Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 23:01:14 -0400
Reply-To: Martin Jagersand <jag@CS.YALE.EDU>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Martin Jagersand <jag@CS.YALE.EDU>
Subject: The *un-repair* shops. Was: DISASTER AT JIFFY LUBE!!!! (long)
Dread Mr Badwrench garage inspecting you Westy?
"However, at one particular shop when I was at the service desk paying
I was hearing the garage bay door going down. Then BANG, rattle, and it
sounded like the door turned direction."
Full story:
I do all my repairs myself and if I had a choice I'd never let an
arbitrary "mech" touch my Westy, however according to the state
law it has to be inspected once a year by someone supposedily
more qualified to do so myself. Now making sure cars are roadworthy
is a good idea. The problem is the "qualified" part doesn't always
seem to hold in practice.
Here's the scenario, which repeats itself with small variations
every year:
1st stop: The lady at the service desk.
Me: "I'd like to have my car inspected. I have an appointment for this
morning."
Her: "Ok, name? Make, year... of vehicle" etc.. (fill in service request
for the inspection)
Here's where the first challenge comes. After the key word "state
inspection" has been entered on the service request along with
some useful info as well as irrelevant data, but that still has to
be filled in, the service desk lady typically expects me to surrender my
keys and quietly dissappear. Well, I have other plans.
Me: Who's going to inspect my vehicle?
Her: One of our qualified mechanics.
Me: Well, which one? Has he worked Diesels before? VW's?
Her: All our mechanics are qualified to work on all cars and engine
types.
Me: Well, I'd like to speak to him before...
At this point varying amounts of of persuasion is needed to convince
the desk lady that I actually won't leave before seeing the mechanic.
Eventually though, the effects of historical male dominance and oppression
makes her give in and she goes to find the mechanic.
Scene2 (Me and mechanic at service desk):
Me: "Have you worked on Diesels before? VW's?"
Mechanic: "Yep. All of them."
I proceed to go through the points to be checked on the NY state
inspection, and exactly how to apply it to the Vanagon.
Me: "Do you know how to start a Diesel?"
Mechanic: "Sure"
I describe the glow plug and cold timing advance routine.
(My inspection is up in Jan each year, and this is Upstate NY)
At this point I sometimes try to (more or less successfully, usually less)
have the mechanic tell me the procedures he's just about to do. Then
hand over the keys.
Scene 3 (Me and the service desk lady):
(1-2h or so) later at the agreed on pick-up time
Me: Is my Westy ready?
Her: Looking puzzled. Never heard that car type before.
Me: Show my copy of the service request.
Her: Oh, .... Please sit in the waiting room over there. It will be
done in a minute.
I walk over to the waiting room. Look out through the window into
the service bays. Can't see my Westy in any of them. Oh well,
either they just finished it and are parking it outside (wishful
thinking, or (more commonly)...
Scene 4 (15 min later in the waiting room)
Mechanic comes in: "Your van don't work. It won't start."
Me: "You waited for the plugs and pulled the advance handle?"
Mechanic looks puzzled.
Me: "Well, lets go and have a look at it"
We go to the parking lot where the van is parked exactly as
I left it some hours ago, apparently not having moved.
Mechanic: "I cranked it several times, but it wouldn't catch."
I go in and try. Battery is absolutely dead. (Even though the
Diesel starter requires more than twice the current of a gas
starter, there's enough for some minutes of cranking -- more
than you want to expose the starter to)
Me: "You discharged the battery. Did you wait for the glow plugs then
pull the cold start timing advance handle and crank." (I show the
sequence again.)
Mechanic: "Ah, thats the choke. You didn't tell me that its a manual
choke.
Me: Well, it's not exactly a choke. Diesels don't have chokes.
(If they did have chokes they could not be started at all.)
Me: "We have to jump start it. You got a charged battery with
better than 500CCA?"
Mechanic goes in and brings out one of those $99 toy jumpstarters
with an inky dinky battery in it.
Me: "That's not going to start it. We need a real battery"
Here evidently historical Swedish dominance and authority in northern
Europe during the 15 and 1600's fails to have had any impression on
this generation-X-er. We have to try the routine with the toy jumpstarter.
As predicted, this fails to turn the Diesel over. After more discussion the
mech is persuaded to bring a *big* battery. THis usually means drive up the
largest American iron that is currently moving in the shops fleet.
After a bit of pre-charging of the van battery the Diesel starts fine.
Here I always make sure to use the temporary psychological advantage,
and myself drive the van into the service bay.
Scene 5 (In the service bay)
This is a short scene. Sooner or later the service manager is going to
come by and spot me. However, it is good to try to stay at least until
they get it up on the lift to verify that they use the lift points or
if the lift beams don't reach, at least put some wood between the
lift and the frame rails. Also make sure they don't crush the propane
tank on the Westy.
Service manager: "Customers are not allowed in the service bays"
Me: "I would like to watch while my Westy is being inspected"
Service manager: "The garage floor is dangerous and only professionals
can be here. You have to watch through the window in the waiting room"
If that fails to get me out the next argument is inevitably that
their insurance company don't allow customers on the floor. (The
power of authority)
Before leaving I remind the mech that the Westy is tall and don't
lift it so high that the roof hits something. (Many garage lifts
have a crossbeam above them)
Scene 6 (Me in the waiting room)
I'm anxiously peering though the window into the garage bays. Given
the previous hours events I know something is likely to happen.
