Meeting people as a mechanic.

[appelingogt]

"What do you mean there is metal debris all over my orfice tube??? Cant you just clean it???"

[Forever_frost]

I'm not a mechanic and I'm about retarded about such things but I just had to give a lecture to my father about changing oil and air filters on a vehicle. He just tops up the oil. The last time his car had an oil change was about 2010 and air filter change around the same time.

[ceyko]

I'm not a mechanic and I'm about retarded about such things but I just had to give a lecture to my father about changing oil and air filters on a vehicle. He just tops up the oil. The last time his car had an oil change was about 2010 and air filter change around the same time.

What's retarded is I've seen 2 trains of thought on this one...

My Dad:
Maintenance nut and gets years out of his equipment/vehicles. Trucks, used hard for hauling/towing and typically gets 250,000 miles out of them before easing up on them for part time use. etc

I have friends that do essentially 0 maintenance and their stuff still lasts a really long time.

I prefer the maintenance route, but sometimes I wonder if the cost would be better used to just buy new parts and repair.

[4king]

I got slimed today. Woman came in asking for oil on her 2004 mustang. Got her a quart and she mentioned she thinks it's completely out of oil and the engine is making a bad sound. Side note I do not work on cars so this is my favorite part of doing this job, I think I blew my engine can you come look at it? Hells yeah!

Go outside to fill up her car and the oil cap is seized into the valve cover. Had to use a hammer and a screw driver to get it off. Put a quart in and go to take a reading, the dip stick is stuck. Put my strength into it and slurp pop I get sludged. The oil mark line is literally burned onto the dip stick and still not reading the oil I just put in.

Sell her 4 more quarts and ask her to start it and sure enough it sounds like it has some damage, lifters sound terrible but no knocking

And the power steering fluid was completely empty. Took an entire bottle, first time I've seen a car take that much

And when I say I got sludged, it literally shit goo on me when it popped out of the dip stick tube.

[LaserSVT]

"What do you mean there is metal debris all over my orfice tube??? Cant you just clean it???"

I have gotten that several times. Look lady, they are $2.12. You are getting a new compressor and drier and you want to gripe over two dollars? Seriously?

So I am talking with my buddy today mentioning how much I hate AC work because people believe so much in those stupid commercials. Constantly explaining to people that cars do not consume refrigerant and if its low its because its leaking. They always say "It dont leak, its just a little low" Yeah, because IT LEAKS. But I digress, so me and my buddy are swapping stories and he had one that I dont think I could top. 2004 M5 lady brings in with an inop AC. Well he spots the issue right away that the low pressure service port has a bad valve. Not thinking she would turn that cheap repair down he showed her the valve and explained thats where you add the refrigerant. She declines the repair and drives off. Three days latter she comes back saying she replaced the valve herself and filled the system up but it still dont work. They say for $100 they will check it out, keep in mind the repair from them was going to be $120 total the first time. She agrees and he notices pink fluid spilled all around the service port and since hes the Waco BMW specialist he recognizes it as BMW coolant. Puts the machine on it and it refuses to evac the system after 10 seconds. He then sees the system has zero pressure. He goes and askes her how much did she put in and she says "About a half gallon" ......?Huh? She said she removed the service port shrader valve and used an eye dropper to fill the system up with coolant and then put the new valve in.
Congratulations ma'am, you just destroyed over $1000 in components alone. She then yelled at him and the owner and said "But he (my friend) said thats what you were going to do!" Apparently they had a good laugh in her face about it. She said shes gonna take it to L&D as we dont rip people off. LOL. She never did come in though or else I would have had this story a week ago. LMAO!
Not sure I would have taken it on. I know the hoses, drier, expansion block and compressor would have to go and i would have to do a serious ac system flush but I have no idea how that may have effected the EVAP or condenser and by the time you replace every component it would be over 2 grand I imagine and shes obviously a cheap skate so would want the minimum done and then come back a week later to bitch that its no longer working agin as it started leaking somewhere else.

[LaserSVT]

What's retarded is I've seen 2 trains of thought on this one...

My Dad:
Maintenance nut and gets years out of his equipment/vehicles. Trucks, used hard for hauling/towing and typically gets 250,000 miles out of them before easing up on them for part time use. etc

I have friends that do essentially 0 maintenance and their stuff still lasts a really long time.

I prefer the maintenance route, but sometimes I wonder if the cost would be better used to just buy new parts and repair.

My best friend got introduced to Mark VIIIs when his father in law gave him his 1993 Mark VIII. He bought it new, was the only driver and gave it to my friend in 2009 with 144,000 miles. He said it was a great car and he never once HAD to do an oil change..... *shock face* So we go to remove the oil filter and it ripped in half. Try to remove the drain plug and it was almost welded to the car. We had to use an impact and then rethread the hole and use a larger drain plug. The oil that came out was just the nastiest oil I have ever seen. Two weeks latter the motor blows.
Great, totaly neglect it and its fine. Give it its very first service and it blows. When we yanked that motor I poped it open and the valve springs looked like a black beehive. Couldnt see any of the windings. LMAO The timing cover was packed with sludge everywhere except where the timing chains ran.
I couldnt fathom a car that was 43k in 1993 money where you would completely neglect it.
When we swapped that motor my buddy wanted to do a trans flush too. I warned him that the trans fluid was so bad if we flushed it then he would lose the trans within 500 miles. Internet told him different so we flushed it and sure enough 400 miles latter and the trans was no longer shifting. Lost reverse and then second and then 3rd.

