(written on the 27th)
First car of the day was going to a super old 1955 classic oval window ragtop Volkswagen beetle.
I don’t normally go to anything even close to that old, 1996 being my standard cutoff. But he didn’t have anybody to help him, and all he needed was for me to put the belt on because he hadn’t gotten it replaced, end it had shredded off.
I did run into one little bit of a snag… I hadn’t changed the belt on one of those old engines and so long that I had completely forgotten how to do it. I guess that wasn’t really the snag. The snag was that He didn’t have enough shims to make the belt as loose as I would have liked it to have been.
But, there was nothing I could do about that. I suggested that he buy more shims and that he have the belt adjusted when he had the next service for the vehicle, which was going to be very soon anyway, and then he would have extra shims to make it looser. Or… He could just get a bigger belt.
He needed an oil change, and he had an oil leak, so I sent him over to Miguel to have that fixed and to have the belt adjusted again after it had run a bit.
Car number two was a 2010 Lexus GX460 That was a crank no start, supposedly. But she had messaged me this morning and told me that it was starting, so I asked her specifically, do you still want me to come by? I let her know that if I couldn’t reproduce the problem, then I wasn’t going to be able to diagnose it. She told me to go ahead and come anyway.
So I went and tried to get it to mess up, but it just kept running.
I was guessing that it was an issue with either the fuel pump or the fuel pump control module, but both of those were working fine, and the truck was running just fine.
Eventually, I gave up, after I think probably an hour or more of trying, and headed out.
The third car was going to a 2022 Toyota 4Runner that was at the Ford dealership. The customer wanted a pre-purchase inspection, which I figured was going to be a breeze because it was only a 2-year-old Toyota. But nope. I found evidence of it having been in an accident, with multiple issues.
The rear end had been Hit hard enough that The repair job to fix it still left the rear hatch badly misaligned. There was also damage to the front drivers sway bar link, having clearly been hit by something enough to pop the retainer ring off the boot and tear the boot up completely.
Honestly, it was damaged in such a way that I can’t even picture how the damage occurred. There are too many other components in the way to have something like that happen by hitting a big rock in the road or something like that.
It’s a head scratcher. 🤔
After finishing that job, and as I was on my way down south to the next job, the lady with the Lexus GX460 messaged me to let me know that The issue had already happened again. Unfortunately, I was already far away, and I had the rest of the day booked up.
She wasn’t happy.
She started complaining that she had paid me to come out, and she still didn’t know what was wrong. And I’m sitting here thinking, ummm… I asked you specifically, spelling it out in detail that if I couldn’t reproduce the problem, I wouldn’t be able to give you a diagnosis. Why are you getting mad at me when I gave you the information, you rolled the dice, and you lost?
Do you think she’d take responsibility? Nope. Somehow, it was my fault. She had paid money, and she didn’t have a diagnosis, never mind that that exact scenario was spelled out for her, she knew the risks, and she chose to take the risk. But no, it’s my fault that she gambled and lost.
I wasn’t happy.
Car number four was a 2012 Honda Civic that wouldn’t start. Turned out that it needed a starter, like all the other Honda civics. Starter out. Starter in. Job done.
Next job was doing brake pads on a 2016 Nissan rogue. Aside from the fact that I was still dealing with an angry Lexus owner, the job went relatively decently. No major issues or time suckers. Pretty amazing, considering it was a brake job.
Car number 6 was a 2021 Jeep compass that turned out to need just the auxiliary battery. That job was way out in Farmington, but It was easy enough.
Car number 7, and the last job of the day was a 2021 Jeep Wrangler that also needed an auxiliary battery. It’s a lot more of a pain in the butt in the Wrangler than it is in the compass. The compass, they put it right next to the main battery. In the Wrangler, they put it underneath the main battery, underneath the main battery tray, and it’s easiest to access from underneath. It’s not awful, but it is a bit of an annoying pain in the butt. Fortunately, it went better than the last Jeep battery that I did that had a battery in that same spot, so I was grateful for that.
Struggling.
~ stephen
Lift the world.
Lift the World 