Annoying shop experience

[VN_Luke]

Had a bit of an annoying experience yesterday;

I'm due for a long drive on highways in the next few days (in the daily driver stock VT), and it had a bit of a wheel-balance related wobble at high speeds, so I figured I'd get the wheels balanced and be laughing!

Now for those who know me, from past experiences etc, I don't like/trust anyone else working on my cars other than myself and friends.

So I dropped off the car at the tyre and brake place around the corner from my work for a wheel balance of the 2 back wheels. Shop was nice and clean etc, but only one old (almost prehistoric) bloke working there, I didn't think much of it.... got the work done, picked up the car, parked at work etc, no worries.

Later that day I was driving home on the freeway, high speed in traffic... and I feel a funky vibration through the car, but only when not accelerating... and it was getting progressively worse - very quickly.

After an insta-pull-over, removing the hub caps and inspecting everything, seems that the friggen MUPPET/TWIT at the shop hadn't done up any of the wheel-nuts properly.

The passanger side were all 'finger loose', and the driver's side weren't too far off.

I'll go have a chat to the bloke after work today, not to be a prick about it, but really - major things like that should NOT be missed by a shop doing work on other people's cars.

Has anyone else ever had something like that happen ? Is this a common thing? - This is one of the few reasons I've been put off letting workshops work in my cars.

[azkwazere]

Yeah.. major one...

Was before i knew anything about cars at all... just liked em..

Had the Red VN, paid a good 800 to have it convertedto manual(not inc. parts) over a week period.. off the side job sorta thing.

Anyway, get it back and its great, love the manual things, its awsome.

But 2 things i relised are stuffed.

1. The ****ed the thrust bearing or something else in there cos i have this really annoying squeal or squeak which only goes away when i depres the clutch a tiny bit.. really annoying to sit it there running and have it sound all homo.

2. I have a clunk in my diff at low range... couldnt work out what it was... figured diff was on the way out.. this went on and i was planning for a diff overhaul.. finnaly take it back to em 6 months later for there opinion... they say its just the diff, thats normal.. im like ok...

anyway, when im stripping it to put all the running gear into the VP... get to the diff part and go to loosen the tail shaft bolts... guess what, not a single one was done up... they were all on by 5 or so turns.... HOW DID THEY NOT SHEAR OFF???? holy ****...

aZk.

[Emackulation]

Man, those 2 cases above are pretty bad. Its quite bad how workshops dont have a quality check before handing the cars back.

[Grennan]

Ive had the exact same thing happen to me as case 1 pointed out by Luke. Just got 4 new tyres and wheel alignemtn and all that jazz. Its a 15-25 minute drive from my place to this place in question and i had to pull over not even 5 minutes down the road cause of wobbles and found out the wheel nuts had not been tightened and i was missing the lock nut off each wheel. Went back immediatly and they said must be one of the work experience guys. I questioned them as to why a work experience guy was working on my car unsupervised and they just said nothing.

[quick308]

after hearing this i might check for things like this from now on. thats just dangerous emagine if the nuts all fell off on one of the wheels

[Brucefromruse]

Well being an old fart meself i think he just stuffed up. Kinda thought that waitin while he balanced them wheels ya would have picked up on the mistake, being a fitter and turner the rattle guns these doods use make me larrff, half inch drive pussy tools i think.

[NORTI]

I always check for this reason, Ive had the same thing happen to me too many times in the past. Cant trust anyone

[Shounak]

Well being an old fart meself i think he just stuffed up. Kinda thought that waitin while he balanced them wheels ya would have picked up on the mistake, being a fitter and turner the rattle guns these doods use make me larrff, half inch drive pussy tools i think.

Why do they need anything more than 1/2" drive? Very few cars require more than 150nm of torque for lug nuts, but most 1/2" drive rattle guns provide well over 200nm.

Fair enough if you're a diesel mechanic, but using a hugely powered rattle gun will only lead to very warped discs. I see no logic in using a 1" drive rattle gun to tighten the wheel nuts on a Commodore, using pussy powered tools is probably the best option.

Unless of course you use a 50mm spanner to undo your 19mm sump plug, in which case I'd say at least you're being consistent.

It's not the rattle gun that's to blame, it's the negligence of the person who you're paying a healthy sum to do their job.

Being a young fart myself, I think he stuffed up also. Not bloody good enough when you're probably paying about $70 p/h if you break down the process costs.

[STEALTHY™]

Its a very common thing. If my car goes to any shop, i do the wheel nuts myself. Some tyre shops lose business because they don't want me putting the wheels on myself, but thats there loss.

[ashbox]

i had a shop under-inflate my rear tyres when they put nitrogen in them. I went back so they filled them up again for nothin.

[Tom_1569]

i had a shop under-inflate my rear tyres when they put nitrogen in them. I went back so they filled them up again for nothin.

LOL, are you serious?

[Fr3ak+--]

Why do they need anything more than 1/2" drive? Very few cars require more than 150nm of torque for lug nuts, but most 1/2" drive rattle guns provide well over 200nm.

