For those of you that are curled up in
an easy chair prepared to read about the good old days when drivers were
fat and tires were skinny, you're about to be disappointed. This month
we're looking at fault codes; throttle bodies and torque converters; modern
cars and modern wonders of service. And yet some things never change.
This tale begins on a cold Sat. morning
as wife, Leigh, motors off to work in her late model German station wagon.
Barely out of the driveway and not yet warmed up, the car refuses to accelerate
enough to even upshift into second gear. The lights are on that say the
traction control is activated, the EML (electronic control module) won't
wake up and in general the engine is on strike. This is on a 70k mile engine
whose owner couldn't crush an egg under the gas pedal and I haven't driven
the car enough to program the upshift points on the automatic transmission
(hopefully, somewhere in the red).
She called from the side of the road for
a diagnosis, which was a little tough considering that I hadn't made it
to the coffee pot yet. ASC light on? Barely moving? I suggested that she
try to steer off the ice.
She said that the roads were dry. I suggested
that she turn off the ASC, she said that she had already tried that, and
it was no help. Did you take the valet key by mistake? No, this car doesn't
have a valet key. I'm beginning to look like Capt. Kirk asking Scotty for
more power. With minimal traffic on the country roads only a couple of
miles to go and a wife that "doesn't have time for this", the decision
was made to limp to work. I would drive over later in the day to take a
closer look at the stricken ride.
Actually I was thinking that once the
day warmed up the balky car would regain its strength and the problem would
go away. This repair method seldom works.
When I arrived after lunch the car was
parked at the curb looking perfectly normal. I hopped in and turned the
key and it started right up with no problem. There were some extra lights
on indicating that
Sleeping Beauty was still dozing but I
just ignored them. I stepped down on the gas to find that while the engine
seemed to want to wind up, a new rev limiter had been installed that took
over at about two grand. Nothing would coax it faster. A quick look found
the engine compartment in order with no loose wires (actually there are
no exposed wires period), no blown fuses and nothing out of place. Modern
engine bays are so carefully covered in plastic shrouds that nothing looks
familiar. If someone told you that it was an electric car you'd believe
it. For a backyard mechanic this was not looking like a solvable problem.
Because I thought the problem was minor and would even be gone before I
arrived, I hadn't brought any real tools or diagnostic equipment.
Besides there was a factory dealership just about a mile down the road
and while I would rather fix it myself, this was "mama’s car" and as the
best ride in the barn, was not to be trifled with. It needed to be fixed
and it needed to be fixed fast.
Cars don't generate a lot of horsepower
under 2k, not even German cars so the ride was a long one. I drove through
a residential neighborhood so as to stay off the main road where 14 mph
would have been a problem. Even so an uphill section dropped me into single
digits while the downhill side got the speed up and it even went into second
gear. What a ride.
It was the Saturday of Presidents Day
weekend and the dealership was jammed. A uniformed attendant asked me if
I was here for the golf contest (sink a put - win a car) but I confessed
that I had rolled in for service. I was directed around the side of the
building away from the excitement of new and shiny. Service was open and
busy but a member of one of the colored service teams (before you jump
to conclusions let me clarify - colored as in red, blue and green) came
to take my statement. He transcribed my every word onto the repair order,
a procedure that I think I would later regret. There's something to be
said for not volunteering too much information. When my assigned advisor
said that he wasn't familiar with the symptoms as described, another team
leader suggested a faulty throttle body motor or the wiring harness that
controls it. The teams were booked for the weekend but would dive into
the problem first thing Monday morning (a holiday) and call me. They even
gave me a ride back to the shop. Great service.
As expected, the phone rang a little after
9 am finding me in the garage digging out the tools needed to help a friend
replace the front struts on his wife's minivan. Actually my degree of help
was going to consist of watching and giving helpful hints. The voice from
the dealership was not the team leader from Saturday but the weekday crew
fresh from a two-day rest. But he sounded grim. They had done both a visual
and an electronic inspection and I had a problem (Houston?).
The electronic inspection was done with
the dealership's expensive computer system that allows the car to spill
out all its complaints through a plug in the engine compartment. I had
the sense that the car could rat me out the way a tachometer telltale could
have done years ago. In the voice of a doctor to a cancer patient the depth
of the illness was reveled. The car needed a new throttle body as the old
one had stopped functioning. No surprise there, but the little devil was
$300 and another $300 to install, ouch. To someone like myself that can't
remember replacing a worn part over $300 this was big money. But the list
had just begun. The second item confessed to the computer was a faulty
torque converter deep inside the transmission. This was preventing the
car from upshifting and couldn't be repaired or adjusted externally and
would require that the transmission be replaced. That would come to $3800
but they could do the job by the end of the day. I think that would have
been a record for the speed of money spent on a repair as these kinds of
jobs normally take a few days. These guys are good. That completed the
high tech analysis of the wagon but there were a couple of things that
they noticed during their visual inspection.
The two fan belts looked old and cracked
and needed replacement to the tune of $189 and the ball joint on the left
front corner was expired but $780 would make that noise, that I hadn't
heard, go away. The estimated total was just a shade over $5100. The diagnosis
time came to $98 but would be waived if some or all of the work was done
at the dealership (now there's an incentive to pull out your wallet) .What
a way to start the week, here I was trying to help a friend save $100 by
changing his own shocks while my wife's car was on its' way to the poorhouse
with me aboard.
