Bad mechanic stories

I'm sure you guys have a lot of them, but man I'm still pissed about what happened this past weekend.

My bro and I were putting Koni Yellows on my Z4, and the spring compressor we had wouldn't compress it enough to re-assemble. After calling around we found a place that said yes we can do it today, come on down.

Took a disassembled strut spring tophat, etc and an assembled strut with all new parts.

He said give me an 90 mins and come back.

We went to pick them up and OMG this dude destroyed one of them, literally. Koni says they can't repair it. The springs are on incorrectly, one is missing the bump stop, he apparently used an impact wrench to put the top nut on, crushed the adjuster into the strut, yellow paint chipped, scratches all around it like it was slipping in a vise, just WTF?!?

Now I'm scrambling trying to find a german shop who knows what they're doing and trying to source parts since we can't get the springs off! My car is stranded in my brothers garage and I'm supposed to be taking it to the mountains next Wednesday.

What an absolute nightmare this has turned in to, and I'm just so confused on what this dude did. Its a 5 minute job how do you eff this up?

This makes 3 out of the last 4 experiences with a mechanic that has gone sideways.

 

Protech Motorsports in Greenville know what they're doing

 

And people wonder why I'm such a control freak over things.

It may take time to earn my trust, but if you have it, it can be better than a five star rating on Google.

 

2005 4Runner A/C compressor stopped working so I payed a shop diagnose only.

At the end of it all they had half the dashboard apart while telling me I needed a $900 HVAC control module.

What they didn't do is they didn't use the built-in diagnostics like I asked them to because if they did they would have found the broken wire on the high pressure switch.

I paid them $200 to end up with me finding and fixing the issue in my driveway.

 

Just like any profession, there`s good and bad.

Do your research; or ask a friend.

 

You take the good, you take the bad. You take them both and there you have the facts of life.

 

You left out the ugly.

 

My kid did his own motor swap on his ZX6R. Took the emissions plates off the motor going in and didn't put block off plates on back on. He thought it didn't need them......‍♂️

 

If you want something done write...lol

 

Anything that got Babuska'd

 

Or Shervin’d

 

I used to fix submarines.

Thankfully, we haven't lost one since the year I was born.

 

Write who?

 

Buddy of mine had his tire rotated just last week , guy only put the locks on both back wheels(forgot the other 10 lugs). He drove 10 miles down the road before noticing

 

Thats one of my recent ones too... left all the lugs loose on the front and as soon as I started backing out I felt it... how do you drive from the bay to a parking spot and not feel that??

 

I had brake lines that burst on my car. Towed the car to a local shop that replaced the lines. Two months later I go to a quick lube place for an oil change and they asked me if I realized that there was no cap on the fluid reservoir. Drove it straight from there to the shop that replaced the lines. Their initial reaction was that they couldn’t have done that, but they quickly realized that it was stupid to take that stand. They got a me a new cap and flushed the brake lines at no charge.

 

I got no idea how my buddy got out of the parking spot no less drove down the road 10 miles with 1 lug holding each wheel.

 

Years ago I had E350 van with V8. My teammate had same van but V10 engine. Not to be short on power I bought V10 amblem and put on my van .
Year or so later I threw rod bearing. Towed van to local shop and ask them to verify it is rod bearing knocking and give me estimate to fix. Couple days later they call me and said I need new engine and it will cost me $xx. When I asked them why so much when I knew engines were much cheaper. He said because I have V10 and those are expensive. Then he started arguing with me when I told him it is V8.
Took van and did not pay him for diagnostic, told him to pound send

 

In my shop I had a tech who was worthless in my book. I have many stories but I'll just tell this one. He was helping another tech with his "expertise" on an Element with 175,00 miles on it. He said that the engine was junk and to put a boneyard motor in it. They replaced the motor and it was running like crap, just like the original motor. The tech told the Service Manager that this motor was junk too. So they got another boneyard motor. This motor ran shitty like the other two. I went to lunch, and when I got back, they had pushed the thing into my bay. I pulled the plugs for a compression test, noting that the plugs were dry. Testing with the nodes and two injectors weren't working. A check of the wiring back to the PCM showed it was good, so it was a junk PCM. When told this the tech screamed that I was wrong, didn't know what I was talking about, etc. I got a $90 PCM from the junkyard and that fixed it. So the customer has a junkyard engine, and a PCM and he noticed that the engine was noisy. Well, the motor needed a timing chain for another $2,500.00. Guy went ballistic and the Service Manager bought the guy's car.
The Service Manager got sent to another one of our dealerships and was knocked down to Writer. The expert technician sold his tools to another tech and got out of the business because he ran out of dealerships to work for, and the tech that did the work got fired for doing side work. The Service Manager that looked the other way while he did this was fired.

 

I certainly wouldn't 'return'.

Or pick up the 'tab'.

Take your shit to a different 'space'.

Period.