well not really.
customer lives in pa. took his honda pilot to scott honda for inspection. it failed for 2 motor mounts, and a passengers side inner tie rod.
he brought it to me for the repairs, so he could get it to pass. normally, nothing they said would've struck me, except for the fact that i ran a safety check on this car before he took it(although i did miss the motor mounts, as we don't fail them in nj)
so i put it in the air, check the mounts.....sure enough they are bad. check the front end again, and it still feels good and tight. so i call the dealer, and talk to the service advisor that wrote him up.
right off the bad, i explain to him that i'm the guy that works on this car for the owner, then ask why exactly the tie rod failed. he told me it has too much play. i tell him that i just checked it, and it's tight.
so what does mr service advisor say? we can put it in the air for you and show you.
i replay with.....did you not hear me? i already have the car in the air, and am looking right at the tie rod. there is
nothing wrong with it.
now, he starts backpeddling. he says that he can only go by what the tech says.(this is true, although when i ran a shop with mechanics under me, i always checked everyones work, since i was the one that was gonna catch poop).
so i ask him.....this tie rod is good, and i really don't want to replace it, as there's no way this guy should have to spend that money. what can we do? he says that it's the tech's lisence on the line, so if it failed, it has to be replaced to pass. more
called the customer. took him out in the shop, and showed him why he didn't need that tie rod, then took him to another car that has a bad one, and showed him. he took it back to them while i waited for the mounts to come in. he made them have another tech look at it.
know what this other tech said? well sir, it's not bad yet, but it's going to be bad soon.
so WTF?? do these guys have automotive esp or something? the guy go tthe service advisor to agree to pass the car when it came back with the new motor mounts, but he wouldn't admit that his tech was wrong.
no wonder dealers make so much money. they prey on people that don't ask questions, and that they think are uninformed..............
