I believe that stories on a Sunday night is a really good idea. I have watched the number of subscribers increasing since I first started watching your channel and a lot of your success is your communications skills. You would likely see a jump in the number of viewers yet again. You keep it enjoyable as well and I always feel like I am learning.
Nice Fix Kenny and a good story. You could tell a story at the end of a vid like you just did, as a sign off. That would be like a bonus to the mechanical stuff.
YES! I would love to hear your stories!!! BTW -- The lady complaining about her honda at the end of your video - Send her to the people that did that AC compressor replacement :)
I agree and don’t go to a dealership period, I’m retired and other mechanics are telling me how they see the customers being ripped off badly and doing work and parts not needed
Amazing story, I was mechanic working on a large fleet of delivery vans a driver came in the workshop and reported his van was not charging, I checked it out and found no charging fault, he came back the next day and reported the van was still not charging, I told him there was nothing wrong with electrical system to which he said no no it’s not charging up hills 😂
Glad to see that you can actually find the source of grinding noise, rather quickly. and fix the clients problem. the other, so called mechanic/ tech, needs to go back to wrench school and learn how to avoid come backs. Can't blame the lady for not going back, I sure wouldn't.
Dealership mechanic are told what to do and they just do whatever there told because of very low pay and they know shop boss will starve them out if they don’t
Also with the belt, before you remove it, put a directional arrow on the belt showing it’s direction of rotation before removal and make sure to install going in the same direction.
Kenny, as a 40 plus year dealership master tech who always prided myself in my workmanship and diagnostic abilities, I applaud you for your ethics and straight forwardness to diagnostics! The last ten-fifteen years I had to work with a bunch of guys that had no idea what they were doing and were crooks at the same time for years. I hated that but the dealership kept hiring them, seemed they loved it cause they made them tons of money selling stuff that wasn't needed. I guess the damage control didn't offset the profits. I was glad to retire.
If the woman sues the other shop she can take your paperwork and testify to the judge that the very next shop she took it to, yours, did indeed correctly diagnose and fix her problem. there's very little mystery for the judge to unravel here and she will win that case.. as she should. and you get to be the hero who instantly identified the problem. and I think you got a new customer there. make sure you take her along when you go-go. 🏁
How does one take a belt off and not check all the accessory pulleys and miss that basically locked up alternator? Even if the clutch was bad, it would still move freer than the alternator pulley? That's what give's mechanics a bad name, good job Kenny, for being honest and great at what you do?
Kenny, it's nice to see how well you treat your customers by checking everything. You know how ignorant most people are mechanically that bring you work. That's OK because it keeps your bills paid. Great job as always..Pete
I always take pictures with my phone when I’m dismantling stuff, especially wiring. It could happen that certain parts I need are out of stock at the parts store and when they finally arrive, I could go back to the pictures on my phone to refresh my memory. 😂
"Why would you charge somebody for something, and not even fix the problem." The majority of my dealings with mechanics were me (or the person whose vehicle I brought in) being charged for things that didn't fix the problem.
I don't see how they missed that! I was a driveability technician for 30 years, I prided myself on almost 0 comebacks. To me, if a car came back with the same problem, I felt horrible as not only had I failed the customer, I failed my employer as they had entrusted me to do a good job. How a shop could let this go with a clear conscious I don't understand.
Dude you remind me of my brother in law he's good with his hands plus he'll make you laugh just like you. Good job thanks for helping the lady out it's nice to have a trustworthy mechanic even nicer a friend.
From Leo: You are a patient man, nothing seems to bother you. I think there should be open season on Auto engineers where mechanics are allowed to beat them on sight. Miserable designs that take three hands to work on while not enough room for the fingertips on one hand. I just spent 3.6 hours fighting clips, connectors shifting the engine around on the mounts, etc to do a job that used to take 20 minutes start to finish without even raising the car in the air.
