the bigger fuse mantra or shoving a penny in was probably a source of countless house fires before breakers became the majority circuit interruption method(though sometimes shade tree electricians open their panel and toss in a bigger breaker causing the same issue. less common though).
I've had my own air conditioning shop for many years and Ive seen a number of these condensers come in and mostly I find that it's a customer that likes to wash the car himself with high pressure and especially the radiators, it still baffles me how many people you cannot explain to that high pressure hurts the radiator.
I work in car rental and yes, pressure washers can cause a lot of damage if used incorrectly. They can damage the window/door seals, trim, and engine components behind the front grill (such as this condenser). If there are any nicks in the paint, the pressure washer can get under them and start taking the paint off the car. I have seen a few like this, especially on flexible bumpers. A pressure washer jet can also do a lot of damage to a person. It can cut right through a regular shoe. I always wear work boots with a composite toe shield.
As someone who did driving for a dealership briefly it was always a pain when a customer brought in a car with little to no fuel in it for test driving. Usually we end up calling the customer and billing them on whatever fuel we add. Still a hassle
@@magna116 one time i had to deliver a finished car to a customer only for them to ask why theres only 10km of fuel left. Felt a bit snarky and said its not our fault the car came empty
I worked on a truck for a woman who was a friend of my sister-in-law. Only started on starting fluid, but once started, it would run (telltale sign of a bad fuel pump on GM 4.3Ls) I told her I'd have to drop the tank, so the truck having less than a 1/4 tank was great. She said okay and would bring it over the next day. When she brought it to my house the next day....she stopped at the gas station literally 2 blocks from my house and filled the tank. I had to pull the bed instead. It's been 10 years, and my forehead still hurts from that facepalm.
@@dpeagles I think I would usually fill up at around 20%. Usually, the only reason I would go much lower is if the area I was in had more expensive gas, so I was waiting til I was back in an area where it would be cheaper to fill.
Serviced a large fleet with badly damaged A/C condenser cooling fins. They were all smashed flat. It was something like 20 vehicles. Found out that they had a service come in and pressure wash the vehicles. Never heard if the wash service paid for the damage.
@@chir0pter and that’s exactly what I was going to write for a comment but I figured I better check the comments first in case somebody else wrote the same thing because as soon as I saw that that’s what I figured. Somebody probably had of 2800 to 3500 psi pressure washer going!
I tell customers that, with my mobile welding repair. "If you called me 2 weeks ago when you noticed the crack,it would have been $100. Now it's $800. Same thing here. More money for the shop when it eventually comes back
Situations like that just *scream* for a waiver that make it the owner's responsibility the moment all four wheels are off the shop's property... if not sooner.
1:03 I would not be surprised if that was due to pressure washing, with the way it was localised to the bottom and in what I imagine the grill shape is.
Oh, hey. Thank you for the comprehensive description of each video. I have never seen a brake disc explode like that either. Side story: Back in the 90s my mother drove our 1967 VE Valiant sedan (Australia) from home down to the city for a week. She drove all over the city and visited friends and family etc and then came back. It was an 1800 km (1100ml) round trip not including driving all over the city. She was a quarter mile from our town, and slowing to the 50kmh/35mph speed limit when the front left wheel locked up. Thankfully she was a skilled driver and got the car to a safe stop. Upon inspection it was found that the mechanic who'd replaced the pads the day before she left didn't tighten the brake caliper properly. Imagine if it happened on the highway doing 70mph while passing a semi? My father, a diesel fitter/mechanic popped down to the workshop and had a few 'words' to the mechanic responsible. He was an apprentice, so dad didn't knock him out, just explained in strong terms how important it is to double-check your work because your work may mean the difference between life and death for a customer.
We had a Jeep Cherokee where the disk brake was made from two dissimilar metals. The hub was made from one type of metal and it was welded to the rotor which was made of a different type of metal. This caused each type to heat up and cool down at different rates which eventually caused the welds to separate. So eventually, the hub which was bolted in place with the wheel was no longer connected to the rotor which was connected with the brake pads. Applying the brakes eventually did nothing to slow the Jeep down. I replaced the rotors, then later found a service bulletin about this. Sent Jeep my costs to repair (backyard mechanic) and they reimbursed me! This was my wife's car so I was kind of scared when I found that out.
