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I’m sure a lot of us in the industry have been in similar situations, especially when we were younger.
In this scenario, I would apologize once, perform the repairs as requested by your boss (at your cost), pack my tools and roll out.
You are not a bad person and this event does not influence your abilities as a technician. There are a lot of professions out there in which “you only work until your first bad day” and an automotive technician is one of them. Man-up for a day, fix what you can and move on.
Fortunately, you don’t have to list every job you have ever had on your resume or work application. It is your choice. I have had jobs in which I have been fired that I do not list because I know I will get a bad recommendation (ok, i got in the boss’s face one day and they fired me over something minor and stupid; there was an inherent personality conflict.) Also, there was another time I bumped a car with my company truck once and was fired. Did it stop me? Was I a bad person or a bad technician? No. My career at that company simply lasted as long as my first bad day. I learned from this early on and have been successful at a lot of different jobs since then.
I’m sure a lot of us in the industry have been in similar situations, especially when we were younger.
In this scenario, I would apologize once, perform the repairs as requested by your boss (at your cost), pack my tools and roll out.
You are not a bad person and this event does not influence your abilities as a technician. There are a lot of professions out there in which “you only work until your first bad day” and an automotive technician is one of them. Man-up for a day, fix what you can and move on.
Fortunately, you don’t have to list every job you have ever had on your resume or work application. It is your choice. I have had jobs in which I have been fired that I do not list because I know I will get a bad recommendation (ok, i got in the boss’s face one day and they fired me over something minor and stupid; there was an inherent personality conflict.) Also, there was another time I bumped a car with my company truck once and was fired. Did it stop me? Was I a bad person or a bad technician? No. My career at that company simply lasted as long as my first bad day. I learned from this early on and have been successful at a lot of different jobs since then.
couple of things I would try:
One thing we like to do in the shop is to try to ‘move’ the suspected source of the vibration… get a tire rotation and see if the source of the vibration moves. If it does, then look for faults in the tire rim.
If no change, I would probably take a closer look at steering and suspension. Grab a buddy and perform a “dry park test“; look for play in various bushings, specifically ball joints and control arm bushings. Look for play in the rack & pinion inner and outer tie rod and tie rod ends.
Next, perform a “front-end shakedown;” get the car in the air and grab the biggest crowbar you can find. Then apply force on all the front end suspension components. Force the control arm bushing to move.. apply force to the ball joints. Put your hand on the rack and pinion and shake it around..
** Any play in any suspension component, bushing or ball joint is a fail and the component must be replaced. **
Helpful Links:
There are also other possible causes for vibration, driveshaft phasing, weighted flywheel, harmonic balancer and/or balance shaft and balanced brake drums could also cause vibrations, but these possibilities are less common and are usually tied to a specific event (major repair, engine repair, hitting a pot hole, collision, etc.)
couple of things I would try:
One thing we like to do in the shop is to try to ‘move’ the suspected source of the vibration… get a tire rotation and see if the source of the vibration moves. If it does, then look for faults in the tire rim.
If no change, I would probably take a closer look at steering and suspension. Grab a buddy and perform a “dry park test“; look for play in various bushings, specifically ball joints and control arm bushings. Look for play in the rack & pinion inner and outer tie rod and tie rod ends.
Next, perform a “front-end shakedown;” get the car in the air and grab the biggest crowbar you can find. Then apply force on all the front end suspension components. Force the control arm bushing to move.. apply force to the ball joints. Put your hand on the rack and pinion and shake it around..
** Any play in any suspension component, bushing or ball joint is a fail and the component must be replaced. **
Helpful Links:
There are also other possible causes for vibration, driveshaft phasing, weighted flywheel, harmonic balancer and/or balance shaft and balanced brake drums could also cause vibrations, but these possibilities are less common and are usually tied to a specific event (major repair, engine repair, hitting a pot hole, collision, etc.)
I think you are on to something with your contamination diagnosis. furthermore, i have legitimate concerns being that alldata specifically addresses this issue with total replacement of the major brake components. It may be possible to conclude that the seals in the master cylinder and caliper pistons may also be compromised as a result of the contamination.
Brakes are high-liability; it’s a matter of life and death. I would hate for your brakes to fail at the wrong time. The good news is that if you decide to replace your calipers, it’s a relatively easy DIY job… save some $$$ by doing it yourself.
