Nobody wants to take any responsibility for their actions anymore. It’s one thing when you blamed your imaginary friend when a few cookies mysteriously disappeared without prior approval, but as an adult, that crap ain’t cute. The car and anything that happens with it is a beacon of how adults suddenly become blame-shifting brats:
* Were you caught speeding by the police? Offer a reason why. “I need to poo” usually works.
* Cut someone off? You were tending to your child instead of seeing the Mack truck in your rear view.
When it comes to vehicle maintenance…oh, lord, you’ll hear some doozies. People will forget to change their oil, not know that transmission fluid doesn’t go into the radiator, flush their engine by running the garden hose into the tailpipe (I’ve actually seen video footage of this happening!) and what not. Even better is what mechanics refer to as the “Ever Since” club: “Ever since you aligned my front end, my brakes squeal!” (even though the brake pads are as thin as a Cheez-It cracker.) It’s not their fault, it can’t be. Something outside of their control must have taken place for the vehicle to be messed up. This line is from Dante, a good friend of UPCG, and it’s stunning. I sat for a minute blinking, wondering how hard the tech laughed at what was written:
Email of the year in one of our internal mailing lists (car related):
“I had my check Engine light on since last Saturday. A friend asserted that its because of solar flare and many others facing same problem. Anybody here seeing the same thing on their car(s)?”
Pasted verbatim. I busted out laughing.
I wish I was the service advisor who got to hear this gem personally. I wouldn’t be able to hold back the laughter. “Oh, no, Mr. Smith! It looks like the clouds are breaking up…that awful Sun will be shining through in a matter of minutes! You should probably move your car before that Check Engine Light comes back on…you wouldn’t want to pay that bill again, now, would you?” A solar flare…please, someone, please prove to me that I’m wrong and that there is potentially an honest answer to this, because right now all I get out of that statement is tinfoil conspiracy theorists and sci-fi weirdness. Is it possible, or will some people believe anything? What’s next…aliens probed my tailpipe to check my emissions?
….or telling one’s engineer wife that the heated seats he just installed in her Prius would net her worse mpg….
…. and forgetting he told her until, a few months later, she informs him that she’s paid attention to the mpg and found that it is not getting worse mpgs….
sbg is a rat bastard, smug too.
The best “ever since” I had was a customer who came in with a complaint of “The car wanders on the freeway”, after a quick inspection the idler arm was worn and subsequently replace. Happy customer left only to return 2 days later stating “Ever since you replace the idler arm the car won’t idle!”
Not tinfoil hat as much as overestimating a problem. He’s taken a problem for power grids and communications, and assumed it applies to anything electrical. Solar flares can produce some pretty nasty effects:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/sun_darkness.html
However, cars are pretty well protected – the wiring is much shorter than power lines and picks up less energy, the electronics were designed to resist having voltage injected into the wiring, and for most cars, the metal bodywork presents a good shield.
Solar flares do screw with our aircraft radios but it has been about 10 years since we had that problem.
Some of the landing systems get a little glitchy too.
As for a car screwing up , as far as I know systems like OnStar are cell based so if we get some very strong solar flares there could be some very local problems ,unlike aircraft that use UHF/VHF radios that are very susceptible to the radio waves the sun puts off.
Had a car come into the shop with a brake squeal. Fixed the brakes and rotors. No issues. Guys wife comes in 3 weeks later with the classic “ever since you fixed the brakes” complaint. Now there was a banging noise in the back. Only when she drives it. Can’t get it to replicate itself on a test drive. Even when she takes us for a spin. Now she’s telling us we have some way to turn it off so we aren’t liable for the repair. She leaves angry and makes 4 calls over the next few weeks to complain. On one call she is in the car and – holy crap – the banging can clearly be heard. She brings the car in immediately and tears a strip out of us in the ofc. As we go out to the car we clearly hear banging while the car is not moving. She stops and shrieks at us “see, see… it’s f’n banging, just like I said !!!”
As we approach the car we can clearly see her kid in the back car seat playing with a wooden spoon and banging the door panel.
I worked at a workshop a while back and a customer came in for four tires and wheel alignment, no problem.
Came back the next day plenty pissed off that his transmission was now leaking fluid and it must have been something we done – Go figure.
Another story some years ago I fitted new tires and a rear muffler to my then girlfriend now wife’s fathers car, all good.
Late that afternoon he calls up – the outer ring on the harmonic balancer has come off and obviously it was something I had done.
I repaired it ASAP, like straight away but he still didn’t believe me that it was something that was about to happen anyway.
The old saying Happy wife happy life doesn’t even mention any thing about happy father inlaw. LOL
A couple of years ago we had 3 trucks that the ECU failed on in the same week. It happened to be at the height of some solar flare activity. So now whenever an ECU fails we blame solar flares. lmao.
My Best ‘Ever Since’ is one should have turned over to the District Attorney.
A buddy had a 1984 C-10 305/TH350 with high mileage, some rust but it was usable. Before I purchased it he agreed to get some times under ‘warranty’ fixed. This was in 2001 he had a ‘limited lifetime’ warranty on the 4 year old exhaust system. The muffler and dual exit pipes were rusting out where the muffler attached. The somehow found some secret squid reason to dishonor that warranty.
While on a lift in that shop the drive end on the speedometer cable that goes in the plastic gear went missing. It somehow exited the truck and used pliers to crush the life out of the cable nut putting it back on, and then rubbed black new grease all over the nut.
I had drove the truck to the shop dropped it off, then drove it when it was pick up 48 hours later.
They had no idea my buddy had just bought a year plus old 2000 Buick Century with 16K miles.
Since I had to emissions test the truck with in 30 days of purchase: I cut off the junk muffler back to the stock pipe from the converter. Used an adapter to 3 inch, a length of part store 3 inch, a rather reducer and welded on one of the aftermarket tail pipes. Sound was nice. Passed the visual inspection before smog testing.
Straight outa the 80’s…changed the oil on a brand new 85 Chevy Cavalier…customer says a week later I must have done something, it now needs “shocks”…very politely i put it up on the lift inspect “shocks” and inform her they have less than 10,000 miles on them and should last another 50,000…she goes away happy until a month later comes back and tells me HER SON says she needs shocks…after another free inspection I ask her where her son is when he tells her that…in the car of course…who else is in the car?…his wife, and two kids…where are you going when he tells you this?…Why, home from the airport…with their luggage?…OF COURSE WITH THEIR LUGGAGE! WHY?…because I can save you a bunch of money by making them take a cab from the airport, this little car won’t handle all that WEIGHT…she exits laughing AND refers her whole extended family to me as “that funny as hell honest mechanic”…her daughter rushed me one day with the question “WHY DOESN’T A TUNE-UP COME WITH A FREE OIL CHANGE?”…I asked her if the OB/GYN gave her a free perm while he was down there…she laughed so hard I almost had to call the paramedics…