Stealorship or what?

Can you use a memory saver or is there more to it? My wife has a 2017 rouge with about 90,000
miles the way she drives she should have a 3 painted on the side.She got it inspected at a dealership in Pa about 2 months ago no problems with the steering.

 

My experience has been the opposite. My wife had a Nissan and the dealer has tried to fail an inspection in the past for stuff I replaced on her car just prior to her bringing it in. One time, they told her they’d fail her on her windshield wipers. It would cost $50 for the wipers and the hour of labor, so $150. The problem was I replaced them the week before. She told them and you could tell they were thrown off and then told her she needs an air filter too. I actually replaced the air filter when I did the wipers. She told them that too and they gave up and passed her.

I’ve had similar issues with the Ford dealership I go to for my truck. They haven’t forced it on me during inspection but would tell me they noticed something like my brakes are wearing down and need replacement soon. I told them I actually did them about a month ago and they gave some sort of accuse. The shop I go to for inspection and take the commuter car to have never given me an issue, always shown me the issue while the car is in the service bay, and prices are always reasonable.

 

I changed her wipers. I only go to a dealer when absolutely necessary.

 

Honestly don’t know, haven’t delved into it, but my suspicion is that it’s a function of systems monitoring. ECU is keeping track of charging system status and battery capacitance to try and prevent a catastrophic failure, so when one parameter (battery capacitance) has a significant change it sets off all the red flags and klaxons that something ain’t right.

Again, that’s just my supposition, though I have been told that on a certain three letter motorcar with non-functional turn signals will leave a nag alert if the ecu reset isn’t done after a battery swap (so you can change the battery to get your ass on the road again and address the programming later).

 

Had some uneven front tire wear on my Dodge 3500.

Took it to a local shop and they wanted to put a drag link on, tie rod and upper and lower ball joints. Truck had 160k on it so the ball joints were certainly plausible but everything else seemed suspect.

Took it to a buddy 2 hours away and everything was in spec. He aligned the wheels and balanced them.

Now theyre perfect. I hooked him up with a fat birthday check.

 

I swapped out the battery on our Jetta Sportwagen a couple of years ago and the dash lit up like a Christmas tree and the idle hunted all over when I first started it. Called the independent guy down the road who does our inspections and other work I don't want to tackle and he said after a battery swap a bunch of sensors will push a "low voltage" code. He offered to reset stuff if I wanted to stop by but told me the other option was to just drive it and it would correct itself. After the third time starting it all the lights on the dash were out and the idle settled, never had a problem after that.

 

That doesn’t sound very consumer conducive

 

Man after reading these posts, I'm glad we dont have 'inspections' in GA... I'd be getting into all kinds of trouble.

 

In VA you aren't supposed to drive or operate your vehicle on a highway with a rejection sticker.

 

I'll say this... I normally just do everything myself. Not having a garage currently though, I have nowhere to put fluids, so I'm kinda short on coolant, trans, brake fluid, oil, etc... until we move into a house I guess and I end up paying.

I only put like 9k miles a year on my car, so once a year, its just honestly worth not having a hassle to take it to the dealer, even if it always ends up being near $1k. They give you a free loaner car and everything is always smooth so fuck it, worth it just for that these days. Tires I get done myself though, brakes I do myself, so I'll never need them for that. but contrary to how the rest of this thread is going, one of my AMG wheels has a crack in it. Its not leaking air, so I didn't really notice. Apparently they're notorious for that. Clearly I'm not going to buy a $1500 OEM wheel from a dealership, and even reman they're like $600. I essentially got some cooler looking wheels for $200 more on super sale, so I'm just gonna do that... BUT, my service advisor dude called me, texted me a video where the tech literally said the date and time and then video'd the crack to show me, and then was like "i imagine you're not gonna want to buy these here, they're absurd, but you should probably do something about it." That's a square dude, and thusly I'll keep coming back. Before this car, I hadn't paid for anything car related by somebody else in probably 12-13 years.

Reently got new tires on my girl's car at NTB, they "recommended" $1500 for pads and rotors on a 8 year old CT200h. said no thanks, the dude sounded surprised and weirded out that i said i'd take care of it. the rotors were totally fine. the rear pads weren't even that bad, fronts were honestly pretty low. an hour of my time and $200 later and all new. $200. Just makes you wonder how many people they scam for that $1500 weekly. Mercedes for my car got Continental to make the tires for them special. Only company that makes a 235/40-20. If you go up to 245/40-20, there's like 80 choices. Instead of $450 a piece from the dealer you can get Falken Azenis on sale for like $120 a piece. Some shit is just absurd cause they're scamming and other shit is just absurd.

Tell them to video the rack having play in it and send it to you. a rack is a pretty simple device. either the internals are messed up and get slop, seals break and you get leaking fluid and eventually slop, or the ball joints are bad. I went thru more than a few racks drifting with a super slammed car and heavy ass wheels. all-season tires on a floaty SUV might mask it a little more than a slammed car with all heim joint suspension arms... but my car would randomly jump over while in a lane when the rack was bad, or your tires would get into the grooves that heavy trucks sink the pavement down and it would massively steer you into them. If a rack has play like that, it'll be constantly altering your suspension geometry and alignment as the wheel has movement unrelated to your steering input and often at odds with the tracking of the other wheel, OR, you'd get crazy vibrations and play in the steering wheel while driving. If its driving like normal, i'd be suspect. and if they don't want to show it to you without paying $200 for extortion, i'd go somewhere else or worst case report them if you feel like being a Karen. they could literally tell you anything just like dude above who changed his filter and shit himself. most people won't question them, and then of the ones that do, most of those won't pay $200 to find out then get stuck with some core they have no idea what to do with. what's your wife gonna do with a rack core sitting at your house? that's bullshit.

 

I understand what you are saying. I've been wrenching on stuff since I was 10 when my dad wouldn't come out and fix my Hodaka 100 quickly enough for me.

My wife thinks I'm too busy to work on her car too, plus she is the type that wants it fixed right now and doesn't like driving with a check engine light on or a squeeky brake ,etc.. So even something easy like brakes, she prefers to get screwed by the dealer versus me doing it, when I can eventually find the time.

Sometimes I just have to pick my battles and realize it isn't the end of the world if we pay a few bucks for someone else to do what I could do, but don't have time, because I have worked the past 25 days straight.

Plus sometimes things break when you are pulling it apart, or putting it back together, and you are learning the proper process. This leads to additional down time waiting for parts, etc., and she has no time for that BS. LOLOL

 

Inner tie rod(works for either side) - https://www.nissanpartsdeal.com/parts/nissan-socket-kit-tie-rod-inner~d8521-4ba0a.html?vin=&make=Nissan&model=Rogue&year=2017&submodel=US Make&extra1=&extra2=&filter=()

 

Did Broome hack your account? Tl/dr

 

Damn! I thought it was just me who broke shyt during my exploratory mechanical adventures.
This post is encouraging!

 

Been there haha, although more so on the 91' 240 15 years later and less so on anything new. Things have gotten better in that regard. 3 cars for 2 people solves all those woes. Again, another thing I plan on in the near future.

 

you know you read it... you ain't doing anything haha