i know this was an easy fix for you kenny with your experience but some garages just want to rip people off at some point they need their garages shutting down its hard to find an honest and trust worthy mechanic like yourself keep up the good work
New sub, that story has me beat! I rebuilt a 5.7 l injection pump, customer complained that ever since you rebuilt the pump, when they turned left, the radio quit working ! This was in 1979! Thanks for the video
Once took in my Dodge Omni GLH (86) I think, AC blowing hot air. To the dealership I bought it from. They had been bought by a new owner. Under previous ownership it was more a like a repair shop that happened to sell cars as a side-line. They were honest and dependable. People were bringing their non-Chrysler products for repair. The service writer said it was the expansion valve, and parts and labor would be around $150. So I had them do it, came back after work, paid the bill, drove off. AC was blowing cold, my pocket book was $150 lighter, but I was happy. Next day I start to drive to lunch. The place I worked at was a couple of miles from anything, so you want lunch, you drive. AC now blows hot air right on me. I'm not a happy camper at this point. Drove straight back to the dealership and met with the same service writer. He acts like he's never seen me or that car before. He says he'll have the tech take a look. Then they told me it would need a front seal in the compressor and that would be $300. Now I'm really unhappy! I said yesterday you said it was the expansion valve. He's still acting like I've never been there before. Although, that made him kind of stutter. Well it don't have anything to do with yesterday, whole different problem. I got my keys back and drove off. Some time later I took it to an independent shop. I hadn't used them before, but they had been at that location for several years. The service writer didn't even try to guess, he asked why I thought it was a compressor seal? I told him that's what I was told. He said bring it in day after tomorrow, we'll take a look at it and tell you what we think. They came up with, "you've got a busted hose." He said parts would be a little expensive, because on that car all AC hoses were one assembly. He had a work around for that and would try it. If that didn't work, he would eat the labor on that and go ahead and replace the assembly. We ended up doing that, but this time my AC kept working and I never went back to that dealership again for anything. Eventually that car developed so many other problems, including that paint peeling off. I got rid of it. Oh, the independent shop even let me watch as they hunted down the leak.
I had a customer come in for new lug nuts (customer provided) and then said ever since you put those lugnuts on, she had a check engine light but demanded we pay a certain other shop to fix it since she didn’t trust us anymore
Hey Kenny, from late 2007 until Feb 2018 I lived with a friend off the grid. In order for me to read after dark, I used headlamps. I wore 3 of them out over the years. After about 6 months of wearing them every night the elastic bands would stretch out. I tightened the headbands up with a safety pin and used them until they worn out. By the way, my hat size is 7 1/8.
I'm a tradesman and big headlamp user (basic, $15 ones from Hone Depot) and the elastic stretching out is super annoying. I wish they sold replacement bands.
Great video. I work in parts for a dealership and I cannot tell you how often the techs will price out all kinds of stuff not related to the customer concern or try to play “parts darts” to fix a problem then act like what they replaced needed it but also needed other stuff. Glad to see there are still some good technicians left. God bless.
Obviously the alternator was shot, I'm amazed the other shop didn't catch it. Of course from the sound of that engine, the alternator was only half the noise. If it's anything like a Pacifica I worked on once, the lifters in the rocker arm assemblies gave out, had little valve lift and low power. Only fix was a complete rocker arm assembly replacement... and that's coming from a mechanic at a Chrysler dealer had told me. He said they were notorious for going out, he replaced many of them. It sounded just like this engine here, maybe a little worse. The owner said it just got worse in time until it got so bad it wasn't drivable anymore... just a heads up here in case the owner discovers it.
Nice to see you point out to check for pulley match. Learned this the hard way on an ac pulley I changed for a bad bearing. Turned out a different depth(a/m) so the pulley moved closer to the motor. Initially nothing than a squeal. Turned out where the belt went from the ac pulley to the crank pulley the edge was now rubbing at the engine oil pan edge. Needed OEM pulley and redo and I hate redo's😂. Love your channel and I would definitely watch Kenny's story time.
Kenny, a couple of years ago a friends mum was having trouble with her Ford Falcon (yes I'm Aussie) going into limp mode. She had it to 3 different shops, the transmission was rebuilt twice and still not resolved. So being a retired mechanic my friend asked if i could have a go at diagnosing the issue. It took me all of 5 minutes to correctly diagnose the alternator was failing under load and causing th3 voltage to drop below what the ecu was happy with. So I fitted another alternator and to this day it still hasn't let her down.
Lucky her car didn't the typical milkshake in trans from failing radiator. My dad's BF has the engine light on permanently for last few months, but we don't notice anything wrong with it, so keep driving.
