Hack Lube Tech At Dealership

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Originally Posted By: Zedhed
Hey, the tire over-inflation is the least of your worries, when I supervised techs, the worst problem I had was the way they put the cars on the lifts. They never used the proper jacking points and were always damaging the under-side of customers' vehicles. They wanted to use the body seams to support the vehicle and I had many complaints until I forced them to use the correct jacking points. You would not believe how much damage can occur to the body by doing that.

After training the techs to use the factory correct jacking points and having diagram charts posted in the shop, if they did incorrectly after that -- they got sent home for the rest of the day without pay.

It is very easy to repair a stripped oil drain plug, but much more expensive to repair damaged rocker panels.

I even had one noobie tech who caused a pickup to fall backwards off a hydraulic lift that was 8 feet in the air. Nearly totaled the truck. Nobody got hurt, thank goodness.


I have seen this ISSUE at EVERY SINGLE place I have ever gone for service..... dealers and others alike.

Every freaking time they would completely ignore the clearly visible lift point marks on the car and lift it in places causing the rail rocker panel seams to be CRUSHED SEVERELY.

Of course I am observant most of the time to prevent this but one time I wasn't paying attention and sure enough a service clown at Sears crushed the front body rocker panel seems so badly that it literally also dented the actual rocker panels as well. If the car wasn't 13 years old I would have sued them, but instead allowed them to give me a 500 credit instead.

This is the kind of gross negligence that gives the whole car service business a horrible name.
 
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Originally Posted By: Zedhed
Hey, the tire over-inflation is the least of your worries, when I supervised techs, the worst problem I had was the way they put the cars on the lifts. They never used the proper jacking points and were always damaging the under-side of customers' vehicles. They wanted to use the body seams to support the vehicle and I had many complaints until I forced them to use the correct jacking points. You would not believe how much damage can occur to the body by doing that.

After training the techs to use the factory correct jacking points and having diagram charts posted in the shop, if they did incorrectly after that -- they got sent home for the rest of the day without pay.

It is very easy to repair a stripped oil drain plug, but much more expensive to repair damaged rocker panels.

I even had one noobie tech who caused a pickup to fall backwards off a hydraulic lift that was 8 feet in the air. Nearly totaled the truck. Nobody got hurt, thank goodness.


Exactly. I'm sorry, but even the skilled techs don't have time to triple check tire pressure with 3 different calibrated gauges to MAKE SURE it's ABSOLUTELY correct. Close enough for horseshoes and hand grenades.

Luckily working on Acura/Honda, underneath there are two extra pieces of steel on each side attached near the pinch welds exclusively for vehicle hoisting. Makes it very easy. As far as I know, they are the only manufacturer to do so. (German cars have those rubber things that fall off, PITA)

I have nightmares about cars falling off of hoists, luckily haven't seen it happen in person, but definitely a few close calls. The joys of being an auto technician.
 
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