[edit:]
it is possible to do a rebuild of your calipers, replacing the piston seals with new ones. this is not a common practice and perhaps could be considered a lost art; however, in your case i believe you might benefit from learning to overhaul calipers. the main issue of course is just being able to find a rebuild kit specific to your application:I think you are on to something with your contamination diagnosis. furthermore, i have legitimate concerns being that alldata specifically addresses this issue with total replacement of the major brake components. It may be possible to conclude that the seals in the master cylinder and caliper pistons may also be compromised as a result of the contamination.
Brakes are high-liability; it’s a matter of life and death. I would hate for your brakes to fail at the wrong time. The good news is that if you decide to replace your calipers, it’s a relatively easy DIY job… save some $$$ by doing it yourself.
[edit:]
it is possible to do a rebuild of your calipers, replacing the piston seals with new ones. this is not a common practice and perhaps could be considered a lost art; however, in your case i believe you might benefit from learning to overhaul calipers. the main issue of course is just being able to find a rebuild kit specific to your application:having worked in a parts store at one point in my life, one option you have available to you that a lot of people don’t know about is to actually bring the belt into a parts store (let’s say autozone for example.) There, they can put it on their measuring tool and get the belt that will most closely match what you got.
while in there, you could also request a free belt routing diagram for your vehicle.
having worked in a parts store at one point in my life, one option you have available to you that a lot of people don’t know about is to actually bring the belt into a parts store (let’s say autozone for example.) There, they can put it on their measuring tool and get the belt that will most closely match what you got.
while in there, you could also request a free belt routing diagram for your vehicle.
Everyone could do what they would consider to be the “perfect brake job”… but even with brand new pads and rotors it’s stil a good possibility to develop brake pulsation. This is due to “stacked tolerances” between the steering knuckle, wheel hub, and the rotor being out of spec. So.. there are a couple of things that can be done to correct “lateral runnout:”
- Cut your brand new rotors out of the box with an “on-the-car” brake lathe. This will cut the rotor specific to the hub, on that specific wheel, of your specific vehicle.
- Use a ‘spacer’ to bring the runnout within spec:
No one ever uses a dial indicator on their rotors. Every DIY’er who has ever ‘pad-slapped’ has never done a proper brake job because they have never measured runnout; most people do not even know what a dial indicator is.
**The tolerances for lateral runnout are among the tightest tolerances on an automobile** If there is any room for forgiveness… it is measured in thousandths of an inch.
So, you can either correct for lateral runnout, or continue to cut your rotors every month.
Everyone could do what they would consider to be the “perfect brake job”… but even with brand new pads and rotors it’s stil a good possibility to develop brake pulsation. This is due to “stacked tolerances” between the steering knuckle, wheel hub, and the rotor being out of spec. So.. there are a couple of things that can be done to correct “lateral runnout:”
- Cut your brand new rotors out of the box with an “on-the-car” brake lathe. This will cut the rotor specific to the hub, on that specific wheel, of your specific vehicle.
- Use a ‘spacer’ to bring the runnout within spec:
No one ever uses a dial indicator on their rotors. Every DIY’er who has ever ‘pad-slapped’ has never done a proper brake job because they have never measured runnout; most people do not even know what a dial indicator is.
**The tolerances for lateral runnout are among the tightest tolerances on an automobile** If there is any room for forgiveness… it is measured in thousandths of an inch.
So, you can either correct for lateral runnout, or continue to cut your rotors every month.
when it comes to broken or rounded bolts, cutting and bending metal… let’s not play around here: use a stick or mig welder a tack a big chunk of metal to that drain plug and wrench that mother off. the idea is loosely based on these ideas:
videos:
then go down to autozone and get a brand new drain plug for $4:
You mentioned you’d like to try adding heat… here is one video by mr. car guy:
A stuck drain plug should only take 2 to 5 minutes to get that drain plug out; not that difficult if you have the right tools.
They all seem like good ideas and I wish I had the money for any of those tools
Take it down to the local machine shop and they’d probably do it for cheap… they might even do it for free (what’s 5 minutes of labor cost?) Or, take it down to the local community college with an automotive program. Talk to the program director and he’ll probably have one of his students do it for you. My college actually took in cars off the street for repair as part of our academic curriculum, so it does happen.
