer breaks, and I’m the asshole. It’s not my fault the god damn thing failed it’s own calibration test. Shoot it!
I have an idea: How about if the Government and those cock-suckers over at the EPA go and fuck themselves?I also hate it when people ask me for a hand, but then they don’t return the favor…
I got lucky for the most part, my first shop was family, second was run by me and third I owned.
The thing that aggravate me the most was trying to fix cars that had been previously worked on by someone that had zero clue of what to do.
and also*Customers that had spent tons of money at hack shops and now are to broke to fix it the correct way.
*Customers that think a diagnostic fee is a rip off, yet I spent 3 hours and used $15,000 dollars of my own equipment and 20+ years of experience to do just that.
*Customers that have already “diagnosed” their car and insist on replacing parts that are perfectly fine than getting pissed at me when that did not fix it.
“Yeah my check engine light is on and the parts store already scanned it and said I needed all 4 O2 sensors.”
“Sir, that is not a proper diagnostic and it is very unlikely that all 4 have failed at once. Allow me to find out what is really wrong”
” No thanks, the part store did the diagnostic for free and I already bought the parts”
2 days later
“Yeah,, you supposedly fixed this, but the light is back on, that’s covered in your warranty right?”
*part store employees that “think” they know more than I do even though I do this 40+ hours a week and they work on cars once in a while.
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