Stupid Mechanic

[Phishin]

A few weeks ago, I got a code for a mis-fire (cylinder #4) in my 2000 Nissan Altima. I have been so busy with work and fishing, I had my mechanic look at it. It ended up just being a bad plug wire, but he removed the fuel injector and inspected that before he found the wire problem.

Ever since he did this, the car has had a "stumble" when you first begin to accelerate. A few weeks go by, no improvement.

I pulled the plug in cylinder #4 and it's white and clean....looks way lean. The others are tan.

So last night, I had an hour to burn, so I pulled the same fuel injector in #4. The first thing I notice, is the o-ring that the injector sits on inside the intake/housing has a rip in it...but it's whole. It's all there. Then I notice another half piece of o-ring sitting down into the port that the injectors sprays gas in!!! I found a really long pair of skinny needle nose pliers and I pulled it out.

Car runs perfect now.

I can't wait to talk to my mechanic. Idiot.

 

[sasilverbullet]

Be gentle, kind words go a long way - we all have bad days!

 

[Danno]

People make mistakes and no one got hurt. Just me 2 cents.

 

[LScowboy]

Originally Posted By: sasilverbullet
Be gentle, kind words go a long way - we all have bad days!

Originally Posted By: Danno
People make mistakes and no one got hurt. Just me 2 cents.


nah, heellll no, you are jokin me right?

this is the guy's job! - he is supposed to be a professional

what if your surgeon was "having a bad day" and botched your surgery??

I would find a competent mechanic, ASAP, this incident was your red flag!

 

[supton]

It's a mistake. Odds are, your mechanic will be apologetic, and take care of you next time you come back. After all, he wants repeat customers.

There's a reason doctors cost more than mechanics.

 

[Doog]

Originally Posted By: sasilverbullet
Be gentle, kind words go a long way - we all have bad days!

+1 be real nice.....Then kill him......

 

[antiqueshell]

Originally Posted By: LScowboy
Originally Posted By: sasilverbullet
Be gentle, kind words go a long way - we all have bad days!

Originally Posted By: Danno
People make mistakes and no one got hurt. Just me 2 cents.


nah, heellll no, you are jokin me right?

this is the guy's job! - he is supposed to be a professional

what if your surgeon was "having a bad day" and botched your surgery??

I would find a competent mechanic, ASAP, this incident was your red flag!



I agree that this is VERY sloppy work. Heck you gave him all the clues he needed to make his work simple and easy...and I'm sure he still got paid very nicely.

I wouldn't go in screaming at the guy but I would be firm and direct and inform him that YOU had to correct his work and HE is the professional. I would request that he refund most of your money minus the cost of the plug wire part.

I too am sick of people always willing to give these professionals which get paid for their work a pass because they made a "mistake".

SLOPPY, SLOPPY WORK! No excuse.

I guess these same people have forgotten the old saying

"Fix it right the FIRST time"

 

[Neely97]

Be nice. You will never regret it. Words spoken in anger sometimes come back to haunt us, but never the nice ones.

 

[Kruse]

I'd just show him his mistake, kindly tell him how you fixed it and then maybe he'll never have the same mistake again in his life.
He is human and everybody has some errors on the job. If any professional mechanic says that they don't make mistakes, they are lying. Just be glad that he wasn't your surgeon.

 

[Fleetmon]

He was paid to do a job and failed.....sure, use nice language but let him know that it was HE that screwed up a job he was paid to do. How come the owner (and the one that paid him for the job) noticed there was a problem but the mechanic didn't.

Before you flame me, I was a professional mechanic for 30 years....still am but now I watch people turn wrenches instead of doing it myself. In my line of work there is zero tolerance for comebacks....fix it once and fix it right.....peoples lives depend on it.

It's not a matter of whether he made a mistake or not, it boils down to he didn't check his work properly.

 

[Spector]

wonder why physicians have malpractice Ins?

 

[Tegger]

Long boring story follows:

Years ago I had a 1974 Mazda RX-4. This vehicle had a disc-brake design that employed an anti-rattle spring that sat between the bottom of the pad and the pad-mounting bracket.
When installing pads, you clipped this spring to the mounting bracket, pushed the pad on top of the spring, then swiveled the pad into place.

The problem with this system was that the spring was long and skinny, and it was possible to accidentally seat the pad outboard of the spring instead of on top of the spring.
If you did that, the spring would act as a spacer and prevent the piston from pressing the pad against the rotor. Which meant no brakes.

Well. The mechanic I used at the time was (and still is) the very best I had ever seen. And he made that mistake. By the proverbial skin of my teeth, I escaped a collision at the first intersection I came to after leaving his shop. I turned around, went back, and he was mortally embarrassed at having made that mistake once he determined that he had done that. Fixed the problem immediately and apologized up and down and sideways.

Give your guy a break, OK? It's not a perfect world.

 

[antiqueshell]

If the mechanic would have TEST DRIVEN the car to check his work you would not have had a near death experience, you can be the best mechanic in the world but there is no excuse for a "professional" NOT checking his work BEFORE returning the vehicle to the customer. Shame shame shame!

I can even see if the guy was in a hurry not checking something NON critical...but critical systems which if they fail could cause a death or injury should ALWAYS...ALWAYS be checked.

 

[Tegger]

Originally Posted By: antiqueshell
If the mechanic would have TEST DRIVEN the car...