I was that mechanic last year. No excuse. I just fucked up. Rear right caliper, forgot to tighten the fasteners. Probably because of some distraction. Customer suddenly lost brake pressure when the caliper fell off the carrier and piston was driven all the way out. No one was hurt, and I got to keep my job.
@@panzerveps Sometimes it's OK to keep someone who screws up - as long as they learned their lesson. You're probably more careful then the ones that didn't learn it the hard way.
@@russellhltn1396 My boss told me later that I got off easy (nothing but a verbal warning) because of the way I reacted. If I had refused to admit it or something like it, Id most likely be looking for a new job then.
I know well enough to take care of my car, but with the cost of gas right now I'm starting to bike-commute any time it's not raining, makes me wish infrastructure was more flexible in North America to allow non-car options as the norm not the exception
@Hanover Fiste So you find it totaly ok that those morons drive on pretty worn tires or have half their engine kissing the ground while driving? When you get your License, you get Responsibility. They didnt Maintain their Car so why should they be allowed to have one when all they do is create hazards for everyone else by having multiple oil leaks etc.....
One time I was driving home when a tire with wheel fell out of a truck bed while crossing an interstate overpass. It fell to the surface street below and headed up the curved off-ramp I was driving on. There wasn’t a way to protect my car because the ramp had no shoulders, just ditches on both sides. The best I could do is line up the corner of my Civic so it bounced away to the side instead of into my windshield, and also protect the cars behind me. It worked. My car took limited damage and wheel went into the ditch.
2:24 , I can pay you or get gas . Can't do both ! On a side note , I filled my tank the other day for only $32 . It was my lawn mower but gotta take the wins whenever you can right now .
No shit eh. I took my lawnmower Jerry can and put five bucks worth of gas in it. When you can visually see how much you actually get for your money, it's damn criminal.
The hanger bearing on my Lincoln mkx was shot. I had no choice but to replace the entire axle. If I didnt, there would have been a good chance the axle would have rattled apart and would have cost thousands of dollars in damage. Don't put off fixing axle issues like U-joints, spending a couple of hundred will save you thousands in the future.
Felt bad about the guy who rebuilt his engine. That’s a lot of work to have it go that bad. Still, don’t take on jobs like that. If you don’t know exactly what to do. Something I learned awhile back.
@trollolol I agree, a lot of older mechanics I talk to have trouble understanding Ground Side switching/Pulse Width Modulation, let alone Can Bus, Flex Ray, & Lin Bus Networks on newer Cars. It's so complex, that some Dealers don't use Oscilloscopes any more, but they are required to troubleshoot the networks. That's why all they do is swap out modules until they get it right.
Yes, it is. I'm German and I now know what a head gasket is 🙂... but I'm no mechanic, so I often can't figure out what engine parts are shown, so I look them up. Very good for education 🙂
@@mquietsch6736 I am Finnish and I usually see and understand what is wrong and know the parts and their purpose. But very often I learn new technical vocabulary in English.
@@mquietsch6736 BTW I was in Germany last month. I had a summer trip with my motorhome and drove around the Baltic sea. That was something like 4000 km.
On the exploding rotor, that wasn't a defect in the rotor. If you look at the pieces of the rotor, some of the edges look rusty. Pay attention to the curved piece the mechanic picks up and moves. Before he moves it, the edge facing him is extremely rusty. That crack had been there a while. The rotor probably cracked due to heat and metal fatigue, rust got in it, which eventually weakened the metal enough that centrifugal forces separated the rotor. Violently.