Fair enough if you're a diesel mechanic, but using a hugely powered rattle gun will only lead to very warped discs. I see no logic in using a 1" drive rattle gun to tighten the wheel nuts on a Commodore, using pussy powered tools is probably the best option.

Unless of course you use a 50mm spanner to undo your 19mm sump plug, in which case I'd say at least you're being consistent.

It's not the rattle gun that's to blame, it's the negligence of the person who you're paying a healthy sum to do their job.

Being a young fart myself, I think he stuffed up also. Not bloody good enough when you're probably paying about $70 p/h if you break down the process costs.

every single thread i read your in it trying to be a keyboard hero.

why do you have to pick apart everyones opinion for no reason?

[stocky]

every single thread i read your in it trying to be a keyboard hero.

why do you have to pick apart everyones opinion for no reason?

because most of the time hes right? thats the point of a debate

[Fr3ak+--]

because most of the time hes right? thats the point of a debate

its not about right or wrong

Majority the time it is pointless and not needed

[Shounak]

its not about right or wrong

Majority the time it is pointless and not needed

It's about warranted/unwarranted. Some opinions are a waste of bandwidth and completely unwarranted. People might read them and think the content of the post might could actually count for something.

An opinion cannot be true or false, only facts can. People base their opinions on a number of facts.

If someone has an unwarranted opinion (in my opinion), I'll challenge it with the facts and provide some healthy debate on the topic. I'm quite happy to be proven wrong. But the whole point of the forum is to have discussion on a range of issues.

If you think any of my opinions are unwarranted, take it up with me. I would be quite happy to be proven wrong, it means I was wrong and I've learnt from my mistake. But I guess it's much easier to call me a keyboard warrior then to actually challenge my opinion.

[Cordelia calais]

Perhaps you should get a white flag like Sam Newman did lastnight, when you wave it, it is just an opinion and no one can yell at you for it!!

When I first met hubby he had a Vh sle and it was lowered just by having the springs cut, he needed new tyres so I went and got them put on after all was finished i got into the car and started to drive and all i had was a clunky flat weird ass feel to the car, reversed back, they had not fixed the springs in place properly, fixed that then started to drive home when at 80 ks CLUNK and there goes my Tyre down the road and I am sparking down the rd, ****ing ********s! wanted to burn the shop down!

[stocky]

i doubt you can blame them for your spring problem if you knew they were cut

[Cordelia calais]

Sure can, when the car comes off the hoist it is their job to make sure the springs are sitting right when the weight of the car comes down on them, took them all of 2 mins to fix it, should have done it right in the first place.

[stocky]

Sure can, when the car comes off the hoist it is their job to make sure the springs are sitting right when the weight of the car comes down on them, took them all of 2 mins to fix it, should have done it right in the first place.

it shouldve been lowered right in the first place. cut springs are known to pop out like that.

[calais_304]

it shouldve been lowered right in the first place. cut springs are known to pop out like that.

agree with stocky, not the shops problem for someone elses dodgee spring setup...btw arn't cut springs classed as illegal/unroadworthy? if so then you should be lucky they didn't inform the right people about it.

[STEALTHY™]

I mustn't be reading it write, it says the wheel came off when she was driving down the road. Thats the shops fault. The spring issue is debatable, i know of cars with legal lowered springs that still don't sit right after the car has been on a hoist.

[Holdfast]

Back in 1988 when my Father-In-Law purchased a brand-new VL he was driving from Canberra to Batemans Bay.

As a few of the Canberra guys would know, there's a steep windy part of road as you get closer to the coast; anyway the left hand suspension collapsed.

Apparently the bolts were not done up or missing. I can't remember the exact cause but he was really P***** Off and lucky not to have been killed.


The next new car he purchased was a VP.

He drove it from the dealer to home; he noticed oil coming from underneath the car so he drove it back to the dealer.

He only did about 20K's. The dealer had to pull the motor out to replace some seals.

Talk about un-lucky

[calais_304]

i know of cars with legal lowered springs that still don't sit right after the car has been on a hoist.

thats true, my old eb was like that, but i made sure i mentioned it more then a number of times so that when it did go back down they were aware of it sometimes not sitting right.

[Cordelia calais]

We are talking about 11 yrs ago now so as for the legality I am not sure but he had, had the car like that for 6 yrs and never had a problem, fact is if they can not even put a tyre on properly. . . .it is not that hard to fix the springs the fact is they did'nt even bother to look they had done a proper job as when I took it back and they fixed it, I did'nt have a problem with it ever after that, they just did'nt sit the car right first time, dont care if the car was legal or not thats too long ago the point was that they should have looked at what they were doing in the first place and maybe I would'nt have lost the tyre either!

[skankydore]

Your paying the money you would expect everything to be done right the first time but some people are just careless or not paying attention.

Two years ago my ex got his steering rack replaced, went to powercruise drove around the track, had a bad shuttering in the front end couldnt find anything it was till we were outside of grafton a week later doing around 90k's and lose control of the steering. Got under the car only to find the steering rack bolts weren't in there. Went back the shop talked to them about it, all they could say was 'mistakes happens'. Yes mistakes do happen but the outcome of some mistakes could end not so good.