They see you coming

My father ran a garage, and my brothers were in the motor trade, so I grew up around motor vehicles.

A colleague bought a Rover 2000 when it was a new model. First service the garage charged for 6 plugs. Colleague asked for the extra two plugs. Shame faced service manager admitted the mistake and amended the bill.

Very many years ago, a neighbour had a Fiat 500. Regularly main dealer serviced, but a bad starter, until I set plugs, points and timing. The battery box was badly corroded, having had a "Replacement battery" fitted. The date stamp showed it to be older than the car!

About the same time, my wife's colleague's car ran short on oil.. The bill for the call out included a new rocker cover gasket, since the problem was that the leaking gasket was the original "Funny, you've billed me for a new gasket at every service" "Sorry Madam, No charge"

Many years later, my wife ran a Renault 6TL. Having had a new tyre fitted, by a national chain, I saw that the balance weights were almost all the way round the wheel and the valve was a tubeless one. Returned the car and told them that the wheels were not suitable for tubeless tyres and that a special adaptor was required to fit he wheels to the balancing machine., and would they please fit the correct tyre and our tube.

Wheel was returned with very few balance weights! One lost customer!

A neighbour went for a "Free track check" two weeks later noticed that the tyres were wearing and pointed it outb to him. I checked the track with my kit and found it to be out. Reset it, and the nuts went back to exactly where the dirt showed that they had been! originally

Exactly the same thing happened to the other next door neighbour!

Someone at work had their track Reset by the main dealer,. The front tyres wore out in 500 miles, and the fuel consumption was terrible! Took it back and told them to put it right and fit new tyres, at their expense. . OK after that!

Another neighbour bought his company car. next service "You need new rear discs sir" "Funny you changed them at the last service, that the company paid for" "Oh, so we did. Won't be necessary then"

According to main dealer, during warranty, (Not covered as "Wear and tear" ) our last cars needed new anti roll bar bushes and bolts. Never reported at any of the subsequent services, or MOTs, by two other garages, during the 12 years that we had them!

You have to watch out for the con artists.

Guess why I did all the servicing once the cars were out of warranty!

Howard

Similar experience earlier this year; I purchased a 19 reg Vauxhall Mokka which still had 1 years manuf' warranty left on it, fortunately for me as it turned out. A couple of weeks later I noticed some fluid marks on the drive which I suspected may be brake fluid as it wasn't dark oil type stains. I arranged to have it back in the dealers garage for a check, along with a request to remove a nail from a back tyre & plug repair it. It turned out that the leak was from the aircon compressor.. 2 year old car..? . Fortunately for me the dealer said it was covered by the remaining warranty period so no cost to me, otherwise it would have been £700 fitted.

I asked them to replace two front tyres also as their tread depth was down compared to the rear tyres (inc' the one with the nail in) not beyond the legal limit though, so had decided to make them all equal before winter. As re. the nail, they didn't remove it as they claimed it was too near the sidewall to be a safe repair..?. I ended up taking it to Kwik fit ( usual disclaimer ) who told me the same reason, so ended up paying out for a new tyre albeit the original had virtually full tread depth left on it.

It goes to show that you can get a mix of good & bad advice from dealers & independents.As it was I'd covered all aspects so was happy with the outcome/s. It pays to have a bit of knowledge about mechanics but for those who haven't, it pays to get a second opinion.

George.

You mean to say you have people like that over your way as well ???

Shocking !!

Its a bit like car insurers not reducing premiums whilst the car is effectively in lockdown.

Wonder what fiddles will come to light with new all elec. cars? Crooked/incompetent garages sure to find something or rather, many things!

At one time, there seemed to be a craze for claiming that the tracking was out and needed work done.

There is a legal distance a plug has to be from the sidewall shoulder as the hole affects the cords.

It's fine to remove nails etc yourself if it's a screw then undo it, you may not have have a leak after all.

Edited By Dave Halford on 06/09/2021 11:06:26

Edited By Dave Halford on 06/09/2021 11:15:29

About two years ago, my daughter had the misfortune to have a front wheel come off while driving her 2 year old Mitsubishi Outlander. At the time she was on the way to pick her son up from school and was in a narrow lane, so doing about 30mph. The car ended up in the ditch, but fortunately she was not hurt. The wheel continued down the road and was recovered by the Police later. They pointed out that all 5 bolts had sheared ! The car had been serviced by the main dealer who sold the vehical. In the follow up "discusion " we had with them they would not accept that they had torqued the nuts up above spec, but offered to buy back the vehicle for the pric epaid.This was accepted.

The day before this incident, my daughter had driven 40 miles out and back on the M4 moterway and I still feel sick when I think what would have happened if the wheel had come off then.