yes absolutely. you can see the rust in the one crack at the root. all the rest of the pieces have fresh crack no rust. when the rusty crack finally went all the way the rotor was no longer a solid disc .think a " c " instead of a circle. it ripped apart in pieces
This one was very entertaining. Always looking forward to your next post. Oh! And God bless all you great men and women who keep our bucket of bolts running. 👍🇺🇸
Wow guys that was a really good episode I can't believe some people honestly can't wait for the next one guys keep up the great work love your show you're my number one show thank you guys great job😉😎👍
That loose tier reminded me of the time I was at a pizza place. Someone lost a wheel a quarter mile away. I remember saying I think someone lost a wheel just before it hit a van sitting in a parking space. It missed the glass window by 10 feet and taking out a nice elderly couple. I wish I had that on camera
Horror story time! I was given a 1996 Ford F150 at the start of 2020, less than 6 months before it was given to me, the previous owner had a relative perform electrical work on it. They had broken several clips on main ignition switch wiring harness and jammed WOOD into the sockets to keep them from falling out. Two months after I got the truck, I smelled smoke and found the wood burning, several broken wires that had been twisted together and left exposed, my ignition cylinder wasn't connected properly and the original radio was broken.
Love these videos! I left the mechanic gig many years ago but I love seeing this stuff and it always surprised me when the customer would clearly not listen to logic or reason and drive their death trap out of our shop.
I always felt like a criminal when customers declined work on a death trap (just because they didn't believe me) and I had no choice but to let them roll...
1:17 It's not completely uncommon. Radiators are mounted lower and lower. There isn't always a grille in front of them. Gravel, salt, high speeds and aluminium corrosion do the rest. 😉
Those steering wheel covers should be illegal. They're very dangerous being loose like that. I see several vehicles at work like that every day. The missing cooling fins are usually from pressure washing.
I can understand wanting to cover an original steering wheel that is breaking down, but they should definitely be required to be secure and not obstruct any required instruments (the big, fluffy ones might block seeing the dash). If you sell a product, it should be safe to use for its intended use. Customers can accept some risk with some products (if they are informed), but even that doesn't apply to driving, since there are other people on or near roads, too.
This video has more crazy stuff in it than any previous one I've seen. Missing radiator fins? Weirdly bent wheel? People overuse "jaw-dropping" but these definitely qualify for that phrase.
I had the fifth one happen to my radiator. Driving on the highway on a hot day almost overheated my engine, but as soon as I slowed down, the temp dropped. No wonder, it was missing half the fins. Turns out, the metal fins fell off if you poked them, they had the consistency of soggy cardboard. Replaced the radiator myself, no problems with it since.
I've replaced multiple radiators and condensers with missing fins like this in areas where they salt the roads in the winter with corrosive chemicals. It just rots the aluminum fins right off. Another issue is with pressure washer damage, not missing fins, but the high pressure water folds the fins over, blocking the airflow. Using a tool called a fin comb, and a lot of time, you can usually straighten the fins out.
So if your fuse keeps on blowing just put in a bigger one....... Oh, and make sure your smoke detector is working and your fire insurance is up to par.
1:03 We see this a lot where they use road salt. Just sold a 2012 Civic with the bottom 3" or so of fins all rotted out like this. A/C still worked great.
Now that I've been following you guys for a while ,,,,what would you say the majority of the repairs are? Are they bad engineering, poor maintenance or self-inflicted damage by the owners driving through guardrails and rocks and things?
@@Br3ttM true. If you live in a salty area, wash your stuff often including any shed or something with metal, because many times the salt is actually in the air and will rust stuff.
I've learned that if I really muck up my vehicle in an incredibly stupid way, to save face by telling the mechanic that my non-existent grandson borrowed it and returned it that way.
I knew a guy that was driving up I5 in San Francisco and something came through the windshield. It hit him the side of his head and went out the rear window. It removed his eye and did some pretty bad damage. He lived and was back to work a few months later with an eye patch. The best guess anyone could come up with was it was a piece of a truck brake rotor spinning very fast so it just sliced through the glass and his face. The guy riding beside him had no idea until the car started drifting off the road. He said he never heard anything.