[mardyn]

^^ why would flushing the transmission cause it to fail? New fluid wash out the old sludge that was keeping it sealed up?


btw... still love hearing all these horror stories from the Service Dept... most people are idiots when it comes to their vehicles and repairs/maintenance.

mardyn

[ceyko]

he never once HAD to do an oil change

Yup, this is exactly what I'm talking about. One guy has an older accord and claims to have not done ANY maintenance in about 100K miles. He is not too much of a bullshitter so I tend to believe him.

All I know is if I tried that, it would not work and I'd be screwed on the side of the road. With a bunch of people telling me "You have to do maintenance you moron."

[Cooter]

^^ why would flushing the transmission cause it to fail? New fluid wash out the old sludge that was keeping it sealed up?

more the breaking up of sludge that ends up in places that were previously sludge free, causing valves to stick, clogging passages, clogging the filter! etc.

[red95gts]

I have gotten that several times. Look lady, they are $2.12. You are getting a new compressor and drier and you want to gripe over two dollars? Seriously?



So I am talking with my buddy today mentioning how much I hate AC work because people believe so much in those stupid commercials. Constantly explaining to people that cars do not consume refrigerant and if its low its because its leaking. They always say "It dont leak, its just a little low" Yeah, because IT LEAKS. But I digress, so me and my buddy are swapping stories and he had one that I dont think I could top. 2004 M5 lady brings in with an inop AC. Well he spots the issue right away that the low pressure service port has a bad valve. Not thinking she would turn that cheap repair down he showed her the valve and explained thats where you add the refrigerant. She declines the repair and drives off. Three days latter she comes back saying she replaced the valve herself and filled the system up but it still dont work. They say for $100 they will check it out, keep in mind the repair from them was going to be $120 total the first time. She agrees and he notices pink fluid spilled all around the service port and since hes the Waco BMW specialist he recognizes it as BMW coolant. Puts the machine on it and it refuses to evac the system after 10 seconds. He then sees the system has zero pressure. He goes and askes her how much did she put in and she says "About a half gallon" ......?Huh? She said she removed the service port shrader valve and used an eye dropper to fill the system up with coolant and then put the new valve in.

Congratulations ma'am, you just destroyed over $1000 in components alone. She then yelled at him and the owner and said "But he (my friend) said thats what you were going to do!" Apparently they had a good laugh in her face about it. She said shes gonna take it to L&D as we dont rip people off. LOL. She never did come in though or else I would have had this story a week ago. LMAO!

Not sure I would have taken it on. I know the hoses, drier, expansion block and compressor would have to go and i would have to do a serious ac system flush but I have no idea how that may have effected the EVAP or condenser and by the time you replace every component it would be over 2 grand I imagine and shes obviously a cheap skate so would want the minimum done and then come back a week later to bitch that its no longer working agin as it started leaking somewhere else.

No such thing as a 2004 M5 and BMW coolant is blue, not pink. Sounds like a fish tale to me...

[LaserSVT]

^^ why would flushing the transmission cause it to fail? New fluid wash out the old sludge that was keeping it sealed up?

Yeah its sludge making the valve body stick but also the clutches are slick from that cooked trans fluid. The grit in the system is whats allowing them to still grab. You clean out the crud and have fresh fluid in it and the clutches start to slip not having the dirty fluid to keep friction on them.
This has been told to me years ago as I really dont work on transmissions but its proven to be right on too many occasions.

No such thing as a 2004 M5 and BMW coolant is blue, not pink. Sounds like a fish tale to me...

Not a story I can take credit for. I may have gotten the year wrong or he could have been BSing me but hes not that type of person so I have no reason to doubt him. He did say it was a V8 so I am thinking 2003 maybe? I am sure about him saying pink coolant though so maybe it was BS.

[03mustangdude]

No such thing as a 2004 M5 and BMW coolant is blue, not pink. Sounds like a fish tale to me...

Ya but unless you buy the blue from bmw or the quart size stuff auto parts stores sell its impossible to find blue.

Pink is just as good but bmw doesn't want you to use it since it isn't phosphate free.


probably it was a 545 some people think every bmw is a M series lol

I'm curious how long it would take with an eyedropper to put in coolant. She probably spent hours doing it

[4king]

I sell the blue stuff, pink, and red

I did not find it far fetched for a mechanics tall tale. Remove the Schrader valve and pour it in. Yellow + green = blue or something. It's been a while since kindergarten though

[Big Dad]

[Forever_frost]

I've seen that done a lot. Or screwing a trailer tail light to the side of the truck or the back bumper