I use a local tyre garage which is a family owned business, Dad retired and son now manages it, I have been going there for all my tyre requirements for cars and motorcycles ever since I was in college, now in my mid seventies, they have always been scrupulously fair and over the years they were the only establishment that I would trust to carry out proper vulcanised repairs. In respect of car servicing I have a Honda, bought from a family owned franchise and they were always very straight in their dealings and work carried out to high standards. Couple of years ago they were bought out by a national concern who have multiple manufacturers franchises, took the car in for annual service and mot last summer, soon after the service the battery went flat, not using it often enough during the lockdown, when I opened the bonnet to remove the battery for charging found the air cleaner housing completely disconnected, all four clips undone. This year after annual service and collected the car found rear wing had been scraped against something while in their “care”. Pointless trying to argue the toss over both these occurrences it highlights how the high standards had dropped since the sale of the franchise, profits have now replaced customer service. Dave W

And never ,ever, leave your wheel-locking nut on if you are having a tyre change.

Normal nuts only , then change when you are home.

I am lucky to have found an honest garage. I asked them to look at the steering rack boots when the car was last serviced and the boss told me that they had plenty of life left in them.

What's the reasoning behind this? Am I missing something obvious?

The problem with locking wheel nuts is either the garage loses the key, or destroys the nut ton remove the wheel.

Just renewed our car insurances.

For once, the premiums went down, AND Direct Line are going to refund 2% of the premium for each 1,000 miles that we did not drive of their nominal 10,000 pa, So it could be that we benefit to the tune of about £15 for each car!

Makes better reading!

Howard

The locking nuts and their key are easily damaged, even using hand tools. Add an impact wrench and you're asking for trouble. And the mechanic needs to be disciplined enough to replace the key where he found it, rather than losing it.

Damaged locking nuts or lost keys are the biggest reason for not being able to do wheel changes at the side of the road.

I won't have them on any car I own.

Until recently I was responsible for three minibuses and a 7 seater that did very few miles but which were all essential at some times. Even before lockdown these all did very few miles - some only of the order of hundreds of miles a year.

One of my first jobs was to look at the MOT histories of all and check for advisories. With no one in particular in charge of organising maintenance, MOTs and servicing the MOTs had been carried out at a selection of different garages. Not one of the advisories listed had ever been found by a second MOT test and none of them had developed into a test failure.

Sticking with a single MOT testing station any advisories were repeated in subsequent years unless attended to as a test failure.

A friend donated his late wife's car to his daughter. It developed a rattle.

"You need anew timing chain, sir" But the rattle was not from the engine, it was coming from underneath!

The heatshield around the catalytic converter had rusted through around one of the bolts.

Being a woodworker, my friend made and hammeredi into place a wooden wedge to stop the shield vibrating.

Silence!

Howard

I have to disagree - I think the biggest reason is no spare wheel and in some cases no facility for carrying one safely and conveniently - all to bring the weight down and improve fuel consumption test results.

With today's traffic I also suspect that even with a spare on the vehicle there are very few locations where changing a tyre on the drivers side of a vehicle could be done safely without the attendance of breakdown services.

As the purpose of locking wheel nuts is to prevent the theft of wheels even if damaged they are doing their job and an insurance claim for wheel theft may fail if they are removed when supplied as standard with the vehicle (as they have been with the last 6 vehicles I have bought new).

I don't deny locking wheel-nuts are a 'deterrent' but if 'someone ' wants your wheels , they'll have them ,

wheel-nuts or not.

I based that on 16 years as a recovery driver, averaging several roadside wheel changes a week. Once the nut or key is damaged, it needs workshop equipment. Yes, I do know that there are tools that claim to do this easily. I've tried most of them, and they rarely work. They are never easy!

The next biggest reason was that the nuts are too tight for the small wheel braces supplied. That's an easy fix, my 750mm long breaker bar never failed.

Next: customer managed to loosen the nuts, but the wheel won't come off. I like to beat it off from the back with a length of 4x2, after replacing the car's jack with my trolley jack. That's only failed once, and it took several minutes of driving around the car park with the wheel nuts on, but loose, to break the wheel free. Anyone removing a wheel should clean both the hub and the wheel mounting face before refitting. A smear of copper grease is a good idea.

In my 16 years, we had one job for stolen alloy wheels. The car was 10 year old Skoda Fabia. The set of multi-fit slave wheels and adapters that some smooth talking salesman talked my boss into were a very poor investment.

My experience, and that of my colleagues is that locking wheel nuts create far more problems than they ever solve. Most garages agree; the one I use ask about locking wheel nut keys when the car is dropped off, and show the customer that it's in the car before handing it over.

Safe locations: I've been asked that many times. As always, it depends. If you know that your spare is inflated and in good condition(who here has checked theirs in the last six months), you have all the tools and they will work, and you're physically capable of doing the job, then changing and being on your way in <5minutes is much safer than waiting for someone else to do it. If you can't guarantee any of those, then get out of the car, stand in a safe place(which might require some effort) and hope that the car can be moved before it gets hit. If it's in a really unsafe place, the recovery man is trained not to stop!

and hope that the car can be moved before it gets hit.

Does nobody else carry a safety traffic warning triangle these days?

I do. Along with a clean Hi-viz vest.

Ever seen a triangle in use? Most users take it out of the boot, unwrap it, turn around and put it down about 0.5m away from the car. Which is useless. The recommendation is 100m away, which seems a bit too much for me.

The real reason for them is that hopefully the driver who isn't paying enough attention to see your car will notice that they've run over your triangle. If you are paying attention to your surroundings, you'll hear the impact and have enough warning to get out of their way.