Mechanic car abuse

All you can do is show it to the owner of the garage, it isn't good, but it certainly isn't as bad as some things I have seen, it happens everywhere.

I sometimes visit a Lexus main dealer to buy parts, the parts and service department is separated from the car showrooms by about a quarter mile, every car that goes in or out of the workshops has the tyres smoking, I wouldn't want someone else doing that to any of my cars, I am amazed that the workshop manager puts up with it, he must know.

In the grand scheme of mechanics, that's fairly tame.

But from other people's experiences, you're stuffed because you've got an ST. Give most garages an ST, WRC, M, R or GTi and it'll come back with a few thou off the clutch and tyres. Mind you, in some cases the owners don't get them back in one piece.

Heh, despite not being the most practical person in the world (though far from being the least, definitely above average!) this is exactly why I like to do my car maintenance myself if I can.

I'll definitely be showing it to the manager anyway! If they brush me off I might name and shame using social media :-} I imagine they'll want to maintain their good local reputation though.

Thanks,

Peter.

Many back street garages treat customer's cars as general runarounds for staff and owners. 30 years ago I took a Capri in for a front wing repair. What they didn't realise was I noted down the mileage when I left it there. Came back a week later to collect it and it had 300 extra miles on it and an empty petrol tank. Later it turned out the petrol cap had also been forced off. The ignition key wasn't the same as the petrol cap key and I hadn't given them that. Turned out someone had gone away for the weekend in it up north. They only realised they couldn't open the petrol cap when they needed to fill up so they hammered a screwdriver into it. My wrath was considerable. The front wing repair ended up fairly cheap needless to say when court for fraud and damages was their alternative option.

Yes, although it's been into garages 4 times so far (had it a year) and I've only had problems this time. The LPG conversion place and the Ford main dealer have been fine. Tempting to stick to dealer when it's beyond me / don't have time then!

It didn't sound like he was mistreating your engine and he wasn't driving badly. You could analyze the sound and calculate the engine speed, but after 4 minutes it wasn't too cold.

Is the garage supposed to do a road test? If not, and you didn't agree to it in the small print, then you have evidence of TWOC. Otherwise there's nothing to complain about unless you don't like the Joycean interior monologue.

As an mot was involved, a road test is an option iirc. Any repair involving driving critical work should involve a road test imo.

After four minutes, with hot air blowing out of the heater vents the engine might appear to be up to temperature, the water could be, but the oil and metal temperatures won't be anywhere near. Even with low water content modern engines it can take around thirty minutes of running to properly increase and stabilise the internal engine temperatures. Thrash the car during that time and you are operating in a relatively unknown area protected only by favourable build tolerances, the expertise of a tribologist, and luck.

I think you've already done that...

Indeed.

Oooh, he's given it a few berries. But, honestly, not THAT much. And... young mechanic in "not the most eloquent" shocker... Hold the front page.

I rather suspect that if you viewed a similar video of the guy driving his own car (I'd guess at the A3 parked outside the workshop, mebbe the Mini), it'd be almost identical. He'll see that as "driving normally", not abuse.

The rev limiter certainly didn't sound as if it was kicking in - but, even if it did, is that the end of the world? The whole point of it is to set an upper bound to the acceptable rev range. A brief burst of acceleration using a fair chunk of the rev range - no wheelspin, despite the road being wet. Not that high a road speed, judging by the other traffic and reactions of pedestrians.

As for the handbrake - umm, doesn't it use exactly the same rear pads as the brakes? So the only difference between pulling that on and braking is that the front brakes don't do anything. And they'll be the rear pads he's just fitted - he's just checking that the handbrake, which he's just worked on, is actually doing something, now that the rear calipers should have self-adjusted up. OK, I wouldn't be letting the ratchet drag, not least because you're going to have to take it back off again instantly.

OP - you're over-worrying. Can I guess that the dashcam's fairly new, and you're not used to the perception of sound from it? Put it on mute - does it raise your hair then? Would your perception of it be different if he hadn't killed two birds with one stone and stopped at the petrol station for his mars bar/lunch/ciggies whilst doing the road test?

What cam do you have, the footage seems generally decent quality

The car would have been driven to the garage (unknown distance/time), then it was tested (usually involves running stationary for about 15 minutes and should be brought up to full temperature to get the emissions correct) , then it would have been driven onto the ramp, half an hour for the pad change, then it was driven again. There is no way that the engine was cold enough to worry about. It takes many hours when inside a building for a large hot engine in a modern insulated engine bay to cool to room temperature, let alone anything low enough to worry about with modern engines and oil.

It looked to me as though the mechanic was a fairly safe driver, he seemed to allow good distances between himself and the cars ahead.

Not good enough to read numberplates, though, which would be kinda useful given the job of 'em.

I transcoded the footage to a lower detail so don't go by that. It's a Smartcam 2 HD but I wouldn't buy another as although the quality is good it has a horrendous bug stopping the looping of recordings from working properly.

Sorry but you're labouring under a misapprehension (my fault).

• The car started off stone cold at my house.

• The garage is less than a mile away from me and I drove there slowly (was following the wife!)

• The car stood around for an hour or so before he did the pads.

• The pads took about an hour.

You saw the rest. The MoT was after the pads, obviously you're right that if the MoT had been first the engine temp would also have been fine. It's possible the dial was starting to move off the peg by the time he hit the limiter but I can't believe he was paying attention to that in the slightest!

Also note that it has LPG although I'm not sure of the scale of cooling the vaporiser has on the engine.

Agreed insofar as collision risk goes.

Thanks,

Peter.

I don't remember complaining about the language!

I think it's irrelevant what he considers normal for him driving his own car. Do you think it'd be OK for him to drive your car like that?

I'm fairly sure it did at the point I mentioned, I've done it myself so know what that sounds like (when fully warm I should point out!).

Good point although I suspect he left it on for a while but that's just conjecture.

No... When I watched it the first time I had that reaction before realising he wasn't doing a road test. That said though you may be right about over-reacting. It's still TWOC though IMO regardless of the driving style.

Thanks,

Peter.

Yeah it's TWOC I think, there was no discussion about road testing at all and they were about to do an MoT anyway. I'm sure calliper adjustment could have been done in the car park.

No problem with the dialogue ;)

No, it isn't.

Unless, of course, you explicitly instructed them not to road-test your car after working on the brakes.

If the MOT was before the road-test, then the car would have had to be up to full temp for the emissions test.

If the MOT was after the road-test, then the car would have had to be thoroughly warmed up in prep for the emissions test.

Infinitessimal.