I didn't include all the details, which would have been impractical in this context.

My point is that the world is just about as perfect as you are. Sometimes it is necessary to allow for that fact, and "give" a little.

 

[Vikas]

Well, it depends if it was first strike or multiple incidents prior to this. I have encountered enough situations where even a cursory examination would have pointed out the screw-up but mechanic(s) still called it good and done.

There was a time I used to carry a spare key any time I had my car in for a service and when I found the work was completely, I used to use my key and get in and verify the work before paying the money to the cashier.

 

[KrisZ]

Originally Posted By: Tegger
If Long boring story follows:

Years ago I had a 1974 Mazda RX-4. This vehicle had a disc-brake design that employed an anti-rattle spring that sat between the bottom of the pad and the pad-mounting bracket.
When installing pads, you clipped this spring to the mounting bracket, pushed the pad on top of the spring, then swiveled the pad into place.

The problem with this system was that the spring was long and skinny, and it was possible to accidentally seat the pad outboard of the spring instead of on top of the spring.
If you did that, the spring would act as a spacer and prevent the piston from pressing the pad against the rotor. Which meant no brakes.

Well. The mechanic I used at the time was (and still is) the very best I had ever seen. And he made that mistake. By the proverbial skin of my teeth, I escaped a collision at the first intersection I came to after leaving his shop. I turned around, went back, and he was mortally embarrassed at having made that mistake once he determined that he had done that. Fixed the problem immediately and apologized up and down and sideways.

Give your guy a break, OK? It's not a perfect world.



+1000
If OP has good experience with this mechanic overall, I would never let this little mishap overshadow overall good picture.
Stuff happens and true processionals know how to handle these situations and make the customer "hole".

Lots of experts here are quick to condemn others as if they never made a mistake.

 

[Cubey]

A shop botched a brake job on my motorhome and I ended up discovering it 8 months later when I dug in to check their work since my brakes were bad and it was nose driving badly. (mind you, I was almost never driving it at the time)

They left a $1 spring off, damaged my brake shoes and damaged my new brake drum, and STOLE the other new drum. I checked the other side.. the drums don't match.. one is old, one is new. I bought and inspected the drums so I know the difference.

I reported them to the BBB and they told the BBB I was passing around $20 bills as tips after paying a $600 repair bill (differential plus brakes, almost all labor since I had my own parts) plus $100 towing. The BBB sided with the shop since I never took it back or complained at them directly. I had another shop adjust the brakes seeing if THAT would fix it and it did for a short time until it dug into the brake shoe some more. They assumed, like I did that, that the drum brakes were done properly.

When I discovered the damage and problem, what was I supposed to do? Put it back together how they had it and drive 20 miles and have them tear it up worse? I bought a new spring set for both sides for good measure and replaced them for less than the cost of round trip gas to take it back to them to fix. I didn't trust them worth a flip!

And... this was AFTER another shop/mechanic tore my differential apart and didn't know how to put it back together.. and kept it for 3 months when I just took it in for a brake job. I should have probably sued him but he lives down the street from me, knows where I live and honestly seems a little mentally unstable, which I didn't know until after he tore into the differential. He was angry at me for having it towed elsewhere after 3 months of him never finishing anything. Yes, angry at me for having to pay $700 to another shop to fix what he screwed up. It was not drivable (differential torn apart!) so it had to be towed.

I replaced all the guts in the differential except the carrier itself since it was all torn apart anyway. Who's to say I even needed any of it.. the guy who tore it apart and couldn't put it back together told me it had a bad ring gear after he took off the cover because he said one of the bearings was rusty based on a ring on the (full floating) axel shaft. I bought ALL the parts (ring gear & pinion, bearings, all the seals) right away. I even bought TOOLS for him to use, printed out manuals on how to work on the Dana 60 axle and he still never even finished putting the brakes together.

3 months later it was put back together by the other shop... who botched the drum brake job. So yes, two shops couldn't do a drum job properly.

In the end, after paying $1500 for brakes, towing, differential rebuild, I ended up doing a drum brake job I didn't want to do in the first place. I barely trust mechanics anywhere anymore.

 

[Cubey]

Oh, and the first guy who tore it apart? I had paid him $250 after about the first week or two. I felt bad when the electric co showed up to cut off the power to his house and shop (next door to each other) after he had my van torn apart.

I didn't feel bad for him mind you, I felt bad for his 3 kids... one about aged 6 and the other barely out of diapers, the other about 14. So yeah... he was mad at me despite getting paid for never finishing anything.

I will say though, he fixed the oil leak on the car I had at the time for $20 and it was a lot of work.. so I guess I got the $250 back from him doing that. Too bad the engine didn't last another year after though.

 

[Astro14]

Phishin - your mechanic made a mistake (and yes, surgeons and doctors make mistakes...to the tune of 100,000 deaths every year from medical malpractice...but that's for another thread).

Given all the mistakes that we've seen you make on your old truck, I would think you would be more understanding of human error. "let he who is without sin cast the first stone"...

Take the broken piece of o-ring back to him, show him his mistake. His reaction will determine whether it's time to find a new mechanic, or forgive and move on.

 

[antiqueshell]

The problem is that while there are some good shops and mechanics out there the majority of them are NOT. This brings a bad smell to the ENTIRE industry.