My "low fuel" story... Brought my '99 Intrigue in for the THIRD complaint of mild shudder when turning left into a parking space. Mild shudder is intermittent but only happens when parking. When I handed the keys to the Service Writer, the car had 1/4 tank. (Vehicle purchased at 27,7xx miles, problem began around 43-45k) I called in the afternoon, after not hearing from them, to ask what had transpired. I was rudely informed that I "didn't leave the tech enough gas to test drive the vehicle." I barked back, "The problem only happens when turning left into a parking space. You have a massive empty parking lot behind the service bays. You have 1/4 tank to simply make a whole bunch of low-speed left turns on your property. What is the issue here?" I picked up my car - not even looked at - and returned another day. And now... The rest of the story. (RIP Paul Harvey) The day of the 4th visit, the tech who looked at my car the first two times - not the 3rd time with the low fuel excuse - asked to ride in the car with me to see if I could duplicate the complaint. Sure! He hopped in, I started the car, backed it out of a parking space, and he says, "Rico (head service writer) says you think it's the rack. Why do you think it's the rack?" I mention similar symptoms to the '98 recall for power steering racks, similar to the symptoms of the bad rack in the 1984 Skylark I traded in to buy the Intrigue, and I said "It wouldn't be unheard-of for a few of those bad racks to be on early-99s." "Oh, I don't want to replace the rack if it's not the problem." "Well, I'm under warranty, the rack is covered, and I have zero deductible." The tech laughs, and I begin to turn left - at about 3 mph - into a left-hand parking space, and the car shudders. Symptom appears on first attempt, with me driving, and tech in car. (I should have bought a lottery ticket with that luck!) New rack was installed, and I drove 130-140k on the replacement rack with no shudder since. Didn't need 1/4 tank of gas to prove the problem existed... That tech ended up being "my" tech, he would take my car every time I came in to the dealership, even for LOF. I felt honored, because he was an excellent tech.
What’s also scary: the same customers are allowed to own firearm weapons. These people are not able to bear the responsibility to have a roadsafe vehicle and lack common sense. I doubt they can even operate a deadly weapon safely.
That poor Regal...looks like a GS? I used to hate them back int he day, but now...maybe because I know somebody with one, and she's a car girl LOL... Great video. PS...I did get it hehe. Gonna wear it next time I record!
@@JustRolledIn Yes! Although my goal is that none of my clothes will fit! Its not saying much so far, but I have one smaller shirt thats tight around my arms now lol. How you been doing? I swear Ill get on FB soon lol
Hey JRI, can you fix my car? I was driving along watching Netflix, when I heard an extra loud bang. I'm sure it's not a big deal, right? Can you give me a quote over the phone? Everything except the trunk needs replaced.
I was passenger in an early Saab 9³ that had the transmission break and send all the oil through the hole in case with nothing but a ping and no abuse was going on at the time. It maybe felt like we ran over a half inch diameter branch in the road, thats what it felt like to me. Almost nothing felt/heard from inside the vehicle. So in my experience its totally feasible that the customer was being truthful.
This is why in Italy for many years you had to pass a mechanical knowledge test of cars , to get your license . Oddly enough this included knowing the firing order of a 4 , 6 , & 8 cylinder V8., even though most people would never own a vehicle with such a large engine. Another unusual thing was "at that time", only about 6% of women had a license..
As an alignment guy i enjoyed some of these , tire wear like this is too common and dangerous . You are right about mechanic shops keeping cars that are dangerous to the owner/ driver and others , nothing you can do but warn them , show them , then pray for them and hope they take the backroads home and document everything including pictures . The thing about these vids that we enjoy are very telling , coming off a two year pandemic that is still raging and the resulting job losses compounded by sky high gas prices i expect these issues will increase with some barely getting by ..
@@ronblack7870 Thats why its important to document everything because if they do get into an accident and your shop was the last shop to look at it you will be going to court . We have had situations where the ball joints have pop out when lifted on a hoist , as one of many examples , and customer declines repairs . You are towing the vehicle home ..
@@olsmokey I forgot to add that , that is the last thing we do before whats left of the vehicle drives off . " Sign here please , here are your keys and have a nice day " , Or " Do you want us to call a tow truck " ..
You could phone the local Police Dept. and inform them of an unsafe vehicle that is on about to leave the shop . Some would not agree with it but it does fulfil your " duty to warn " .
