Questionable Mechanics - Ugh

[RJS]

OK, some of you may have just seen my post titled "Calling all TR4A's". Fortunately, I solved an oil leak issue caused by an under-qualified "British mechanic with 30 years experience".

Ugh, I need to vent.

Over the past 10 years I have been forced to take-on more of my own work on my Triumph because of lousy mechanics. Fortunately, I really enjoying learning and working on my car. It's a great aspect to the hobby. But, if I may, let me list the "issues" I experienced:

1. PCV valve fitted incorrectly leading to crankcase pressurization and huge oil leaks
2. While bleeding the brakes, spilling brake fluid all over my fire wall and battery box..subsequently eating all the paint off
3. Installing incorrect size u-joint on drive shaft. Result, dropping my drive shaft on the Merritt Parkway at 65 mph!
4. Adjusting my carbs sooo rich that I suffered a hot start problem for about a year (it was like having the choke on all the time). The excessive cranking led me to kill:
a. starter
b. battery
c. starter solenoid

Oh, then there's the constantly trying to sell me new parts I don't need. Typical call: "I have your front brake calipers here on my bench. The pistons are all frozen. I can have new ones here by tomorrow and installed for $250 each plus labor". What?! I brought the car in for a routine service and oil change. The brakes are fine, put them back in! Four years later, brakes are still just fine.

Anyway, the past few years I have taken on almost all service and maintenance myself. I find that I really enjoy it, know it's done right and save money. Triple bonus.

I have to say thanks to BCF and thanks to all you guys (and gals) for your great advice when I am tackling an new issue. It has really helped me solve a lot of issues and enjoy my car even more.

Bob

 

[poolboy]

There may be a few, but precious few, who can afford to have one of these old cars maintained by a professional mechanic. Those of us who can't give life to Forums like this.

 

[TR3driver]

Unfortunately, the same problems hold true for many mechanics, not just Triumph "experts". Some years ago, one of the magazines (I've forgotten which one) drove an American sedan across country, pulling off a plug wire and taking it to various shops for service. Only a ridiculously low percentage were able to identify the problem, and fix it for a reasonable price. Some of the others appeared to be honest, but simply incapable of diagnosing a dangling plug wire ... one shop even told them it needed a new engine but was "not worth repairing"!

But the vast majority invented expensive problems that they could "fix" (including one shop that wanted $800 for a set of tires).

So as Bob said, for me it's not so much being able to afford a professional, as not trusting them to do the work right.

https://articles.latimes.com/2008/jan/03/local/me-settlement3

https://consumerist.com/2006/08/jiffy-lube-scam-revealed-again.html

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local-beat/flushservices.html

 

[Tr4dude]

I'm in total agreement, I was a diesel mechanic for 10 years and found that most places the mechanics are trainees and if the are professionals they either know what their doing or they don't, some are honest and some just want to make more money at your expense, example-- Glen thomas dodge told my buddy he needed a $2700 turbo for his sprinter van, he had low power, he brought it over with a 12 pack of refreshments, after 10 minutes of looking the fan housing had been cracked before and seeing wires running along the top of it I turned them over and BINGO!! 2 wires to the O2 sensor were sliced from the serpentine belt fraying and slapping around before. 15 minutes and a 12 pack was alot better than the alternative of trusting a "certified mechanic" at a dealer!! Long story short find a good friend thats a mechanic that won't BS you or ask lots of questions and get some manuals and learn to do it yourself.

 

[TR4nut]

Not LBC related, but similar - we have a brand name place near us that mainly sells tires and does basic vehicle service. Every time we bring the car in we get the call about something needing replacement - and it has nothing to do with why we brought the car in. The last one was a report of a bad tie rod end. I declined then checked it later - I could move it with some force by hand but there was zero play in it - perfectly serviceable in my opinion and still in use. At least for this place, I think it has become common business practice to find minor things and replace parts needlessly. And with newer cars and less people working on them it probably is a profitable model for them.

 

[vagt6]

I hear you, guys.

I'm very lucky to be able to do a fair bit of wrenching on my LBCs. But when the heavy lifting is required I'm also very lucky to have a top-drawer, reliable LBC repair shop just over the hill here.

