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Well, my relationship with my local garage over the years has gone from, oh crap my cars broken to, I go there to get same day parts or I pretty much tell them exactly what’s wrong and what I want investigated / fixing.
They call me big head now.
I always buy second hand cars, they always work better after I’ve had them a while. Now I know my cars better now. I’m finding I spend more money at the garage even though I do alot of the servicing and work myself. Especially when I know exactly what needs doing but I know, I lack certain expensive tools or or really don’t fancy the job ( or under my nasty breakable air intake manifold) . The only downside with them is they charge time for labour, but I really don’t begrudge that because they have never given me any bullcrap about what needs doing to my cars. nor do they overcharge and they warn me if something is likely to go wrong like ceased up bolt’s nuts and the like.
The only time I’ve gone anywhere else is when I had a CV boot leak and my local tyre places was dumb enough to give me a fixed price quote for the job( and I knew my axel bolts where likely ceased up good and proper )2 expected hours labour became 4, I really didn’t fancy this job myself and unfortunately a leaking CV boot is an MOT Test failure here else I might have gone with Eric’s plan of waiting until I need a new Axel.
I haven’t had an Issue on the yearly MOT test in years I haven’t been aware off. I haven’t had a break down yet since I’ve been driving.
The Video is great, I totally agree as a customer I respond much better to be given a choice or recommendations, people usually respond much better to that in my experience as an IT tech. In IT and electronics repair people still sometimes surprise me. Sometimes when I lay out the situation a few ways to sort it in English as much as possible and my recommendation, sometimes I give the customer enough info to make a totally different decision that’s clearly better for them.
I’ve made a few. not just cars.
In when working on a TV PSU board’s and PC motherboards I managed to burn my fingerprints off for a few months. more than once. ( if you have patience you leave your hands in running cold water as long as it takes it doesn’t even hurt) I’m always cutting my fingers on computer cases.
As for as the cars goes. I’ve left the expansion tank cap off a few times, oil cap. Working on a neighbours Kia Sedona Diesel car which had a huge oil filter and had been running with out an air filter had some horrifically dirty oil. The filter slipped and I managed to get that dirty oil all over me. took half an hour of scrubbing to get that out.
worst one and expensive when you haven got money was 2 weeks ago on my 1998 mk4 golf , I was putting copper grease on the back of my brake pads because a few weeks earlier I needed to do a quick front brake disc pad change because I had a sticking calliper. 1 pad was down to 1mm left so it needed doing.
Any how greased the back of the pads up. Thought I was done but, I realise it said piston side on the pad through the alloys. whipped it all off again put the pads the right way round. just putting the second calliper bolt/slider in and cross threded it enough that it wouldn’t tighten an it stripped out the thread.
It was on a Sunday too and I needed the car later. I also have a lack of some tools, I wasn’t about to spend £90 on a drill, jig and tap in thread kit, so I gently drove it to the garage next day.
New calliper pins are only readily available at the VW dealer in my case £14 each and non stock item too. Next day they tried to drill it out to fit a new thread but it snapped, so I had to get a new wheel hub. 🙁 VW wanted £190 for a new one. I managed to get one at a nearby breakers yard, but without a breaker bar or the 36mm socket for the hub nut, I got them to remove it. but they gave me the run around, and they put it on a delivery van doing rounds and ending up at another branch when I said I’d go collect it at the yard :angry: . So ended up killing 2 and a half hour at the other parts store they where delivering it to instead of driving for 90 minutes home and back. fortunatly the wheel bearing was good, spair break caliper still attached which is also the one that was sticking.
In total the mistake cost me £160, but at least I have a spair break calliper if my old one keeps sticking.
Got me to London to see my fav NFL team the St louis RAMS at Wembley. 200 mile round trip on £20 of LPG :cheer:
I’ve made a few. not just cars.
In when working on a TV PSU board’s and PC motherboards I managed to burn my fingerprints off for a few months. more than once. ( if you have patience you leave your hands in running cold water as long as it takes it doesn’t even hurt) I’m always cutting my fingers on computer cases.
As for as the cars goes. I’ve left the expansion tank cap off a few times, oil cap. Working on a neighbours Kia Sedona Diesel car which had a huge oil filter and had been running with out an air filter had some horrifically dirty oil. The filter slipped and I managed to get that dirty oil all over me. took half an hour of scrubbing to get that out.
worst one and expensive when you haven got money was 2 weeks ago on my 1998 mk4 golf , I was putting copper grease on the back of my brake pads because a few weeks earlier I needed to do a quick front brake disc pad change because I had a sticking calliper. 1 pad was down to 1mm left so it needed doing.
Any how greased the back of the pads up. Thought I was done but, I realise it said piston side on the pad through the alloys. whipped it all off again put the pads the right way round. just putting the second calliper bolt/slider in and cross threded it enough that it wouldn’t tighten an it stripped out the thread.
It was on a Sunday too and I needed the car later. I also have a lack of some tools, I wasn’t about to spend £90 on a drill, jig and tap in thread kit, so I gently drove it to the garage next day.
New calliper pins are only readily available at the VW dealer in my case £14 each and non stock item too. Next day they tried to drill it out to fit a new thread but it snapped, so I had to get a new wheel hub. 🙁 VW wanted £190 for a new one. I managed to get one at a nearby breakers yard, but without a breaker bar or the 36mm socket for the hub nut, I got them to remove it. but they gave me the run around, and they put it on a delivery van doing rounds and ending up at another branch when I said I’d go collect it at the yard :angry: . So ended up killing 2 and a half hour at the other parts store they where delivering it to instead of driving for 90 minutes home and back. fortunatly the wheel bearing was good, spair break caliper still attached which is also the one that was sticking.
In total the mistake cost me £160, but at least I have a spair break calliper if my old one keeps sticking.
Got me to London to see my fav NFL team the St louis RAMS at Wembley. 200 mile round trip on £20 of LPG :cheer: