Where's the motorheads forum?

[Patchouli]

My complaint was over in the rant thread.
I forgot to mention that when I took the car back because the brakes still sounded and felt bad...I asked him if he didn't try out the brakes, take it for a spin, before he told me it was ready.
He said no, he didn't check them, and he didn't charge me for it either. Then he said it was messed up when I brought it there so don't blame him for there being something wrong. !+×@#%$$$&<>
My question for anyone is, don't you expect your mechanic to check the brakes after putting on new ones? Or is it just assumed all is well?
And no, he's not my mechanic any longer.

 

[SheepDog]

A reputable mechanic will always check his work. There are only a million things that can go wrong with any given job or that might influence the job you did. It only makes sense to check it out.

 

[Caribou]

Beware who you ask for help. I know a gal that asked a guy for help on her car. He couldn't figure it out so he told her, no problem go down to his favourite parts house and pick up a set of muffler bearings. She never forgave me for that.

 

[Patchouli]

I found a decent one, but he's about 12-15 miles away. I thought my brakes were too bad to go that far. Definitely going to stick with the further one. I also found out about another one very near by and looked at the many excellent reviews they got. So between the further one and the very near by I will not have to use goofball again.
Those were my thoughts too, @SheepDog doggie dog. I could sue him right into the ground if he didn't do the brakes right, or my survivors could.

 

[Supervisor42]

I found a decent one, but he's about 12-15 miles away. I thought my brakes were too bad to go that far. Definitely going to stick with the further one. I also found out about another one very near by and looked at the many excellent reviews they got. So between the further one and the very near by I will not have to use goofball again.
Those were my thoughts too, @SheepDog doggie dog. I could sue him right into the ground if he didn't do the brakes right, or my survivors could.

Before you panic, if new brake pads are put on with used rotors, they have to wear-in to the uneven surface of the rotors.
Less than 50% of the brake pad will actually touch the rotors when they are first installed. Less than 50% braking effect will be normal before they 'mate' with the rotors.

 

[Patchouli]

That's the kind of stuff I was wondering about @Supervisor42 but he said he put new rotors on. I just think he was trying to give me bad service all the way around no matter if it was the first time or the second time.

 

[Supervisor42]

That's the kind of stuff I was wondering about @Supervisor42 but he said he put new rotors on. I just think he was trying to give me bad service all the way around no matter if it was the first time or the second time.

If he 'said' he did and charged you for them, but did not, that is easy to verify.
If they are on the bill, they will be easy to spot. (~$75 each)
If the originals are still on the vehicle, that is easy to spot as well.
I have put new pads on used rotors plenty of times in the past.
You have to run it down the road riding the brakes until the smoke comes out. They work fine after being 'broken-in'.*See below.

 

[Supervisor42]

*I left out an important note.
After the above procedure is done, the brakes will experience something called "heat-fade" until they are allowed to cool, and will not stop the vehicle worth a dam until they cool. After they are allowed to cool, they will work fine.

 

[HippoTwilight]

I like to buy Factory Service Manuals, preferably in PDF format. PDF is easier to search than paper, and I can print the relevant pages as many times as I want. It's the same book the dealership techs use to fix the car before charging you $150/hr labor. Tools are a different subject, but I buy them as I need them. Up-front costs may be high, but they've usually paid for themselves after the second time I use them.

I swapped out the head gasket on a Civic with zero prior experience using the FSM, and a few Youtube videos. Then did the same to a Jeep a couple years later. I currently have a Rav4 Hybrid right now, and I feel confident I could swap the hybrid battery pack out in a weekend. Most people would just sell the car for a huge loss b/c the costs for a shop to do it is so high.

 

[Patchouli]

Service manuals. Big thick books?
Some can be accessed online for free (library websites with a library card) and can be printed out at home or the library.
I don't do my own repairs.

 

[ssonb]

I work on vehicles every work day and every workday I become more convinced that the auto makers are designing the next crop of vehicles to be more resistant to repair than the previous!

 

[UrbanHunter]

I work on vehicles every work day and every workday I become more convinced that the auto makers are designing the next crop of vehicles to be more resistant to repair than the previous!

I agree, today's cars are designed from the inside out with repair and maintenance being an inconvenient afterthought. Part of the problem lies with the idea of designing from a use and replace it mentality. Car companies don’t make money fixing cars, they make money selling new ones, and they definitely don’t make money if the owner can keep it running for 20+ years……

 

[HippoTwilight]

The increased complexity is partly society's fault. We demand more features/capability/performance for less money. The EPA and NHTSA demand improvements which raises cost, and reduces capability and performance.
In reality we could have 150HP Kia Souls for the daily grind. Crew-cab long-bed trucks for towing/hauling. And a Ford Transit that can be built as a family hauler or work van. Make them all exclusively plug-in hybrid powertrains to get the EV economy without the range anxiety.

EV's will fix a lot of the mechanical complexity. Difficult DIY mechanical repairs are monkey business compared to what's coming next. Subscription based cars.

Cadillac has a thing called "Super Cruise". It's the GM version of Tesla's "full self driving". When you buy a new Cadillac, you get 3 years of Super Cruise for free. But starting on month 37, you need to pay a monthly subscription ($25 I think) to keep it active. Most vehicles come with a cell phone chip embedded in them somewhere. That chip allows the manufacturers to perform over-the-air updates to your vehicle's ECM, which can include a new programming to fix a bug or disabling a feature.
BMW had plans to charge customers a monthly fee to have Apple Car Play. I think they reversed that plan after a lot of backlash.
Tesla has been known to remove "extra" features from used cars once HQ finds out a car has a new owner. The new owner was told they needed to purchase the feature from Tesla to have it reactivated. The features I'm aware of are the "full self driving" and "performance mode" add-ons. This created quite the stir on car blogs because the cars were advertised as having those features when sold.

