Well what can I say? Seems to me that makes the case for customer diagnosis once in a while. The customer may be more interested at times in their own problem and spending more time and effort on researching the potential cause. Cars or medicine. Not saying all the time but sometimes. Although I did tell the doctor once that I didn’t think it was appendicitis because it didn’t fit the symptoms in the book. He told me that the symptoms don’t always follow what’s in the book and sure enough he was right-a burst appendix. Glad I didn’t diagnose myself or I would be writing this from the great beyond.
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hmmm this thread is becoming a pain also…
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I can understand fully the replacement of a part at a customer request. What I take issue with is that same customer going ballistic and making accusations if that part replacement doesn’t cure the problem or they don’t like the bad news they receive at some point.
After it happens a number of times (no matter how clearly it was spelled out in advance) a mechanic or shop owner tends to get a little gun shy.
I can remember clearly 2 separate occasions in which a customer firmly stated they wanted this, that, or the other and when backed into a corner flat denied ever authorizing the part or repair.
The reason I mention these 2 incidents is because in both cases the customers authorized this with an ink pen signature on a repair order and then vehemently denied ever authorizing anything.
In both of those cases the customers actually accused us of “forging their signatures”.
One had signed a repair order THREE times progressively taking us further and further along with his manual transmission problem even though I told him from the start the problem was not the clutch at all but an internal transmission problem.
With his trans on the bench in pieces and facing trans catastrophe THEN he decided that he never wanted it taken out and disassembled.
He denied signing his name 3 times and accused us of forging all three. When told to produce his drivers license for signature comparison the guy really went off the rails then.
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I have learned to just let it go.
This is the most incredible thread I have seen in all the years I have been on Cartalk. Nothing anyone could say about you guys could portray you in a worse light than you do. “It’s all about meeeee! Customers are all liars and morons and thieves and perjurers. Waaaa!”
I do understand your problem, and I am well aware most customers are not Senior Techs who actually understand OBD. The problem is you are not looking at it from my viewpoint, but expect me to look at it from your viewpoint. Really?
An old friend says to understand something find out which way the money is flowing. You would not be paying me for the privilege of working on my car. It is not my fault your boss takes 80% of the money I pay to pay for his yacht at the South Padre Islands. (That does irritate me; you guys are busting your intestines trying to support your families, while he lounges around bikini girls at the beach. And, don’t tell me this doesn’t happen.)
I had a car with a serious problem. In places where they verify smog, that unrepaired failure will cause my car to be taken off the road. I know what the problem is. I have two choices. Turn it over to someone who most probably will not be able to diagnose it, pay a lot of money and still have the problem. Or, since I don’t have the tools or hoist, pay someone else to replace the part.
It is no insult to be unable to effectively diagnose an intermittent. That was the whole point of my OP. They are a real pain.
Yet, while you think it’s all about you, and your feelings, I happen to think it’s all about my car and getting it fixed. That is what that waiver form is all about. I took responsibility for my diagnosis as it should be.
No, in spite of your protestations most of this anger and rage was about was mechanic ego. I understand your point very well; it’s just that your feelings dominate and my real needs become unimportant. That is a strange business model.
Do you really understand what an undiagnosed intermittent means? In most cases, after the second or third expensive NTF, the customer is forced to dump that car on the market and get another, at great expense. Or, you didn’t know that? Or, don’t care?
If Alex had come back and told me his mechanic didn’t like it and refused to do it, I’d have ordered the canister and my son-in-law, who is a long-term friend of Alex, would have put it on. So, Toyota would have produced a very unhappy customer and the angry mechanic would have had less work.
Plus I would have told the whole world how I was treated. You don’t think that affects your reputation?
And, of course, your posting also assumes I do not understand your viewpoint without you explaining it to me. Bad, bad moron customer. In fact, I did understand that view point. I need my car fixed, period!!!
This does explain why high priced places like Toyota have service writers. It is necessary to keep the hostile, smart-aleck mechanics away from the customers as much as possible.
If that mechanic threw a little boy tantrum when Alex told him a customer wanted a canister replaced, no trouble-shooting desired, Alex can sympathize with him, pat him on the fanny, then come back to me with a big smile, and tell me. “Mr. Jones, he will getting right on it. Do you want the shuttle driver to drop you off at your house and come get you when the work is done?”
And, if I were wrong, it is Alex who has to tell me to go bleep myself, that I signed the waiver.
And, yes, I understand your numbers on the percentage of customers who can’t do what I do. But, what percentage of mechanics are totally incompetent or dishonest? Yet, we know there are rare great mechanics if we can only find them (which is what Mechanix Files on this URL is all about.) You guys seem to be totally unable to deal with a customer who really knows what his problem is. Think about it.
edited: Further, I don’t think most of you care if there is a customer who really knows what his problem is. Tell him where to go, it’s all about me and my needs.
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When I was in high school, my dad did business with a small DeSoto/Plymouth dealer. The head mechanic was also the service manager. When I would bring in one of our family’s cars with a problem I couldn’t figure out, the first words our of his mouth were"What do you think is causing the problem?". Sometimes, when I would make a stab at it, he would shake his head and say “Use your brains, boy”. Sometimes he would say, *I think you are on the right track, now think a little harder". The agency later started selling Morris Minors, MGs and after Chrysler dropped the DeSoto, the agency picked up the Studebaker franchise. My dad bought a Studebaker from the dealer. When I would take my Dad’s Studebaker in for servicing, the service manager would come up to me and say “Had a Morris in the other day with a problem that had us stumped for a while. He would then tell me the symptoms and ask"What so you think was wrong with it?”. I learned a lot nor only about cars, but problem solving skills.
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Your mentor sounds nearly identical to mine. The same teaching method. My original problem was crank no start. Diagnosis procedures? Air, fuel, spark, compression. Air filter OK, fuel OK, spark none. Bad ignition capacitor. After about 3 months I was tasked with diagnosis. Many “try again, think it through”. In auto shop my HS senior year 1969/1970 the teacher commented that I was already quite competent and asked “why are you here”? My answer: “There is always something I can learn”.
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The automobile repair business has enough crooks and incompetents to give the general public a poor opinion of all mechanics. Only if and when they find a good one and develope a good working relationship with him/her will they change their opinion. And a great many people are so thoroughly distrustfull of mechanics that they lease cars to keep all repairs the responsibility of the dealer under the warranty.
Years before I retired I recognized how lucky I was to have opened my shop when I did, prior to the advent of digital drive train controls. I was able to establish a good customer base and reputation on ‘old school’ technology and grow into the computer age slowly. High tech engine and drive train management resulted in an exponential increase in problems that defy intuitive mechanical reasoning especially the intermittent type. Mechanics older than me were often so overwhelmed with the technology that they just stuck to the pre-1980 models while young gear heads these days are often too dependent on scanners and high tech systems and their education and experience gives them little insight into the basics. I once hired a smart young man fresh out of the local Vo-Tech who one day tried to diagnose a missfire with a Snap-On scanner without paying any attention to the obvious note of the exhaust that indicated a bad valve.
Plus, on this issue of generations, the draft in the 60s and the economy in the 70s were very thorough in knocking off all my rough edges and forcing me to realize just how insignificant I was in the big scheme of things and recognize that in a small town a great deal of success was possible for the honest, determined and patient in any service business. I was lucky in many ways.
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Here we are. I pulled the plug in late 1977. EPA was killing independent mechanics. I was one of them. Just not worth it. I had a service station with a hoist and 2 other service bays. It was on a major highway which went to the beach and back. A gold mine in fuel sales. At 6 cents per gallon profit not so much. About $500 per month. Maybe enough to pay the utilities.
In our defense, we’re just people. We’re human, and our attitudes are tempered by our experiences. I can tell you, as a mechanic now, as an 8-year shop owner previously and 6 years as manager before that, not a week goes by in a small independent garage that someone doesn’t come in and just bald-face lie and threaten and try to screw me out of time, money, and repairs. So we develop systems and policies to try to weed out those who may potentially be like that. And unfortunately, some of the good eggs get thrown out with the bad.
