kenk

What ever happened to just plain old siphoning gasoline out of the gas tank, so you don't have to pay for it? At least no damage is done to the gas tank or vehicle!

Gonzo, another good story. Well, perhaps you raised a good  point for having autonomous cars. Let the car do everything for you! No need to know about how it works. Also it still  helps to think "outside the box" and solve some of those perplexing problems.

Good analogy, never thought there could be such similarities between baseball and auto repair!

That's why it's called a hood prop! It's not what is supposed to be there. anyway I did not see locking pliers in the description, to keep up the .. hydraulic shock!

Well, if they are the proper weight and certifications the manufacturer  wants no foul here. Gonzo you did the right thing! Customers should not be so picky anyway and if so they need to change there own oil!

I found some guy's 14mm open end wrench, on a sharp turn at an intersection I crossed for my daily walk. Turns out it was a Snap-On and I looked up the price as I was curious and it was pretty expensive for one long wrench. $50.00 find! Perhaps the most expensive thing I ever found on the side of the road that was very usable! I guess long wrenches can be evasive too.

maybe not, the next generation of cars will have the autonomous feature of being able to fix itself! It will drive itself to a location and a bunch of automated arms will hover over the engine, make the diagnosis and put in the new already programed parts, and you will be off your way. The only thing that will be the same is the price of repair, still going up! 

I wonder what the percentage is of shop owners that never worked as techs and shop owners that have worked as techs before they became shop owners? I would think there are more shop owners with backgrounds as techs!

That's the best out of the others posted. very original!

 The story still holds true today as the economy still stinks! Happy holidays

nice to see this one again!

Long Christmas story this week. Different then the old ones were used to hearing!

The machine is actually the one on top of your head. It interprets analyzes and comes up with a diagnosis!

luxury is something that you can do without and in automobiles it adds to the complexity and price of automobiles. power windows even though most cars have them in my book is still luxury, even though it could be argued that it is cheaper for manufactures to just include them as standard.

Yea, I recognized your wooden model! You have to wonder when did the shift from practical innovations or improvements to the automobile, change to luxury type innovations that really are not needed and just add cost to the automobile. What year do you think that happened?

I think I read this one this year on another patriotic holiday, never less a good one to post again!

Interesting the story actually had a nice ending, considering what you had to go through!

yes, sum guy because the work, charges etc,  just did  not impress you, but the job got done!

I still see these signs occasionally when traveling, "Mechanic On Duty" and wonder, oh does this mean you can fix my car? Maybe yes and perhaps not. Those signs mean nothing today!

Thanks for sharing your story with us. It will help us to try to take better care of ourselves and hopefully avoid what you went through!

gonzo: all businesses suffer from slowdowns at times. Either you get creative and find other things to do or just take a needed rest and before you know it your busy again. It's just a cycle, that's the way it is at my place, although I must say a more aggressive approach, like we used to have at my place of work, it was not long before another new project would come along and you be scrambling to get the next job done!

probably need to advertise the chat, to members and outsiders. true it's not the most modern day format for it, but it's simple to use.

Yes, always check simple things(basics) even on what might seem to something so complicated you wonder , will I  be  able to work on this! Gonzo, Another good story I guess from your vault of stories that you have compiled over the years.

reminds me of a computer repair from years ago where it passed all diagnostics yet in real time(computer was running software to do a specific task) it would fail. so how you fix it? While running the real time program you would swap out electronic boards that made the computer run until you found which board it was. Anyway back then then there were spare boards on each system. Today you would just replace the computer. Keep in mind that one computer years ago cost $30k or more!

Yep, they make cars more complicated today. Not necessarily a good thing but something you have to deal with. Electronics is taking over and there are less mechanicals to cars. Perhaps someday  will have cars without  any mechanical components. Hard to envision today !