A good mechanic can be hard to find

[partyharty]

<RANT ON>

I guess I should preface this message with I just haven't found one yet. Or may just be asking too much.

I have had this honda for a while and I was working a lot of hours so I took it to mechanic 1 to look it over. I noticed a clicking when I was turning and I knew that I was going to have to replace the axle. Well mechanic 1 replaces the axle and then tells me that it is loosing "a lot" of transmission fluid (this is a standard) and that I need to get it checked. Now it wasn't loosing fluid before but oh well. I get home and find out about the axle seal. So now I get to redo everything he has done to put in a new axle seal.

Quick question everyone...........Did I learn from my mistake............NO.

As I am still working a lot of hours I take it to mechanic two. Mechanic two goes through and does a lot of work (that I am happy with). We get new tires all around and quite a few other things. About a 600 repair bill+tires. We tell this mechanic if he see's anything in the front end (while he is there) that needs replaced just give us a call. We would like this to be my daily driver for at least the next few months while I work on our truck (tune up and other upkeep items). This way I can work on it as I get spare time. He calls and tells us a few things that need replaced (including the other axle), we tell him to go ahead and fix them.

On the way home from the mechanic I notice a sound but I don't really know what it is. The car stays parked for a few days before I get a chance to check it out. Guess what. Mechanic 2 never refilled the tranny fluid (10w30 oil) after replacing both axle seals and 1 axle. It took just under 2 quarts to fill it up.

Oh well I have had it, I guess unless I find a good mechanic I get to start wrenching my vehicles myself. Am I just asking too much for someone to check the tranny oil after they replace seals in the tranny? Also it is a pain in the @#$ to add oil to the transmission (unless I am missing something), my funnel would not fit, and it was hard to get the air rachet in there to get the dang plug out. It was also screwed in too tight for me to unscrew without the air tools.

<RANT OFF>

Well it seems the car is ready to go now. I had to pick up a new battery today (it was cold outside, I went out and the battery was too low to start the car). I did keep the battery so that I can test it before sending it in for the core charge. I have also patched up the holes in the exhaust, and put new brakes all around. It seems like it is ready for the road.

[2drSE-i]

im there with you man... my first mechanic lost my business when they lost my battery tray, neglected to close my hood properly, and threw my foglight covers in the trunk (literally just tossed them in there). my second (and final for now) couldnt diagnose a loose sway bar bushing and charged me 40 dollars for doing nothing.

[partyharty]

im there with you man... my first mechanic lost my business......... neglected to close my hood properly.

How is it possible to not close a hood properly ? (really I am asking because I have always just pushed down until it latched). I take it they didn't close it all the way (which would really suck if you were driving down the interstate and it decided to .........fly open).

I had one steal a alternator off of a van I had once. We knew it was on the van (I had the alternator installed for all of a week). We had a high output alternator to run the tv and computer in the van (the setup had 2 marine batteries in addition to the main battery).

We took it to the mechanic and they worked on it (new coil, distributor, and plugs) and when I got home I had a el-cheapo autozone alternator in the van.

Went back and got the ole "dunno what your talking about". Filed a Police Report and nothing ever came of it (although to be honest we didn't figure anything ever would). Just never used that mechanic again.

I go through spurts where I will not allow anyone to do mechanical work, then I usually get too busy to do the easy stuff so I send it out. Unfortunately I guess I am in the "no one touches our vehicles but me", mode now.

[Demon1024]

The tranny is a pita to fill! go and get one of those funnels with the long plastic tube on it at walmart for like $5 worth every penny. had a leak on mine for a while, this made it 10 times easier just take off the cap on the end and you can actually stick it like an inch and a half into the tranny just don't let the top fall over

[partyharty]

I ended up having to use a piece of pvc pipe and a funnel to do it. I used the pvc pipe in the hole to the tranny and the funnel filled up the pvc pipe. I went to Walmart and bought the red funnel with the flexible collapsable tubing but it was not long enough, and I was not going back to walmart just for that (closest store is like 40 minutes away).