A woman made an appointment for her Subaru. The steering wheel was off and the car pulled, and the engine light was on with poor engine performance. The morning she dropped the car off she said not to worry about the engine part, that the light was off and the car was running ok again. The alignment guy does his thing, and at 4:30 she comes to pick up the car. She starts it and goes to drive out and barely makes it to the gate, the car is obviously misfiring one or 2 cylinders. She comes back in and says the car never ran like that before and we must have done something during the alignment.
A guy brings in his Ford E350 box van, tells us to replace the water pump. He replaced it himself to try to save some money but it’s still leaking. He won’t approve $50 for a pressure test/diagnosis, just the $450 parts and labor for water pump replacement. The job is given to me, I look under the hood, I don’t know what’s leaking but I know it’s not the pump. I pressure test it, find a leaky thermostat housing, and replace it. The pump is fine. In the end, the car is fixed for less money but this yo-yo f’ed me out of half an hour of pay, all because I care about doing my job right.
What would have been the ethical thing to do there? Replace his water pump, take his money, and give him his truck in no better condition than before? Refuse the job unless he pays for a proper diag?
The problem with signing a waiver is we’re the only ones that know about it. He’s going to sit with his buddies over a beer and tell them about XYZ garage that charged him $450 for a water pump when the problem was a $30 thermostat housing all along. I’m not sure I want to be that garage.
Absent a previous amicable working relationship with a customer, it’s just good business sense (not personal) to not sell or install things recommended by the customer.
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Well that attitude on the part of a supervisor would certainly explain why the self-confident dumb-asses are called upon to trouble shoot rather than a competent tech that gives an honest evaluation. We had them in the PO too. 
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Some days I have wondered why I ever got out of the bed after dealing with jerks like that @asemaster. And for me I am very grateful that more than 50% of my business was fleet work and most of the rest was old established customers so it wasn’t often that I was caught facing a jerk. I had the keys to well over 200 vehicles when I gave up and went home.
There are some really good postings here in the last 24 hours. Thanks to those posters. You can see my name by the heart on your posting.
However in general this thread would be a perfect basis for a doctoral thesis for an automotive engineer who wants his Ph.D. It’s got everything in it. From mechanics who view customers as morons; liars; and perjurers; to ego ridden mechanics who absolutely cannot grasp the possibility a customer, any customer anywhere any time, might actually know what is wrong with his car.
One fellow posted the tale of the worst customer he had in his entire life, and that was supposed to show what he thinks of customers who know what is wrong with their car. Note my name is not by his heart, heh, heh.
It didn’t seem to matter if I really did know what was wrong with the car. Or, perhaps I missed the point and my truly knowing what was wrong with the car made it even more offensive? Of course, it varied by individual. I suspect quite a few of the mechanics did not truly even understand how I knew the canister was bad. I think they thought I was just another moron taking a wild guess, which really tells us how they do things, no?
A couple posters had more trust in their customers, and though they didn’t explain in detail, I assume they chatted with the customer who wanted a given part replaced, and if it made sense, they had him sign the form and did his work. It’s called “people skills.”
The one thing I am sure of, and I was sure of it when I figured out what the problem was, years ago, you are wasting your time and money in the current business model of mechanics if you take an intermittent to a mechanic to troubleshoot. Don’t do it!
The current business model has a high hourly rate; mechanics who often are not emotionally or intellectually capable of listening to the paying customer; mechanics afraid to use their brains and replace the obvious cause if they can’t be 100% sure because of their fear of repercussions from morons; mechanics who suffer from the Dunning-Kruger Effect; and a number of other factors.
The intermittent failure can be fixed, once you get it outside the current business model. That means either figure it out yourself and find someone to take your money replacing the part you think it is, if you don’t have the facilities and tools, and if you were wrong, smile, smile, smile, and kick yourself in private later. If you were correct, and he replaced the specified part and it really fixed the intermittent, go back when you are sure and give him a $20 tip, no, make that a $50 tip. He just saved you from having to get rid of it and get another car.