You are a good man Kenny. Nice video with excellent tips along the way. You really are about helping others, very commendable. Your honesty and integrity speak volumes about who you are as a person.
I hope the customer gets her money back on that unwarranted compressor replacement. Crooked shops give the legit guys a bad name. I know what your talking about when it comes to a person ignoring a noise because they're use to hearing it. I recently retired from a school district after 25 years in transportation and I can't tell you how many times I've test drove a bus and almost instantly hear something wrong that the driver didn't write up. In my early years there I figured the driver wouldn't write something up so we wouldn't keep "his or her" bus out of service but I eventually learned that drivers get use to a noise and kinda ignore it. Then, when a mechanic jumps in the bus for a test drive it's obvious something is wrong. Anyways, keep up the good work and honesty will always prevail.
👍 Those qualities in a mechanic are why their never looking for work or customers, they flock to you by word of mouth and reputation of your character for being honest and a quality mechanic....👍
Stories! Either at the end or as some have said, at the end of each video. Looking forward to your new adventure. Hopefully everything is good with the guys you work with now.
One of the main reasons I never became professional car mechanic was because of too many of those occurrences while still in high school. Since you fixed this my other thing is broke and it's all your fault. Plus too many repairs to peoples cars costing ME money. I said screw this and became a welder.
I do most my work now as last three trips to a professional mechanic shops (Each highly Yelped) they misdiagnosed the problem on hand and fixed what wasn't broken. I don't always get it right the 1st time as a shade tree mechanic with electrical items, but most repairs and routine maintenance is easy. Parts are cheap and nut and bolt. I keep record of all work and parts used. Mine vehicle is an 86 truck, so old school easy work with no OBD port.
As a gm dealer tech for over 40 years I heard a lot of ever since you did this stories. You have to be really good to break a car that you haven't touched. More stories would be good but I don't think you can top that one.
Every car in my shop if possible got a road test before to verify the customers concerns. A complete vehicle inspection to identify potential future issues. Than an after service road test performed by the service advisor to verify effectiveness of the repair. There was no deviation from this policy.
That's fantastic! My daughter was a service writer, When she had a new tech (or one she didn't trust) she would road test the vehicle before giving it back to her customer. It wasn't shop policy but it was Kate's policy. Keep wrenching
I love stories about cars you have a awesome channel, my friend keep the good work going. I love it you explain what you are doing that helps blind people and also a visually impaired people understand what is going on in to the mechanic stuff
This reminds me of a friend of my mom's. She was an elderly woman who took her car to a shop with an oil leak and noise. They told her the rear main seal was bad and the transmission was making the noise. It was a 1972 Oldsmobile 88. Crazy price to repair. She called me I went over and replaced the oil sending unit changed idler pully and ended up with blackberry cobbler and jelly every other week till she passed away a couple of years ago.
Ken, I went to get my rear tire repaired at the shop that put them on. After they fixed the tire my 4x4 truck had this weird grinding noise and I thought they did something to my truck. Long story short, after another shop couldn't find the problem, I did. It was the vacuum actuator solenoid that keeps the locking hubs disengaged!! A $40.00 part fixed it!! But I honestly thought the tire shop messed up. I was thinking they screwed up a bearing or something else.
@@andycoslet6479 I remember the "brake pad special" deal back in the late 80's when the shop disconnected parking brake and your car fail inspection and they were asking for parking brake adjustment fee for $80.00 on top of $69.99 brake pad special deal plus $240.00 front brake caliper replacement!
some shops I've worked at had rammy shop foreman's and you did as you were told , case and point a 76 thunderbird came in with a so called leaking torque converter seal , I took it apart and found the seal was okay , I told the boss I have seen cracked torque converter before and that's what's leaking , he said change the seal okay , it was still leaking this happened one more time him saying I installed the seal wrong , so finally he said WE will get a new torque converter , no more oil leak as soon as that job was finished I packed up my tools , he said stay Ill give you an other 2 dolor's an hour , I said see you around .
With the noise that alternator was making, it's hard to imagine a "mechanic" not recognizing he didn't fix the problem. Gives all mechanics a bad name.
That's the norm for mechanics. They can't diagnose and don't care about fixing the problem. Mechanics have a legendary reputation for being untrustworthy untrustworthy.
