Can we talk about the OTHER pandemic?

pointofdeparture said:

Mr_Asa said:

Been a service writer.  Doesn't berkeleying matter.  You tell them and you're fixing it cause "you broke it."  You don't tell them, you're fixing it and refunding all of the money cause "you broke it and then didn't tell me and tried to kill me!"

You were an honorable service writer doing the right thing by your shop and customers and you deserve kudos. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to represent the majority of shops out there.

Bad mechanics are a lot easier to find than good ones.

We had some horrible people that were service writers.  Manager was the absolute worst, I ended up leaving because I put in for time off (actually got a ruler out and drew up a quick calendar with my time I was taking so he could put it in his office) he ended up firing me because "I never told him." 
I just never got the reason for lying to people or trying to get one over on them.  It was easier for my life and theirs to just not try and lie or hide anything.  Periodically I'd get an shiny happy person that would try to use that against me, but then I'd just let someone higher up than me deal with them and they'd typically fight with the shiny happy person manager or the junior shiny happy person that was the assistant manager

This is a mystery on par with what these things are.

Taken in a random lot! They're (not) everywhere!

I see this and point it our maybe 2x per week these days.

Too much ugga dugga

Discount Tire uses a torque wrench properly.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

I agree with everything you wrote.  I've spent quite a bit of time dealing with bolting procedures and testing on bridges.  It's unnerving when 7/8" bolts break during installation above an interstate.  What we really care about is tension, but we use torque as a proxy because it is easy to measure.  The trouble is, thread condition (lubrication, damage, etc.) affects torque dramatically but has very little effect on tension.

In reply to ProDarwin :

Fascinating that you started this as I just noticed two different pickup trucks yesterday with missing lugnuts. One truck only had 2 of the 6 lugnuts (missing 4) and the other was just missing 1 of the 6.

I don't know if I am just old now and actually look at these things because my mind is wandering or if it an instinct/habit formed from years of working on cars and visually checking for completeness. 

I have noticed an increase in people pushing the limits of safe cars/motorcycles around here (Michigan) for the past few years, pre covid pandemic too. Like the motorcycle guy I have seen multiple times riding without any lights at night. I only noticed him once by him blocking the headlight of the car behind before I really saw him. Then I noticed three other people doing the same on different days each riding full size motorcycles (motorcross, sport, and touring? type motorcycles) at night without lights. One, woman (I think it was dark), was even lying back on the bike as it went by feet on the handlebars.  I wonder if it is a type of rebellious behavior of choosing to take risks rather than making mistakes. IDK

I once took a '67 Imperial to get new tires, and the place stripped off a stud on the first tire they did. Turns out, the mechanic was unaware that Chrysler products of that vintage had left-thread lug nuts on one side of the car.  At this point it was about a 35 year old car, so the "tribal knowledge" of Mopar's reverse lug nuts may have been fading among tire-shop grade techs.