Charlottesville's a small town (40,000) in a relatively small metro area (about 180,000). We're out in the woods here, but there's a highly qualified, honest LBC garage operation about 30 miles away.

It's a big mistake to let just any "mechanic" to work on your LBC, especially if it's a major problem. Sure, a good, experienced mechanic can fix anything, but will they do it correctly?

The best elixir is to learn to do most of it yourself, can't lose that way!

 

[Andrew Mace]

I hear you, guys....The best elixir is to learn to do most of it yourself, can't lose that way!

Back around 1971, I was a poor college student sharing a three-year-old Mk3 Spitfire with my dad. As the result of a particularly bad experience at one of the local Triumph dealer "service" departments (they supposedly replaced the "bent jets" in the carbs and a few other things...none of which solved a problem that turned out to be a failing coil!), I went into the parts department and purchased the Workshop Manual in the display case and set out to learn how to do as much as I possibly could myself. It has paid off rather well in the nearly 40 years since! After that bad experience, I only ever went to a Triumph dealer service department (different dealer) two other times, both for jobs that required specialized tools I didn't have and couldn't afford. Thankfully, both of those experiences were a bit better, but that was mostly due to intervention on the part of the parts department manager (same guy that had been at the other dealer before), with whom I'd become good friends!

 

[Geo Hahn]

...Only a ridiculously low percentage were able to identify the problem, and fix it for a reasonable price...

After I fixed my father-in-law's Saturn a couple of times when something simple had been diagnosed as $$$$$ -- I told him "Your mechanic is either incompetent or a crook -- and it really doesn't matter which -- don't go back to him".

 

[TRDejaVu]

My daughter was out of town and called to say that her car had "some bad noises from the front dad". I had her find a local shop where they told her that the transmission was failing and $2,500 would get her a replacement. She called me again and I told her to find another place for a second opinion. That resulted in a front wheel hub being replaced because the wheel bearing was shot. $400 and the car was fine with no noises.

On the odd time that I have to put my daily driver into the shop, I love making them PROVE to me that their troubleshooting is correct. They try the old, "modern cars are complicated" routine, but they normally stop the BS when I give them my aircraft maintenance background on Boeing's and Airbus.

I think that doing your own maintenance comes down to keeping on top of it and knowing the difference between when a part is worn and worn out.

 

[MikeP]

This could turn into a complaint fest...

Worked with a woman once who had a Saturn with about 50K on it. She came to me asking what I thought about the fact she was putting a quart of oil in a day, 40 mile round trip more or less. Car also ran rough and had been in and out of the dealer since she bought it. I asked what they'd done, she didn't really know, but she did have a service history printout. When I looked through it I found that they'd replaced the plugs and wires, 6 times in 50k miles. Had also charged over 2k for brakes and refused to give her, or even show her, the old parts on the grounds that Ohio classified them as hazardous waste. Suspecting there was a blown head gasket or bad piston/valves I had her
call them and request a compression and/or leakdown tests. The service manager actually said that these were obsolete tools and could not be performed on modern cars, that the only fix was to replace plugs and wires since "they don't last forever". Apparently forever in this case was somewhere around 5k miles. I told her to find another mechanic or dealer, get the district office number and complain. It was found that one cylinder was dead with a broken piston and another was low, it was a wonder it ran at all. Saturn did chip in towards a replacement engine, but I thing if she'd been willing to raise a real fuss they would've paid for the whole thing sine it was documented that the problems started before 10k miles.

 

[TR3driver]

It's been years ago, but my first wife once asked me to look at a friend's Ford that didn't run well. The engine was so filthy I didn't want to touch it, and that included the air filter, oil (what there was of it, just a drop at the end of the dipstick), etc. Heavy dirt caked on the oil filter too; obviously this engine had not been properly serviced in many years.

But the owner had an entire stack of receipts, showing that she religiously took the car in for service every 3 months ... the last time was literally less than 2 weeks before I looked at it. Those folks had been charging her for all sorts of things, and likely never even opening the hood.

More recently, the wife's Toyota broke a timing belt. I had paid a shop to replace the belt just a few months before (along with some seals and whatnot), but the broken belt was hard and weather checked, obviously over a decade old (likely the original) instead of just a few months. I might've sued, but it turns out the shop is gone ... apparently the manager was cheating the owner so badly that he just closed the place.

