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Unknown Parts Counter Guy: Don’t Believe Everything You Read On The Internet


Unknown Parts Counter Guy: Don’t Believe Everything You Read On The Internet

The Internet: The hallowed electronic grounds filled with cat .gifs, Rage Faces, porn, and some of the worst “greatest advice ever”. I love hearing some of the stuff that comes out of people’s mouths that the Internet has told them to do. Earlier today I had to actually teach the local Chrysler-Dodge dealer the actual facts of the Takata airbag recall, since they all were getting their lists from such sites as The Christian Science Monitor.

For a car enthusiast, the Internet has allowed quick networking, where like-minded people can congregate and share tips, tricks, ideas and failures for others to read and learn from. Unfortunately, there are people who talk out of orifices other than their mouths, people who love to troll others for amusement, and people who don’t bother double-checking someone’s story before putting the tools to the car. While you’d expect everyone to be friendly and informative, sometimes that can bite you in the ass, as one poor Audi owner is learning right now…

So today we get a call from one of our commercial accounts. They tell us they need an engine for a 2005 Audi S4. Of course we already know this is probably not going to be something we can get our hands on. But we do some checking around. None of our vendors can obtain it and the only way we can get it done is to buy it direct from Audi (Upon speaking to the local Audi dealership, their parts manager told us “Tell him to buy another ’05 S4. It will be cheaper.”) When we call the account back we ask what the story is. Turns out the owner of the car read online somewhere that if you advance the timing 2 degrees it will add ~100hp. Well, an Audi 4.2 V8 is not a Chevy 350. 0 tolerance is 0 tolerance. He somehow managed to advance only the cam timing of the left cylinder bank and all 4 were making no compression at all. We’re quite interested to see how this story progresses.

From a quick look around the Internet, the cost of a replacement engine is sitting somewhere between $4,000-$8,000, and that’s before labor and taxes. YIKES. I have nothing I can add to this, except I sincerely hope the owner of the Audi learned his lesson.

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10 thoughts on “Unknown Parts Counter Guy: Don’t Believe Everything You Read On The Internet

  1. john

    The I.N. is like a big white wall and everyone has a spray can. In this case someone was using his feces. Audi owner…trust your sense of smell.

  2. tedly

    I wonder if it’s the same guy who poured sand in his intake while the car was running to port and polish it and the heads. I sooooo want to believe that one wasn’t a setup!

  3. elkyguy

    ah,yes—the interweb—-i can’t tell you how many times folks have come to the shop(or called),telling me,”well,i checked all the forums and everyone knows the problem is this”,and proceed to tell me exactly what i need to do to fix their cars and that it shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes—–of course,they’d do it themselves,but they’re too busy……lord,give me strength……..

  4. John Brown

    My daddy told me years ago, don’t believe anything you hear….. and only half of what you see. Good advice from someone that had been around the block a time or two…..

  5. BeaverMartin

    Man the Audi owner should just pay me 6-8K and I’ll drop in a 5.3 LS. He’ll love it. The internet is scarry if you don’t know what your doing. I can’t count the amount of people talking about “big block” Pontiacs and AMCs. It gets really bad when you check out the diesel forums, esp. biodiesel talk. My favorite are people recommending running straight WVO in a 07 or newer diesel truck, a new cummins is only like 8k why not?

  6. grimm

    internet is what it is, bent values and deemed sanctity some things shouldn’t be and others you could explain the rest of your life and they would not even try to comprehend the truth or respect others values or valuables. and as aggravating as it all is raped is what beginning most of us get.

  7. Gray Had

    Yep. I get it all the time in my shop
    “the internet forum said that you can do this and it will only take 10 minutes”

    I always tell them, “well if the internet said that, then maybe you could get the internet to do it for you”

    Get’s rid of most of them
    G

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