Local dealer had a small disaster.

Joined
Jun 5, 2003
Messages
27,886
Location
Apple Valley, California
Got a call on tuesday. A local dealer whom I won't name ( lol) let a Customer in a handicapped van drive over the pit for an oil change.

The customer somehow drove into the pit! When this happened it severed some AC and cooling lines under the van.

Due to the fact that it's a modified van( wheel chair lift) the lines that got damaged were custom built by the company that modified it and not available.

Can't just loan the owner a car since they needed special accomodations and can't drive a normal car.

Dealer got the owner home and proceeded to get to work on the van. Their attempt to fix a high pressure AC line was a piece of heater hose and hose clamps!

When that let loose under pressure they removed all the lines to have them repaired.

Then when several shops said they can't fix it they ended up at the local hose place that mostly makes hydraulic hoses for tractors.

They don't do any aluminum repairs. They just crimp new ends onto new hose for equipment.

But they did give the dealer my number as they know that I do repairs to stuff that nobody else locally can.

Guy brought the mess to me last night and about 45 minutes later I had the lines properly repaired with the correct fittings and crimps.

Nice little job for me.
 
Any custom rig can have problems, especially if the people doing the work are morons.
Local Chrysler dealership here were the worst bunch of hacks, in 2005 my mom's 1997 Plymouth Voyager skipped timing, had it towed to the Chrysler dealer and they ended up having it for two months, hacked the wiring harness to holy hell, my grampa went to the junkyard and crawled underneath one and painstakingly removed the whole wiring harness off of it, the dealer said there was no way a vehicle with that low of mileage ( I don't remember what it was) would have skipped time, even though my grampa was sure that's what the problem was, after two months they finally realized they were morons and fixed the real problem, but ultimately we lost 2 months of use of the vehicle and the wiring was never right again, I will never buy anything Chrysler ever as a result of their incompetence.
 
So who pays for that? The dealer who should never have let a customer drive into the pit, or the owner that should never have driven into the pit.
The dealer paid. The van has no front seat so a person can't drive it. The driver wheels the wheel chair up the side then to the driver's position. Then locks the wheel chair in and they drive with hand controls.
 
aaE5jmC (1).gif
 
So who pays for that? The dealer who should never have let a customer drive into the pit, or the owner that should never have driven into the pit.
Many vehicles fitted this way dont even have a steering wheel.

Sometimes it’s levers similar to the controls found on an excavator or backhoe and they’re very touchy.

If one can drive, one can assume they could park it over the pit as long as they listen to (and trust) the spotter.
 
Back
Top