I will be getting the funnel that you are talking about for the next time I have to fill it up.

[2oodoor]

I can empathize with your grief.
In defense of mechanics though, it is a double edge sword sometimes. Depending on the shop too... If you do more than the customer has requested you get cussed for it and claims that there was nothing wrong with "that part" before. If you don't go the extra mile and really look over a car you get cussed for being a lousy mechanic.. you just cant please everybody.
Now technically speaking in the car's best interest, true a good mechanic will look in as deep as it takes to insure the machine is good to go to the moon and back, but when you are dealing with money and people things go a different direction. The mechanic is on time constraints for each procedure with a flat rate scale and other jobs in the line, the car owner has a price in mind to have the car fixed and DOES NOT want to hear anything else, it was all the willpower they had to get the car to the shop to begin with... know what I mean?
I dont trust anybody, well very few anyway, working on my cars either.. every time I get burned, every time. YOu have to find the shop that will go out of its way to service the Car AND the Customer.. it may cost a little more but in the end you get total satisfaction. Typically you will find this dynamic in private owned shops that have obvious dedication to their shop which will show by the amount of money invested in the building and equipment. NO FRANCHISED shops will be as earnest as those, Franchises unfortunatley have taken out the little guy in many trades, and along with those comes the type mechanics I describe, thier hands are tied .
Luckily our town has a couple of those family owned dedicated private owned shops, with trustworthy owners who have been in the business for decades. They would never let a customer go unsatisfed with thier work.

[RamThis]

As a mechanic myself, it's hard to always please a customer, because everyone seems to have totally different expectations of us.

One person, I can call them, and tell them everything that's wrong and what it will take to fix it, how much it will be, and about how long it will take to get the parts, and they will be thankful for the thorough estimate and letting them know before doing extra work beyond the tune up.

Another guy, will want some work done, the front desk tells him like everyone else about how much to expect, when I see it's going to be a pretty high bill, above the norm, and I call to give him an estimate, he gets all pissed off and says the people up front already told him about how much it would cost, why am I calling him, he just wants it fixed.

So next guy, I do the normal tune up on his equipment, notice one small item aside from the normal tune up needs replacing, nothing major, and I get my ass chewed by the customer for doing work he didnt authorize. Yet the equipment was totally unuseable without the part, and it was not an expensive part to begin with, like ten bucks.



NOW, doing seals on a transmission, and not actually checking the fluid afterwards, KNOWING it has been leaking, is just plain stupid. I mean, that goes hand in hand. Like me replacing a lower main crankshaft seal on a mower that is covered in oil on the bottom from leaking, and never actually checking the oil level before I send it back out to the customer. Pretty retarded if you ask me.

Or, if I'm replacing a blade clutch bearing under the mower, and notice the oil seal is leaking, and just ignoring it and telling the people later, AFTER I've fixed everthing else and put it all back on, about the lower seal leaking. When I could have called them when the clutch was off, and just done it then to save them time and labor charge since I already had the clutch out.

Common sense seems to be a fairly rare occurrance these days unfortunately. And the consumers are the ones who suffer.

[partyharty]