For some reason the mech seem to prefer to work on the other side
of the van, so it's not easy to see what's going on.
A bad sign (but which unfortunatley commonly happens) is to see
the van lowered about halfway, especially if several of the mechs
have gathered around it and there's lots of hammering, swearing
and jumping going on.
By now the desk lady has usually realized that resistance is futile,
and resigns herself to an angry look as I forge my way past her
on my way to the garage bays.
Scene 7 (In the service bay)
The mech is alternatly hammering and jumping on a big-$%^&$%@
2" wrench (No 46mm metric available) put on my rear axle nut. This
is not good. The hand brake is not strong enough to absorb the shocks,
and since the Westy is half lifted there's not ground contact to do it
either. The result is that the hammer blows are being jerked through the
CV's and tranny, and if the tranny is in gear dissipated as
energy in the clutch. Not good for the CV's and gears.
I ask: "Trying to remove the brake drum?"
Mechanic: "This &%**&^% nut won't come off!"
Me: "You don't need to take off the axle nut to remove the drum"
Mechanic is puzzled again.
Me: "Back off the adjuster and give the drum a light whack to break the
bond and it will come right off" (I keep the two tiny drum bolts off.
It's held by the wheel and lug nuts anyway)
Me: "If you only want to see the lining thickness just take out the
small rubber plug in the backing plate and look through the hole"
Mechanic: "How the &%$&#@% should I know that. &%$&#@%ing japs"
Me: Quitely considering if a geography lesson is worthwhile.
At this point the Service manager and mechs are usually embarrassed
enough to let me stay for the rest of the inspection, sometimes
even let me do it myself while pointing out what I'm doing to the
mech. The rest of the inspection usually goes smoothly.
Scene 7 (Back behind the service desk)
When done a sticker has to be issued, and the sticker number entered
in the ledger together with my vehicle data. I notice that the computer
or someone has added in the emmisions inspection fee.
Me: "There shouldn't be an emmissions fee."
The desk lady: "All cars have to be emmissions inspected"
Me: "My car is a Diesel. Diesels are exempt in Upstate"
By this time shes sick of me and is not going to argue with me
again. She goes in and fetches a suitclad type from the office.
(accountant? the boss? I don't know)
Me: "There was no emmissions inspection performed. Please take off the
fee"
Suit: "All cars are emmision tested. That's the law"
Me: "This is a Diesel. You don't even have a sniffer for Diesels"
Suit: (Somehow seems aware of this embarrassing fact. Perhaps he
was the one nixing the investment in this expensive piece of equipment)
Suit: "The mech still has to check that all the EPA required emmission
parts are there"
(Now you should know that there are no emmission parts to check on
the 82-83 VW Diesel. It passed the EPA regulations without any extra
stuff. In addition I have never seen the mechs open the engine lid
during an inspection anyway.)
At this point I'm so tired of arguing, and would be happy if I could
just get my sticker. (I've actually once managed to get the inappropriately
added gas emmissions fee refunded, but it wasn't worth the trouble)
Most times the rest of the procedure is the uneventful parting
between me and my money so I receive the now stickered Westy, and
the Westy will be safely in my own hands for another year before
the next dreadful inspection adventure.
However, at one particular shop when I was at the service desk paying
I was hearing the garage bay door going down. Then BANG, rattle, and it
sounded like the door turned direction. Well something must have happened,
but nobody said anything, so in a few minutes I finished my business and
got my keys back.
Out in the parking lot I saw the reason for the bang. The mech had
been backing out as the garage door was lowering. The garage door
had made a good size dent in the rear hatch pillar from the mech
backing into it as he backed out, and then scraped off more paint
when it reversed and was going upward.
I darted in again, mighty upset. The desk lady and the suit looked
dissaprovingly at me, but eventually got the mech. He tried to
maintain that nothing had happened and at least he hadn't noticed
anything happening. After an inspection in the parking lot it was
pretty obvious what had happened and there was no denying any more.
Needless to say I've not been back to that place. The reason I started
going there in the first place was that the first few times they
would just take a quick look while I was in th parking lot and
then issue the inspection sticker. -- This seemed like a good way of
getting the sticker, while keeping any incompetent "wrenches" off.
However, NY state clamped down and shops, incompetent or not,
had to look as if they were fiddeling for a while to not get caught
by the state inspectors.
The other shops I've used haven't crashed the Westy against anything
(yet), but the starting debacle, the brake drum, and a whole host of other
similar events reiterate themselves year after year.
/Martin
--
Westy 1.9l Turbo Diesel
Quantum 1.6l Turbo Diesel
New and used parts for sale, gas and Diesel:
http://www.cs.yale.edu/~jag/vw/forsale.html
Martin Jagersand email: jag@cs.yale.edu
Computer Science Department jag@cs.rochester.edu
Yale University
Slow down and visit the VW diesel Westy page:
WWW: http://www.cs.rochester.edu/u/jag/vw
-------------------------------------------------------------------
