“Saw car show where they put car on roller device to measure %difference between left/right wheel. You need to verify performance to legally register car in that locale. Interesting”
Back when I was working as a heavy equipment mechanic at the US army depot . . . as a civilian, in Germany . . . there was an inspector who would go over EVERYTHING when you were done with a vehicle after doing a scheduled service.
And I mean everything. He would make sure every single feature of the vehicle functioned correctly. He made sure every single zerk had been hit, he would take measurements of everything
Part of that included putting the vehicle on a contraption, like you described. If everything was not perfect, he handed the repair order back to you, and marked in what areas the vehicle had failed
And after you fixed the mistakes, the inspector would do another inspection. Because the big shots were smart enough to know that there’s a big difference in saying you’re going to fix something, versus actually doing it
There were a few guys that complained the inspector was being a harda . .
Those were the guys that always got bad marks from the inspector
if its worth doing it s worth doing right. if that equipment was ever needed for active military operations the strict maintenance would have been priceless
That equipment was crap. They had it or something very much like it at NAS Memphis and all civilian cars had to go through the base inspection every year to get a base pass. The right front wheel sensor did not work very well and the measured alignment always showed too much toe in. As a result, every car had to go through the garage to get the right front brake tightened up and the front wheels toed out.
Needless to say, right front brakes wore out faster as did the inside edges of the front tires on every car that was driven on that base.
I can only speak about the inspection process on our base. I can tell you with certainty it was not a joke, and our inspection equipment was not crap
Sorry to hear that your experience was bad
In any case, it’s interesting . . . but ultimately pointless . . . to compare how one base does things versus another base. Different people, perhaps different equipment, etc.
here’s something to consider . . . I said I was a heavy equipment mechanic at that US army depot.
Our inspector did not have anything to do with any civilian vehicles, let alone a “regular” sedan, pickup truck station wagon, etc. Only heavy equipment owned by and used by the US army
The civilian vehicles got inspected somewhere else, and it was a completely different process
if you guys knowingly kept using faulty equipment it sounds like a management or personnel problem. a failure in the chain of command. negligence even, or dereliction of duty
“if you guys knowingly kept using faulty equipment it sounds like a management or personnel problem. a failure in the chain of command. negligence even, or dereliction of duty”
Hmmm. I wouldn’t say that. In the Army you work with what you’ve got. Like everywhere else there are conflicting priorities and limited resources. Just because something is needed doesn’t mean that its needed more than something more important. I guess if anything, they could have passed on requiring readjustment of the brakes and alignment knowing the equipment was faulty but then the IG or some young Lt. would have started screaming falsification of documents.
When I was still at the dealership, we were supposed to use a very specific battery tester, and attach the test results to the repair orders
That’s fine, but the real problem was when the tester showed a bad battery, and the car was still under warranty
Our working shop foreman at the time was a guy who thought he knew everything, and was sure that he was right, and everybody else was wrong. When we wanted to replace a battery for a car that was still under warranty, based on the printout, he wouldn’t allow it. He said the tester was wrong, and that’s the end of it. Beat it, punk . . .
Invariably, a few days later, the customer would call the shop or AAA, complaining of a dead battery. The same customer whose car was denied a warranty battery replacement . . .
In the end, he realized that HE was wrong, not the battery tester. But he was too “modest” to ever admit his errors in judgement. I heard through the gravevine that he realized his mistakes
The situation with the batteries happened many times, usually with the same final results. A call to AAA or the shop that could have been easily prevented
He finally left that dealership, because he wasn’t getting along with the other foreman
We’re just hangling around having a cup of coffee waiting for the next issue is all. Gotta talk about something.
I’d only suggest when you start a new discussion though put “50 Caddy” or something in it to make it easier for some of us to follow the progress. I know I replaced the wheel bearings in my 59 Pontiac but couldn’t for the life of me remember if they were the tapered roller or ball bearings. I had to check my Motors book and sure enough looks like they were still ball bearings in 59 even. I remember driving out the inner and outer races on the thing in the parking lot.