I can empathize with your grief.
In defense of mechanics though, it is a double edge sword sometimes. Depending on the shop too... If you do more than the customer has requested you get cussed for it and claims that there was nothing wrong with "that part" before. If you don't go the extra mile and really look over a car you get cussed for being a lousy mechanic.. you just cant please everybody.
Now technically speaking in the car's best interest, true a good mechanic will look in as deep as it takes to insure the machine is good to go to the moon and back, but when you are dealing with money and people things go a different direction. The mechanic is on time constraints for each procedure with a flat rate scale and other jobs in the line, the car owner has a price in mind to have the car fixed and DOES NOT want to hear anything else, it was all the willpower they had to get the car to the shop to begin with... know what I mean?
I dont trust anybody, well very few anyway, working on my cars either.. every time I get burned, every time. YOu have to find the shop that will go out of its way to service the Car AND the Customer.. it may cost a little more but in the end you get total satisfaction. Typically you will find this dynamic in private owned shops that have obvious dedication to their shop which will show by the amount of money invested in the building and equipment. NO FRANCHISED shops will be as earnest as those, Franchises unfortunatley have taken out the little guy in many trades, and along with those comes the type mechanics I describe, thier hands are tied .
Luckily our town has a couple of those family owned dedicated private owned shops, with trustworthy owners who have been in the business for decades. They would never let a customer go unsatisfed with thier work.

While I do agree with you in spirit, in this case that just doesn't fly. First off they had the car for 5 days (yes 5 days) because they ordered the wrong part (twice). They kept ordering the axle seal for an auto transmission and it wouldn't work. Secondly I believe that checking the transmission fluid is a logical thing to do after you replace seals in a transmission (am I wrong here?). That would almost be like changing the oil filter (really fast) and not checking the oil level afterwards. Considering that it is something that can really mess up a vehicle I would believe that it would be something that was required. I don't expect the mechanic to check my tire pressure if the are doing an exhaust repair but I do expect items to be completed that would logically be affected by their work.

As for the flat rate repair. None of the stuff they did was flat rate. We were charged hourly for all the work (according to the invoice). I do have a problem with "the book" but that is probably best left for another thread. In this case we were told a price after they had torn down the car (so they knew what was wrong), we paid for all the work (which is what I expect if I tell them to go over the front end for problems). We also paid for the diagnostic charge (which covered them going over the front end). We didn't try to shortchange them (can't you do this cheaper), or rush them, or anything. In fact the mechanic thought we would be ticked after they had kept the car so long. I would rather it be done right than jerry-rigged.

Now with all that said the reason I put down "can" be hard to find is because I have found them in the past. I agree with you, there are good mechanics out there. When we find one we usually stay with them unless we move (our last good mechanic got between 5-10 grand off of us in a 2 year period before we ended up moving). They always insisted on test driving the vehicle (and if you were there you could go with them). This helped take care of the 5% or so of things that was missed (and everyone makes mistakes). I honestly believe that it was a simple mistake that prevented them from checking the tranny, I just think that it should have been checked/filled. That's a pretty big mistake if you give the vehicle back to someone who is not mechanically inclined.

[2oodoor]

Agreed, it was an unexcusable oversight not checking the oil. I did not address that in my post but I meant too.. it was important to the thread....I got so involved with the point of finding mechanics ( oil seals) I completley overlooked the error mentioned.......hrmmm the human mind is amazing yet predictable aye?

[partyharty]

As a mechanic myself, it's hard to always please a customer, because everyone seems to have totally different expectations of us.

One person, I can call them, and tell them everything that's wrong and what it will take to fix it, how much it will be, and about how long it will take to get the parts, and they will be thankful for the thorough estimate and letting them know before doing extra work beyond the tune up.

Another guy, will want some work done, the front desk tells him like everyone else about how much to expect, when I see it's going to be a pretty high bill, above the norm, and I call to give him an estimate, he gets all pissed off and says the people up front already told him about how much it would cost, why am I calling him, he just wants it fixed.

So next guy, I do the normal tune up on his equipment, notice one small item aside from the normal tune up needs replacing, nothing major, and I get my ass chewed by the customer for doing work he didnt authorize. Yet the equipment was totally unuseable without the part, and it was not an expensive part to begin with, like ten bucks.

................

Common sense seems to be a fairly rare occurrance these days unfortunately. And the consumers are the ones who suffer.

I guess you can't please everyone. And I agree with the statement about common sense 100%. I do hate being called a "consumer" though I liked it better when I was a customer (everyone "consumes").