Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 23:56:39 -0500
Reply-To: Matt Roberds <mattroberds@COX.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Matt Roberds <mattroberds@COX.NET>
Subject: Re: rear brakes ?
In-Reply-To: <20070615151118.XULL27861.fed1rmmtai104.cox.net@fed1rmimpi02.cox.net>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
> From: Jeff Michal <jeffmichal@YAHOO.COM>
> Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 07:26:28 -0700
>
> [State inspection] The mechanic at the filling station did the whacking
> with the hammer and pulled the right rear drum off my 90 GL with what
> appeared to be very little effort. He indicated that the shoes were
> on backwards and that this was an inspection issue. He rejected my
> van and sent me away.
Key question: does the filling station in question do brake jobs? When
I lived in a state that had regular vehicle inspections, the common
wisdom was that if you knew something on your car was a little dodgy,
you didn't take it to a shop that sold repairs on the suspected-bad
system for a state inspection. There were only a couple "inspection
only" shops in a city of 1+ million, and this was towards the end of the
era when "service stations" (which sell fuel, have a mechanic, and also
sell a few candy bars) were replaced by "gas stations" (which sell fuel,
every candy bar there is, and also have a small shelf with quarts of
oil). So, if you had a hole in your exhaust 2" (5 cm) from the end of
the tail pipe - that is, it didn't matter at all - you did NOT take your
car to a muffler shop for the state inspection, because they would
insist on replacing the tailpipe. You went to a brake shop or oil-
change place; something like that. This may not exactly apply to your
situation, since you didn't have any reason to believe the brakes were
not up to spec, but you can probably see what I'm getting at.
> How can a trained mechanic make a mistake like this?
In his slight defense, there are approximately N different car designs
on the road, where N > 100 and probably more, and nobody knows it all.
A guy I know needed the front struts replaces on a relatively rare
model of Suzuki, and took his car to his regular mechanic (independent
shop that works on everything) with me chasing to give him a ride back
home. He asked the mechanic about the struts and the guy actually
walked out to the car and stuck his head under the front end before
quoting and agreeing to the job. I'm sure that if he had rolled up in
a Camry or Taurus or something like that, the mechanic would have agreed
to the job without a second thought, but I think it was a good thing for
both the mechanic and customer that he checked it out a little before
taking the job.
> At a minimum the inspector cost me several hours of my time, and at
> the most I can see an attempt to defraud me.
Most states that I know of that have state inspections also have a
defined complaint process. If you haven't already, start writing down
everything about this whole process - when you took it to the first shop
(that said your brakes were bad), the name of the guy you talked to,
when you took it to your VW mechanic, who he gave your van to for an
inspection, etc. If at all possible, take photos of the parts of the
van involved - if you don't have a camera, go get an $8 disposable camera
and take the photos outside in the sun and they will be perfectly fine
for your purposes.
> The longer I own my Vanagon the more I worry that every mechanic I let
> touch it is going to mess something up, and this doesn't help much.
If you own a weird car, IMHO your life will be much simpler if you do a
lot of the work yourself, or only take it to a mechanic that specializes
in that particular weird car. By "weird" I mostly mean "uncommon" -
something you would only find one or two of parked at the local mall on
a busy Saturday afternoon.
Matt Roberds
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