The manufacturers WILL implement this. It's up to the (second-hand) consumer to reject it and not pay a subscription for luxuries. I'm getting hot under the collar just thinking about it. All the top-tier hardware will be installed on base-tier vehicles. The only difference will be how much you pay per month to unlock it. It'll be like cable before streaming became a thing. EV's will make it easier to charge for performance, like Tesla is already doing.

 

[UrbanHunter]

I like to buy Factory Service Manuals, preferably in PDF format. PDF is easier to search than paper, and I can print the relevant pages as many times as I want. It's the same book the dealership techs use to fix the car before charging you $150/hr labor. Tools are a different subject, but I buy them as I need them. Up-front costs may be high, but they've usually paid for themselves after the second time I use them.

I swapped out the head gasket on a Civic with zero prior experience using the FSM, and a few Youtube videos. Then did the same to a Jeep a couple years later. I currently have a Rav4 Hybrid right now, and I feel confident I could swap the hybrid battery pack out in a weekend. Most people would just sell the car for a huge loss b/c the costs for a shop to do it is so high.

I also like getting the Factory Service Manuals as soon as I take ownership of a vehicle. I prefer to have the paper copy in my auto-repair book shelf. They make for good light reading when I can't sleep.

 

[Bacpacker]

When I bought my Kubota, the first thing I did was go to Service and get the complete factory manual on it. Has came in handy a time or two already in 10 years

 

[Supervisor42]

The manufacturers WILL implement this. It's up to the (second-hand) consumer to reject it and not pay a subscription for luxuries. I'm getting hot under the collar just thinking about it. All the top-tier hardware will be installed on base-tier vehicles. The only difference will be how much you pay per month to unlock it. It'll be like cable before streaming became a thing. EV's will make it easier to charge for performance, like Tesla is already doing.

This has already been done for years. Starting in 2004 the equipment we sold had 'software enabled options'.
The nice thing was that they could be easily added by me anytime after the unit shipped.
All you needed was a laptop, a cable and a file. The 'options' file with an additional option in it was 20kb for $255 ... for a bunch of ones and zeros.
If you ordered a unit with 10 options on it, you paid $2500 for just a 20kb file with the 10 options in it.
What a great way to make money? Sell ones and zeros in a data file for big bucks!.
For reference: A single page of text in WORD format is about 20kb.
You DO know that's what got Boeing in trouble with the 737-max jet right?
The anti-stall light and over-ride switch was a software-enabled 'option' upgrade.
The light and switch were installed but if they didn't pay for the "option" they did nothing.
The ones that crashed were all 'low-buck' models without "options".

 

[HippoTwilight]

This has already been done for years. Starting in 2004 the equipment we sold had 'software enabled options'.
...

The stuff you're talking about is a 1-time thing. Once the feature is activated, probably at the factory per the build sheet, it was there for life. The second owner didn't have to repay to gain access to the seat warmers, cruise control, or tow mode. Obviously this excludes things like OnStar or satellite radio, those are more services anyway and different than a feature on the car.
The thing most concerning to me is that these features can now be toggled remotely via the LTE radio after the vehicle is sold. Like what Tesla is doing with their Performance Package and Auto-Pilot. Say you buy a vehicle that just came off a lease to save a few buck. Manufacturer's internal system flags the car as having been transferred to a new owner. They ping the car and disable all non-standard features.

With EV coming to the forefront, it's within reason to think the mfr's will put out base vehicles that are software limited to "eco-mode" (say 100hp). And you need to pay an upgrade fee to unlock "street" (200hp) and "performance" (400hp) mode. Then the average person sells the car, and the second owner has to do the same thing. Or worse, there's a subscription rather than a 1-time cost. They'll justify it by saying the increase in performance puts extra strain on the components and increases warranty costs.

 

[Supervisor42]

With EV coming to the forefront, it's within reason to think the mfr's will put out base vehicles that are software limited to "eco-mode" (say 100hp). And you need to pay an upgrade fee to unlock "street" (200hp) and "performance" (400hp) mode. Then the average person sells the car, and the second owner has to do the same thing. Or worse, there's a subscription rather than a 1-time cost. They'll justify it by saying the increase in performance puts extra strain on the components and increases warranty costs.

So, you figured out how more than half of the population was able to "work from home" after the lockdown?
The majority doesn't actually

make

anything anymore.
They just sit and punch keys on their laptop keyboard to make thousand$.

...The bad news: AI is very good at doing that .

 

[UrbanHunter]

So, you figured out how more than half of the population was able to "work from home" after the lockdown?
The majority doesn't actually View attachment 51508makeView attachment 51508 anything anymore.
They just sit and punch keys on their laptop keyboard to make thousand$.

...The bad news: AI is very good at doing that .

You got me to thinking (smell the smoke ) and I remember a lot of folks working from home a long time ago. I remember a family that did laundry, they lived above the storefront. I remember my wife and mom doing accounting books at desks in their studies. I remember my grandpa sitting at his chair in the evening filling out a heavy ledger with an old mechanical pencil, documenting what was being done on each field and the hours of each worker. The list goes on and on. No, I think people were working from home for a long time before they were pushed into office buildings to provide for central command and control (I think it was due to a lack of trust).

I also think that for every person who could work from home there should be 20 or 30 people doing real work in the field… Technology has enabled a lot of flexibility, but in the end it is the stuff we make that adds true value.

 

[UrbanHunter]

Today, during my lunch I was able to install the last new window motor on the son's car (already had the door apart, it was just plug, chug, and test).... but I triggered the anti-thief device… It’s not hard to fix, but the car won’t start until I get it reset… So this evening I need to put the car all back together and reset that booby trap device...

I love electronics.....