Since I wanted the engine to be able to
get back into the zone where real power could be created I certainly wanted
the throttle body installed. I couldn't imagine that the throttle body
motor and the transmission could fail on the same night sitting in the
heated garage so logic alone kept me from stepping up for the second repair.
I knew that the belts were $20 each so the $189 seemed a little high. Maybe
I just don't realize how valuable I really am tinkering around in the garage.
Ball joints are pretty cheap too, even the ones that come already mounted
in the lower control arm are only $129 plus freight and freight should
somewhere south of $651, so if needed I could put that item on my to do
list not theirs.
My directions to replace only the one
item on the laundry list left the caller stunned. After a moment he said
that if that was all I wanted to do the car would be ready shortly after
lunch. These guys are good.
By 3 PM the minivan was on its way but
there was no word from the ailing wagon. Leigh was getting concerned about
a possible hostage situation so I called the service department. I was
quickly transferred to the cashier (a very important position at this store)
who said that the car was ready but the paperwork had not come up from
the shop floor yet. I was assured that it would be ready to go by the time
I arrived.
A ten-minute ride later and I was standing
at the cashier’s desk (no cage at this store). Yes the car was ready, the
bill was ready, and the valet would bring the car to the side door. The
bill was $655 as expected and the car appeared at the door as clean as
the day it was built. I looked quickly to see if I had been charged for
the wash but it wasn't listed. These guys are really good.
We jumped in the car to take a test drive.
This baby was so happy to see us that she ran perfect, no hesitation, no
noises and smooth shifting just as we remembered. And clean and shiny too!
We drove back to the dealership to have
a chat with the team leader who explained the self-diagnosis ability of
modern cars as though I had never heard of it before. The fault codes definitely
showed that transmission failure was eminent and should be addressed before
it locked itself in third gear permanently, the failure mode. I asked if
anyone had driven the car after the throttle repair and the tech was brought
out to assure us that he had. He referred again to the fault codes produced
by the computer and said the he felt that the rough upshifts were a sign
of distress (he words not mine). I guess we don't know a rough shift when
we see it.
The service department had done everything
I had asked them to do and more. The ride back on Sat, the free (?) wash
and vacuum and valet delivery was great. These guys are good. I did have
a nagging doubt about a couple of things but I could eliminate those in
short order as soon as I got the buggy home.
A company called Peak Research sells the
necessary tools to plug into the computer to read the fault codes and I
had a set in the drawer. I use the reset feature of the tool after oil
changes so that the service indicator lights go to green. I have even used
the tool to find out why the air bag light is on permanently, turns out
that it's a faulty passenger seat belt buckle that I haven't replaced yet.
The buckle is $120 and I thought that was a lot of money so I put it pretty
far down the to do list. Funny they didn't mention that fault code at the
shop. There is a book with pages of codes so that even a hobbyist can be
a pro at finding the problem.
I ran the program three times, only the
air bag fault appeared. Could it have been reset? Maybe, but the tech said
that it showed up after the test drive he performed. Three weeks later
that smooth shifting ride still won't trigger a fault code. The fan belts
are definitely old so I ordered new ones, but I can't find any unnecessary
movement in the ball joints or lower control arms on either side. This
is after jacking up the car, pulling both wheels and moving the suspension
both loaded and unloaded. This is not rocket surgery.
So what really happened here? That was
a question that I needed to answer because we had been contacted by both
that dealer and the manufacture regarding our service experience. The dealer
sent a letter followed by a phone call. The letter stated that if there
were any issues with our service experience that would prevent us from
awarding an excellent rating would we please call the team leader. I didn't
call. I did however get a call at the office (the number I left with the
service department) from a company out west that had been hired to survey
customers. After I was assured that it was not a recorded line (for quality
purposes?) I told my tale. The listener wasn't surprised or at least didn't
seem to be. He suggested that I call a national service hotline to report
the incident. I did call that 800 number to again tell the tale. I made
it clear that I didn't want my name brought up or even the circumstances
reviewed because I may have to go in there again with a similar emergency.
I certainly didn't want a picture of our station wagon hanging on the wall
in the bathroom with a target painted on it. I explained that I had been
in the car business many years ago but thought that those things just didn't
happen any more
At an unnamed dealership where I worked
years ago the service advisors were given a spiff (that's what it was called)
of $25 for every car that they wrote up that needed a complete set of shocks.
This was back when they were probably making $300 per week. The parts manager
had double ordered a supply of shocks by mistake and wanted to move them
as soon as possible. Sales tripled that week. This was back before computers
and the repair orders were filled in by hand standing next to the car.
The advisor would but his foot on the bumper to steady the clipboard he
was using and push down hard to make the car rock. Then the surprised owner
was told that the car needed shocks and they were sold in sets of four.
Sold a lot of shocks until the end of the week when a customer came in
for an oil change and when told his car needed shocks exclaimed that they
had just been done earlier in the week in the same shop. Oops!
You see I figure that I got what I paid
for. In fact more than I paid for, what with the ride and wash. It's been
a long time since I've cast a shadow on a dealer’s shop floor but I thought
they stopped selling invisible garages and summer air for tires years ago.
Maybe not? I just hope that you don't have to be a gearhead like
me to get a fair shake. Whatever they're selling just be careful out there
and KTF. |
