Damn Ford garage !

In news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com, Andy M Jenkins decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows

Revved the absolute bollocks off it and bounced a valve?

Did you specify "Italian tune up not required" because Ford mechanics tend to like to start engines at 6000rpm.

They haven't got the apprentie to "check [ie f**k up] the timing, mixture etc etc have they? Seems to be a favorite of my limited experience of main dealers.

Is this a likely thing to have been altered as a result of a major service, or indeed *needing* alteration after such a service ?

No, but for some reason they seem to let thick kids loose on people cars, probably to give them something to do. Example. Mum takes her nearly brand new Micra in for its first service - it was running sweet as a nut. Get it back and it's running rough, bastard to start and stalls repeatedly when cold. Takes it back, service manager disappears out the back and comes back with a pimply youth in tow. Tells mum that the apprentice was asked to check and adjuct ignition timing, then turn to apprentice and tells him to "Sort out whatever you did to this ladys car". To cut a long story short, the car never ran right again.

There was no need for them to adjust the timing, or even check it. Needless to say she was rather pissed off! She now always leaves specific intructions to carry out the service items and *nothing* else without calling to check first.

I dread visiting those tyre fitting centres were they don't seem to worry too much about finding 'suitable' jacking points under the car. I really lost my cool once when a kid with one of those air-guns (obviously fitted with the wrong sized socket) proceeded to round off the wheel nuts on my daughter's Mini Metro.

Surely all modern engines have rev limiters?

In news: snipped-for-privacy@argonet.co.uk, Dave Plowman decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows

yeah, I think most of 'em do.. but YTS's seem to manage mysterious things..

Its a long shot, and you dont mention which set of leads the dealer replaced- but if its the rear 3 then the inlet manifold has to come off to do it (like a Vx V6) and they may have displaced a gasket or got a vacuum leak when replacing the manifold which is causing your misfire....

Tim...

Reminds me of the time one of the monkeys removed a cooling pipe to, I assume, get access to the manifold when changing the exhaust... he didn't replace it. I noticed it about 10 miles later when I was pullled into the side of the road filling it up with mineral water.

Hi Tim,

It is the rear set (plugs 1,2 & 3), and yes .. the amount of space to work is severly limited unless the UIM comes off (I've done this a few times for various things - not least to clean the UIM and LIM clean of buildup which can prevent the secondaries opening ona V6).

Its possible I guess .. but the engine seems to run OK when on idle ..maybe a little wrong from what I recall. Its only when given WOT do you really see the problem.

Nothing can be ruled out though eh? I'm still convinved they've made a noddy mistake - like as you suggest, or forgotten to put a plug in or something lol :o)

I don't like those air-guns, they usually do them really tight don't they. I've never had my bolts air-gunned, but that's what I've heard.

Sounds like my car ;-) One thing I can think of is that the ignition leads are arcing. Try to separate the ignition leads (with the engine off), or look at them at night with the engine running. I've read that V8/V6's are more suseptable to these problems and sometimes the leads need to be rerouted in a specific way.

Read the post again Peter, HT leads already been eliminated.

You are obsessed with HT leads!

Well he's partly right though.

Car came back today from the garage. The official response ?

"A misplaced lead".

I'm struggling to get a better description of the problem - but the best I can get is that they've put the wrong lead to the wrong spark.

There actually air impact wrenches, just like the ones you hit with a hammer. Correct tool for final tightening of a wheel stud is a Torque Wrench not a flaming Impact Wrench.

A length of sturdy metal pipe of diameter to fit your wheel spider is worth its weight in gold when you find you`ve been Fitted (up)Kwik :-(

Adam

I had two rear tyres fitted to my seven series two months ago ... man in overalls promptly shoved jack under diff. "Don't jack it there" i said. "Oh we always jack them there ... we never see any problems" "I had to replace a cracked diff once on a friends beemer ... the alloy end cap had been used as a jacking point". "Oh" Was the reply ... then another jack appeared to do the job properly.

Last weekend i went to get the fronts changed. Muppet from yoof training was there .... learning from his mistakes at customers expense (as usual). Car jacked up with the jack pads on the anti-roll bar bush/chassis mountings (not a jacking point, but quite substantial so i didn't moan this time). Tyres changed, bolts inserted, then whizzed up to incredible torque with the air-wrench. Next he lowered the car, in such a way the mudflap landed on his jack and wedged it in place. He heaved and yanked until i pointed out what was wrong, then suggested he put his head under the wheel once he re-raised it to check for damage.

Anyway, after the car was on the deck, i grabbed my torque wrench from the boot, and went around clicking away. "You'd be better off checking them in a weeks time". "Actually i'm trying to undo them and they are all tighter than 120lb/ft meaning they have been overtightened". "I'm not with you??? You're doing what???"

With that i paid and left the muppet to his hairy palm.

Also the only way the grease monkey could have put my spark plugs in at an angle 3 cars ago, cutting his own thread in the hole. Bastards.

Bob

Ouch! Is that not bad for the engine, having 4 out of 6 cylinders fighting each other? (Unless there is a combination where the 2 wrongly wired up ones were the only ones fighting).

Maybe they were just not connected (hopefully).

Bob

Bearing in mind that they (should've) only replaced the leads, it would make sense that the leads were the problem.