just lost my temper with an auto shop - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

aklim · #1 09-08-2012, 10:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dropnosky

oh I didn't pay for it, don't worry.

I feel kinda bad for the kid, because he was the victim of my wholly understandable rage.

They did the timing belt, and did a valve adjustment for me, then the owner of the shop went hunting for work, had his guys take off all the tires and look over everything, found a dragging rear brake shoe because of a broken pin. (i know because I saw it beforehand myself, im totally aware of all the issues with the vehicle)

Then he proclaimed it a safety issue, and told his guys to fix it adding something like 300 dollars to the bill for 3 hours of labor and parts taking apart the rear drums and adjusting.

Then he left for the day.

EDIT- what really drove me nuts is I heard the whole gambit of excuses from the kid, up to and including "your life shouldnt be worth 300 bucks" My response being "bull****, save that crap for someone else, no tires were about to fall off, and I don't want to hear about it. "

the thing has new wheel bearings on all corners, and they were all correctly adjusted immediately prior.

I agree with him it is a safety issue. I don't see a problem with him hunting for work. HOWEVER, he needs to understand that if you didn't authorize that, you are not responsible for it. Should he make you sign a waiver that says you were informed of the possible safety issue, I would go along with it. That is about as far as it goes for his "fishing expedition". This is why I won't let my wife deal with mechanics. All she is allowed to do is get the keys and drive it off. No talking to the people. Don't even look them in the eye. Car work is NOT her forte so she doesn't get to deal with it. Some things are not my forte so I simply nod my head and go along with whatever she wants.

JB3 · #2 09-10-2012, 09:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aklim

I agree with him it is a safety issue. I don't see a problem with him hunting for work. HOWEVER, he needs to understand that if you didn't authorize that, you are not responsible for it. Should he make you sign a waiver that says you were informed of the possible safety issue, I would go along with it. That is about as far as it goes for his "fishing expedition". This is why I won't let my wife deal with mechanics. All she is allowed to do is get the keys and drive it off. No talking to the people. Don't even look them in the eye. Car work is NOT her forte so she doesn't get to deal with it. Some things are not my forte so I simply nod my head and go along with whatever she wants.

Let me explain what was "wrong" in greater depth, as under normal reasoning, brake issues are indeed about safety, when in fact they exist.

I took the tire off and the drum at home, and not only can I not find new parts or evidence of recent adjustment apart from removing the drum, but everything in there looks the same as it was, brake dust over all. Im wondering if they made up the dragging brake shoe and broken pin they told me. Earlier I had assumed that the pin must have broken since I knew it was almost rusted through, but its still there.

Good move on protecting your wife, Martureo's story is exactly the same stuff I also experiences while working at pep boys as a mechanic for a short period.

On this car, I had replaced the rear wheel bearings about 4-5 months ago, and set them with just a hair of movement for heat expansion. (this came after I went off the road in this car in the snow into a field, so they needed to be done, the wheel bearings had quite a severe wrench from sliding into a field)

While I was in there, I noticed that while all the brake shoes (at least 80%) and hardware were technically good, it could really use some new brake shoe hardware since one of the pins was rusty on the passenger side.

However, since the car is a project, and sitting most of the time recently about a mile from these guys, and since I have a rear brakes rotor and caliper upgrade to install, I wasnt interested in putting in new hardware at the time, so I put it back together with the existing pins, and it was complete with no issues.

Also the car has new front brakes and wheel cylinders, and stops on a dime. Essentially, There were no visible, audible, or felt issues with any of the brakes on this car, at the time I dropped it off.

From my perspective, my new theory is they used the premise of the slight play I set in the wheel bearing (verified just a few weeks ago when I was screwing with some fuel line stuff) to take apart the rear brakes and run up a couple hundred dollars in labor. At a minimum, there should have been an attempted parts charge for at least brake shoe hardware, or wheel bearing parts, but since none of the components were bad, I had a 4 hour labor charge for taking everything apart and putting it back together again.

Something I have done on the side of the road in well under an hour for both sides, another thing I found preposterous. You really can't get much simpler than one of these cars, for an experienced VW technician to take 4 hours to disassemble and reassemble a Mk2 rear drum brake assembly WITHOUT touching lines or wheel cylinders, just removing the drums on a lift simple defies belief.

The car is now back in my possession safety. They made a threat about a waiver, but again, nothing was apparently wrong, so no waiver was produced as the car was perfectly safe. Certainly ruined my friday afternoon, Ill say.

Zulfiqar · #3 09-10-2012, 11:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dropnosky

for an experienced VW technician to take 4 hours to disassemble and reassemble a Mk2 rear drum brake assembly WITHOUT touching lines or wheel cylinders, just removing the drums on a lift simple defies belief.

The car is now back in my possession safety. They made a threat about a waiver, but again, nothing was apparently wrong, so no waiver was produced as the car was perfectly safe. Certainly ruined my friday afternoon, Ill say.

It takes a grand total of 5 minutes to unmount the rear wheel/drum from that car and about 5 more minutes to unbolt any brake hardware. assume it takes 20 minutes to put it back.

I had such a car and I did the rear brakes in the above time, while sitting on my workchair and the car on jackstands. Even replacing the bearings is easy as chips - and when removing the drum I never even bothered to remove lug bolts, undo the cotter pin remove castle nut and pull wheel out complete with drum attached. Replace bearings at your ease too.

4 HOURS??? wow they had to take naps while doing such work?

JB3 · #4 09-10-2012, 11:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zulfiqar

It takes a grand total of 5 minutes to unmount the rear wheel/drum from that car and about 5 more minutes to unbolt any brake hardware. assume it takes 20 minutes to put it back.

I had such a car and I did the rear brakes in the above time, while sitting on my workchair and the car on jackstands. Even replacing the bearings is easy as chips - and when removing the drum I never even bothered to remove lug bolts, undo the cotter pin remove castle nut and pull wheel out complete with drum attached. Replace bearings at your ease too.

4 HOURS??? wow they had to take naps while doing such work?

right? he showed me 4 hours and I just stood there for a while wondering what in the hell.

I think they arrived at that number adding up the book time for everything in the rear brake assembly done separately. Only way I can think of they came up with 4 hours.

It took me half that time to fully install the 85 engine for petes sake. these old vws aren't called lego cars for nothing