 

[sabot]

My mom had one of the very first Saturn's out in Hawaii. With a sunroof that she did not order. She took that car in for service constantly to the local saturn dealer, when i was there one xmas for a visit we had to take it down to the dealer because the roof was falling in. They tried to say she was using it to much and not closing it correctly. She's 70 and never wanted it in the first
place and never opened it.
Long story long, when we were there, a young kid, just started working there, was using an airhose to blow air into the front corner openings, he tells the manager, while we are standing there, that it looks like the drain holes had never been serviced and they were clogged causing the water to back up into the roof.
They fired him the next day, and they started replacing the roof.
TOM

 

[Gliderman8]

:madder: I just this second got done replacing both rear struts on my wife's car. She took it in for an annual inspection and they told her in needed to have the struts replaced for a cost of $420 (parts and labor).
I ordered the new struts from Rock Auto and with delivery they were $121.
The bottom line is that after I spent a couple of hours replacing them, I can find no evidence of the original ones being bad... they compressed and extended just like the new ones. In this case I am the one to blame since I just took their word for it and ordered new ones without looking :madder:

 

[DrEntropy]

Like most any service profession, there are good and bad practitioners of the craft. You have to be selective about whom you deal with. Same for dentists, veterinarians, physicians or lawn maintenance folks. Ask friends, relatives, club members for their recommendations.

Life is one drawn-out frog kissing exercise.

Self-reliance is still the best way... except for mebbe tooth extraction. :smirk:

 

[70herald]

Several years back, I brought a tire in for repair. The shop insisted that all four of my tires were shot and needed replacement since the rubber was dried out. This was on a car which was less than 3 years old. I did not believe them and of course did not replace the tires.

The the left rear tire exploded a few months later. Fortunately there were no other cars around and no one coming in the opposite direction on an undivided 2 lane highway. The entire drivers side of the car needed repairs however after the car spun around and slid along the guard rail. Sometimes the mechanic is right.

 

[JKB1957]

Started reading this thread and decided to add my two cents. About eights years ago I had a Spitfire Mk4 that I had just finished doing a front suspension rebuild. Everything was new. I took it down to the local tire shop for a simple alignment, I even printed out the factory alignment specs for them. They put the car on the lift and a couple of minutes later the manager comes over and tells me that all the suspension bushings are shot and need to be replaced. I told him that I had just replaced them, which was why I was there to get an alignment. His look was priceless. I then stood there and watched as they did the alignment. Funny, they never insisted I leave the work area,which was in direct violation of their, "employees only in work area" policy.

 

[DrEntropy]

...His look was priceless...

That alignment woulda been a "freebie" had that been my car... Strong-arming people into unnecessary repairs is a particularly smarmy practice, IMO.

 

[martx-5]

I have a good mechanic that I deal with...they are hard to find. Anyway, one time I brought the Miata in on a Friday for it's annual inspection, (this was only the second time I had used this guy) and he said I needed front brake pads. Well, they were getting down there, so I said go ahead so I could get the inspection wrapped up. Normally I would do this work myself. I picked the car up after service hours...they pump gas there, so someone's there late. I drove the car home, and the brakes were just awful. They wouldn't stop the car unless I pushed harder then I have to push on my TR3 brakes. Since I wouldn't be able to do anything until Monday morning, I opted to get a set of original pads from the Mazda dealer on Saturday. I put them on, and all was well. Monday I went back to the mechanic with the pads he installed, and told him what had happened. He really wished that I had come back to him to solve the problem, as he knows that there are some cars out there that HAVE to use OE pads, or there may be problems. He brought me back into the stock room to show me all of the OE stuff he had there. He didn't know it was a problem with the Miatas.

He asked if I had a receipt for the brake pads. Yes, I did. He immediately wrote me out a check for the full amount. That was the point that he gained a loyal customer. This guy ain't cheap, but I know I won't being paying for needless work, and any parts that he says he's installed, will be there.

As Click & Clack the Tappet Brothers say, "Good mechanics aren't expensive, they're priceless."