Please excuse me, for I am Late... however I spent this morning swapping my pinholed plastic single core radiator for a 3 core aluminum TIG welded unit... just waiting for the upper hose. Only $156 from Ebay but no provisions for steering cooler so I relocated it in front of the bumper dam above the license plate! I think it's solid!
I wish there was a law were the shop would be required to turn any unsafe vehicle like the ones with the ruin tires to the police or the DMV and if they refuse the service it gets towed to a tow yard and the owner has to pay to get it out
Wouldn't even need to go that far. Could just have it reported, and flagged in the license plate system as not road worthy until it is fixed, and call the police non-emergency number if they drive it instead of fixing or towing it. For something that can get fixed at home, I don't know how you would handle getting it off that list, assuming they tow it to their home. And any list has the potential for abuse or errors in records.
That wheel coming off the vehicle and bouncing over the hood of the car. For some reason it reminded me of something similar happening to me. I was at my grandmas house doing yard work for her, this was many years ago. I was 18 or 19 years old at the time. I'm now 49. Anyway, I was trimming some bushes in the front yard. She came out on the porch and asked me to come in and cool off. I said I would as soon as I was finished. Then about five minutes later she came out and TOLD ME to come in and cool off. I'm no dummy, when she told me to do something it was done right then and there! No sooner than walking into the front door. A 18 foot twin axle flatbed trailer FULLY loaded came through the front yard took out a small tree and crashed into a chain link fence completely tearing it out of the ground. It must in have been going 55 or 60 MPH, maybe more. It all happened so fast it was and still is hard to come up with how fast it was going. Now had I not listened to her. I'd probably be dead. I just don't see how I could have gotten out if it's way fast enough to get away with no injuries. How did she know to call me into the house? How did she know exactly when to TELL me to come in, Knowing that if she TOLD me to do it I would, right then. All she said and did afterwards was smile at me and gave me a big hug. Then said something like "If that's not proof of why you should listen to me, I don't know what is." After that day I don't even recall her ever really talking about it. Apparently the person that lost the trailer was a dumbass. First off, they were pulling the trailer with a minivan-ish type vehicle. Secondly, They had the wrong class hitch. Lastly, everything was over weight except for the trailer. The vehicle and the hitch. the hitch was completely torn off the vehicle. They were hauling a load of scrap metal. One of the craziest experiences of my life. Thank You Granny!! I Love and Miss You Dearly. sorry for so long and any typing errors. I'm a mechanic, not a typist 😁
I had a ding in my VW Golf 16V after it threw a gear threw the transmission case. The car only had about 50,000 miles on it. VW covered parts on the repair, but I later found out it happened because the company was using plastic clips in their transmissions. The car was a maintenance nightmare, so I would never buy another.
2:12 I drove someones car which had a super loose steering wheel cover. I ripped it straight off within 5 seconds of getting in as it was unsafe to drive with it.
I do repair cars and bikes for more 30 years and seen a lot the weird and stupid attempts of customer/shop repairs. But your videos shown on this channel that the human stupidy is more far beyond the border of the big bang universe.
Those after market rotors are not the best option in order to save money. My F150 only gets motorcraft parts and accessories, nothing less will do and I stand by it.
The bald tires lol, if I didn't know any better I would say that was my buddy in his benz. I warned him a year ago to get new rear tires. He did a few weeks ago when they kept going flat.
Shops should be able to diagnose autos, and when found to be death traps, they should be able to say you can have it towed but we cant let you drive it off our lot.🇺🇸🍺🍻
1:25 .that is a result of car detailers using Acidic mag wheel cleaner to quickly wash bugs from a condenser . It destroys mirrors too .I see it every day .
2:24 The shop I worked in we had the opposite problem. Someone dropped off a Chevy Suburban for a fuel pump replacement and was kind enough to fill up the tank before dropping it off. The fuel gauge was broken so no one knew it was full until it was time to remove the tank.
2:03 Imagine that conversation- “come on that wheel’s perfectly fine and that tire still has 100k kms on it yet”. 😂🤣😂 Great video yet again love your work as usual thanks for sharing. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
