Are dealers really that stupid?

mr_x_plosion said:
An air wrench will have a torque setting.
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No they don't, they just have a knob that reduces the airflow, there is no graduated scale for specific torque settings. That should all be done by the torque limiting bars as mentioned by Confused.

If you haven't got one of those then a torque wrench is the only way you can get the nuts accurately tight.
 
denon said:
ford wouldnt of taken your wheels off to do a brake fluid change
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how do they get to the bleed nipples then? If they didnt take the wheels off then i guess it was elite in rainham that messed up the wheel change.

whitecrook said:
Why do people use torque wrench to UNDO tight bolts? All that's likely to do is shag your torque wrench. Use a breaker bar / scaffold / suspended on a jack as well if needed.
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it was the longest bar he had plus it helped us find out how badly done up they were... Its not often people have scaffolding poles lying around. ;)

it wasnt the first choice (std ford cheese wrench, my breaker bar, my dads breaker bar, then the torque wrench) it was the last option due to not wanting to "shag" it like you say.





Going to pick up some new wheel nuts tomorrow, just gotta check that i can undo the others first just incase i need to get more replacements.
 
Overlag said:
how do they get to the bleed nipples then?
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with ease when its up in the air. Most places don't need to take the wheels off to get to the bleed nipples, and I know for certain you can get to them easily on a FST with no need to remov wheels. Very unlikely it was Ford this time mate.
 
kefkef said:
Friends dad has his 850 T5 volvo in for it's 1st year service (going back when the T5 was a new model, this was on a friday), they returned it after the service (saturday) on a low loader, drove it up his drive and parked it. He went for a drive in it the following day (sunday), got a few miles down the road and the engine seized. Upon investigation it turned out that they had drained the engine oil, changed the filter but never got around to replacing the oil on the friday, it was supposed to be filled on the saturday morning before the car was taken back to him. That was a nice little bill for the garage to pick up!
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Did they take the oil warning light out as well ?

There is no excuses for not filling it, but the drivers responsibility is to check the instrumentation for warnings as well.
 
Only dealer I ever really used back home was Lotus and they were tip top, always had a courtesy car for me, never any questions asked, etc, always a top job.

Our here Porsche charge an absolute fortune, they wanted just shy of 2k for 4 Pzero's and fitting...jokers. Not very efficient either, when it went in for a headlight bulb they decided to park a Cayenne in the entrance/exit and whip the wheels off for a 'quick rebalance' ....1 hour later I eventually got home
 
The "best" I've had from a dealer was needing the rear wheels replaced and a servo hose as a recall. Having taken the car in to determine that it did indeed need the new wheels hose and not having had the promised phone call the following day to see if they had been delivered, I phoned up to see whether or not they had.

The answer... "We don't know".

Not got a couple of 17" diameter round shiny things lying about the workshop then? They're kind of hard to miss...

Finally (months!!! later) they decided they'd got some wheels and vacuum hose for me, so they phoned me to book it in to do the work. Just when I was expecting a phone call to say they'd done the work, I got one saying they'd lost the hose. Could they keep the car until the following day, while they got another hose, as they had it all stripped down. The following day's phone call... the delivery driver had got lost and hadn't delivered any parts; it was going to be another day.

Finally got the call and went to collect it. "If you wait outside, sir, we'll bring it round for you". Waited. Waited some more. Got bored. Walked round to find two "mechanics" scratching their heads. "It won't start... does your immobiliser play up? See if it will start for you."

He really struggled to squeeze himself out of the car and said "don't you get sick of squeezing in and out?" so I replied "No, I just move the seat back first", moved it back, jumped in, and started it straight off.

"Oh, I didn't know it had a start button".

FFS... supposed specialist main dealers?

Suffice to say, the car will never ever ever ever ever be visiting a dealer again.
 
I had a problem like that with my old Cavalier. In my youthful naivety, I took it to Quikfit for some new tyres. Obviously done up with an air gun.

When I had a puncture, I ended up stranded in a layby by the side of a quiet road in cornwall unable to get the nuts off. After an hour (with no mobile signal), a farmer in a landrover showed up having seen me from up the hill where he was working, with a bootload of tools.

We ended up supporting the wheel brace on stones from a nearby wall, and jumping on a 4 foot scaffolding pole to get the nuts undone. At nearly 10 minutes per nut, the poor guy stuck with me and helped for well over half an hour. I tried to give him some cash for a pint on me, but he turned me down, and wished me well.
 
Overlag said:
it was the longest bar he had plus it helped us find out how badly done up they were... Its not often people have scaffolding poles lying around. ;)
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if you did you probably could've undone it with one hand. another way is to use the longest ring spanner and hook it over the wheel brace for extension.

The extending wheel braces are fairly good for getting bolts undone.
 
this is why I always stay with the car if work is being done, although I appreciate this isnt always possible for people (or they dont want to)
 
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My mum shoved her ZX up someone else's exhaust pipe (many moons ago). When it was returned, all looked well until service time. It took me and a friend on a 6 foot scaffolding bar to take off the nuts. I don't want to know how tight they were.

On my S40 I decided to follow Mum's example and shove it into someone else. I took off the indicator unit last week for a quick repair and I couldn't get it realigned to refit it. I look to the other side to find the problem:
The indicator unit sits in 2 plastic holders that are moulded into the headlight unit. One side doesn't have 1 holder due to poor injection moulding. The monkeys at the garage had botched it together, and I can tell they knew they were doing wrong as it looks like they used a wood screw. Pity it's too long from the origional repair (2 years) else I would now be having fun with the garage.

Fluffy
 
matt_fsr said:
Good lord thats pretty poor to use family friendly language!
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As you say. Pretty poor indeed. :D

Glad I wasn't paying!

matt_fsr said:
What manufacturer was that then?
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Vaux-(we-couldn't-organise-a-p-up-in-a-brewery-if-we-tried-and-had-an-instruction-manual)-hall

matt_fsr said:
Can't be something bog standard if it has a start button methinks....
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VX220, so like you say, not exactly bog standard, but the dealer in question was/is one of their supposed selected "VX specialist" dealers. :rolleyes:
 
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