Or, make a gift of it to a mechanic. He will have that sucker fixed in no time, trust me on this. it is the current business model to some extent, along with incompetence or emotional problems in at least a few mechanics; which causes this problem.
The doctoral candidate could do a study asking numbers of people if they ever had a problem which the mechanic could not verify, and also if that unresolved problem caused them to eventually get rid of the car. I theorize that inability to repair intermittents in the current business model causes a loss of billions of dollars a year to car owners.
Don’t misjudge my comments. I am the first one to admit it is very hard to solve an intermittent.
I note with interest no one so much as commented on the refrigerator guy who seemed to know that the problem was, but refused to do anything until he personally sees the failure, which is virtually impossible.
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A senior technician making statements about peoples way of conducting business might be taken more seriously if they check the spelling on their thread header.
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On behalf of all the customers in the world, let me apologize for that idiot. Though that’s being unfair to idiots, who are better human beings than that customer.
This thread stopped being productive quite a while ago. As my mother-in-law says, “It takes all kinds.” Perhaps we should leave it at that.
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Yes, that’s true. But unless we have done business together and I know 100% for sure that we’re all on the same page I won’t take the risk of being on the losing end of a deal gone bad. The form itself would be meaningless in court if it came to that. I don’t like it that way, but that’s the reality. I would have replaced the canister at your request, based on your input, because you seem like a reasonable person. But I still would be taking a risk.
A man brought a used water pump and requested a shop to install it. They had him sign an “at your own risk” form. Not too long after that the water pump failed and caused engine damage. Small claims court ruled that the shop was at fault for installing a used part, and the subsequent engine damage, that as experts and professionals in their field they should have known better than the layman on the street. To put it in perspective, no dentist in her right mind would agree to do a root canal based only on customer input.
I would wager that the vast majority of people would be unable to successfully run a business on the prevailing hourly rate at shops today.
The bottom line is that an auto service shop has more to lose than to gain by replacing parts based on customer request.
As an aside, I find that this entire conversation is academic. There is no secret to Toyota EVAP systems and they are just as easily diagnosed and repaired as any other car. I’m surprised no shop came up with the canister assembly as the cause of your engine light. If you had been one of my customers there would have been no need for all of this.
When dealing with drive up strangers a shop owner/manager must be very careful to avoid being caught up in a no win proposition. The big chains stay ahead of such possible pitfalls by taking the offensive from the beginning. When I suspected being led into a trap I recommended the customer to one of the notorious chains near me. And I believe I have read others here who found that to be a discreet method to refuse the work. Of course the all time certain invitation to leave was an astronomically high estimate and the demand for 1/2 the total in advance. No one ever stayed after that.
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I don’t mean to continue this whole discussion but I am flabbergasted that a shop would refuse to do work that a customer is ordering when it is a normal repair. Maybe its a regional thing that I have just never run across before or even thought about. Sometimes you know what’s wrong and sometimes you don’t. Its just evident and it makes no sense to me to not easily come to an understanding of the work to be done.
I was replacing the water pump on our Olds Aurora V8. I bought the Delco pump, bought the special tool needed and proceeded to spend a couple days trying to do it. No way I could get the old one off. I just took it to the Olds dealer to have the pump replaced. There was no argument. They put my pump in but said it was leaking so put their own Delco pump in. (Maybe it wasn’t leaking-doesn’t really matter). In addition I had them clean out the EGR passages. I think it cost me an extra $35 for the pump and the whole thing was about $200. No one argued with anyone. It was just a simple business transaction. I failed and needed someone more skilled. They got paid for it, end of story.
It’s a crapshoot, it really is. Suppose your Aurora had a coolant leak from the rear coolant crossover housing and not the water pump. The dealer replaces your pump, gives you back the car, and you return complaining that they took your money and didn’t fix your car. You raise a stink in the office in front of other customers, threaten to file complaints with the state and the BBB, and demand that they either fix your car or give your money back.
You would never do that. Neither would @irlandes. But unfortunately some of the people who would look just like you. It is a matter of “people skills”. But we don’t all have the sixth sense to know when to hold em or fold em.
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