Originally Posted By: Scott_Tucker
Any tech who doesn't test drive the vehicle after doing a mechanical repair no matter how seemingly minor is a hack. That's basic quality control and I'm not sure why the OP would be [censored] about it. However, since the customer requested that they not drive the car they should have followed those instructions.
How did you know this harmonic balancer was faulty and what complaint did you have about how the engine ran? If there was no complaint I don't see why they would have replaced it unless it was about to fall off. They are pretty stout units and rarely fail.
Like I posted earlier, it's the fact that they ignored my instructions that irked me. I didn't start cutting myself or binge drinking over it or anything, it was just annoying and I wondered what the community opinions were.
The engine ran fine. The inertia ring was separating from the hub. A veritable diagnostic prodigy was not required, it was as obvious as a flat tire. I was inspecting everything during some scheduled maintenance and observed that the inertia ring, which is also the drive sheave for the accessories,had angular misalignment with respect to the damper hub. I don't honestly know what the runout tolerance for the component may be, but if you can see it with only visual inspection it surely exceeds that tolerance. There was no discernible vibration or noise from this, and it had yet to begin eating belts. With the damper in this state, it was effectively no longer neutral balanced as designed and would likely only get worse until it started shucking accessory drive belts or rapidly disassembled itself. A properly conducted R&R of the component in question would certainly be verifiable by inspection of sheave alignment. The engine is internally balanced and the crank is not even keyed, so the damper is either installed fully and the bolt is torqued to spec, or it is not. No amount of driving would have verified this.
That's what started the whole transaction, anyway.
