Little Things I'm Noticing

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steven kiser
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Joined: Fri Jul 06, 2007 4:58 am
Location: eastern ma.

Little Things I'm Noticing

Post by steven kiser »

A lot of vehicles are requiring things to be so precise it's maddening.

A good example is a Jeep Liberty. We had one in the shop for service and needed to replace the transmission lines. We will not cut and splice lines like we see that other shops do. Well I can't say never, once I did when the body mounts had sagged so low on a Suburban I had to when I replaced the rear a/c and heater lines. I have a flaring tool from when I once made a/c lines so I was able to nut and flare it and use couplers, not sharp edges on the line and attaching them with hose and clamps. We had to remove the shift cables from the transfer case and transmission to fit the lines. The customer came back in with an issue involving the part time 4 wheel drive light. After spending a bit of time on it I discovered that if I reached up and applied pressure to the arm on the case it would work fine. I looked at the bracket and saw that the bolts locked against it in a different ;location that before so I loosened it and moved it so the bolt heads matched the old stamp, maybe a 1/16th of an inch at most and it worked just fine. At best I could almost understand it in a Mercedes but a bottom line Jeep :shock: .

Tire monitors are getting a bit wild. We had a Ford Transit in the shop and were going crazy with the Tire Pressure light. All tires were reading but the light wouldn't reset. We spent hours trying to solve it. What I finally did was have the tech remove the spare and set it away from the vehicle. Suddenly the r/r tire wasn't reading. Apparently he had a flat on the r/r had it repaired and stowed it as the spare. My Snap On as well as another reader was picking up the signal from the spare when the tech was at the R/R. the L/R signal was strong enough to block out the signal so it read correctly.

I've found that on some high end G.M.'s you need to read everything on the diagnostic sheet very carefully because the stuff modules anywhere they can and it's a stretch trying to make a customer understand why the l/r door speaker had to be replaced so the power seat on the passenger side will work. I had a Sprinter Van in the shop with issues that was owned by an electrician. All sorts of wild things were happening. The dealer was at a loss so it was back at my shop. I was working on it and one of his Walkie Talkies was in the holder and it started crackling and such enough so it was bothering me so I turned it off. The sprinter started to run fine, turned the radio on and after a bit it started to run a bit rough, turned it off and it smoothed out. Switched my scanner to wave length and watched the one for the T.P.S. start to scatter when the radio was on and settle down when it was off. I've had ones where every time I took an older Honda for a ride it was fine but when the customer drove her son to school it bucked and cut out. I finally drove it with her son (tiny) in it and the passenger seat had weakened enough that when he sat in it one of the broken supports would really lay into the pcm and apparently flexed it enough that it would fail. Removing the seat, installing a used on and relocating the pcm out of harms way solved the problem.

I've gotten real precise in my questions when I have an "oddity" in the shop. Who's the primary driver, any new drivers especially sons, precisely when was this first noticed, who was driving it when it happened or prior. When you drove the vehicle after your son or daughter had it was it really clean or dirty? Any new accessories added, I had one where there was a smell of gas in the vehicle and I found when the son added a new super doper radio he used long deck screws to mount the amp in the trunk and had screwed into the gas tank. The mother didn't think it was such a bad thing until I explained about static electricity and poor grounding would cause a rather big explosion. Screws randomly cutting into harnesses and one vehicle, thinking it was a Buick where the harness ran inside the frame rail and no it isn't just a quick tape job to repair the damage when her son drilled into it when installing a low rider kit. Insurance got involved with that one and it was a messy battle. Well enough for me I have finally built up enough desire to replace the rear diff on a Volvo S.U.V.
never argue with a fool, they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience
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