FonterraFarmer
Member
- Location
- Waikato, New Zealand
what grinds your gears
- Thread starter roscoe erf
- Start date
Nearly
Member
- Location
- North of York
It's all going to run down to you in next couple of days. Look out.You want some rain? , well you can have some of ours.....
Woolgatherer
Member
- Location
- Angus
Well don't go sending any here, this was yesterday afternoon!
YorkshireAndrew
Member
- Location
- West / North Yorks border
Stuck in a traffic jam in the rain yesterday . [emoji17]
Shovelhands
Member
- Location
- Sunny Essex
Trespassers, persistent ones, that climb fences and gates just to get in! With no obvious aim other than generally wandering around and mucking about, pretty sure it's teenagers.
But they have show signs of trying to get into machines, and hunting for keys, which aren't there by the way, which is worrying.......
But the latest thing is they have kicked over one of my wife's bee hives.....not sure if it's brave or stupid, both probably.....I hope they got stung, fudgers!
But they have show signs of trying to get into machines, and hunting for keys, which aren't there by the way, which is worrying.......
But the latest thing is they have kicked over one of my wife's bee hives
.....not sure if it's brave or stupid, both probably.....I hope they got stung, fudgers! 
pycoed
Member
- Location
- Pontarddulais, UK
This seems to be the norm with garages these days, especially main dealers. It's clear that hardly any of the staff understand their products.
Surely someone could take a case to court over this sort of situation, after all it's not a lot different to builders charging for work that doesn't fix a problem & THEY regularly get ruled against in courts?
- Location
- Lincolnshire
I am considering taking it to trading standards. At every stage they asked my wife how to proceed. Fuel injection systems and the analysis of fault codes aren't really my wife's area of expertise but now they come back at us and blame us for wasting money because my wife agreed to them proceeding with their recommended course of action.
First they suggested they test the injectors so they removed them and sent them away. All good apparently. Then they suggested the EDU should be replaced as that would therefore be the source of the fault. So another £1100 spent and lo and behold the warning still appears. I suggested they might have been wrong to replace the EDU but they say the fault code pertained to the EDU and we agreed to its replacement. We have no way way of knowing what the fault code pertained to so can't really argue with them, though the fact the warning is still appearing after the fitting of a new EDU, suggests that they wasted our money fitting this part. Now they want to fit a completely new set of injectors and as usual are asking us to make the decision even though they are the people with the analysis equipment and software, supposedly the expertise and experience. I wouldn't be surprised if this doesn't clear the fault either. Completely unacceptable service IMO. I don't think they are deliberately ripping us off. They just seem clueless as to what the source of the fault is. The flashier the garage the worse the knowledge as far as I can see.
Woolgatherer
Member
- Location
- Angus
I went through all of the above with my Citroen nemo van. The warning light came on at about 30000 miles and I had the garage look at it. Edu replaced etc (thankfully cheaper than yours), still the light came on. After much time and money wasted I gave up, it seemed to go ok so I just ignored it. I sold the van, still with the warning light on, and about 175000 miles on it in February. It was still running ok. I think in the end there were wires or connections loose because you could wiggle wires and the light would go out for a while. I never managed to figure out where though!
- Location
- Lincolnshire
This car still runs fine as far as I can tell. I wouldn't be surprised if the fault is due to a wiring problem, bad connection as you say, probably intermittent. What surprises me is that the service people seem like they have never dealt with such a problem before. You would think they would build a knowledge of common faults and issues especially in a ten year old vehicle, with the full backing of the manufacturers data, but it's as if they have never tackled anything like this before, or they are just plain ripping us off.
Pilgrimmick
Member
- Location
- Argyll
Had similar problem with electronics in my car. Bought a diagnostic tool for about £300 and cleared the spurious ones leaving very simple repair, well worth the cash!
- Location
- N.Lincs
I thought I had a working knowledge of the internal combustion engine, but if you look under the bonnet of a modern car, unless you have a laptop loaded with all the latest software you can't do a thing
Oh, for the days of that LR in your avatar
- Location
- Lincolnshire
I priced up comprehensive analysis diagnostic and tuning/programming suite along with software support and updates at about £15k. A bit excessive for one vehicle so I thought I'd leave it to the experts.
The AA man thought he'd identified the faulty injector with his multimeter after using his basic scanner on the system when the fault first occurred. The garage didn't want to know about any of that. I considered trying the repair myself but the stumbling block for me was the reprogramming of the system to account for the replacement injector time delay.
The AA man thought he'd identified the faulty injector with his multimeter after using his basic scanner on the system when the fault first occurred. The garage didn't want to know about any of that. I considered trying the repair myself but the stumbling block for me was the reprogramming of the system to account for the replacement injector time delay.
Pilgrimmick
Member
- Location
- Argyll
Gap diagnostic IID tool allows you to reset the codes, not sure if it will work on your car, but mine does the 2004 Range Rover
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
As old friend of mine (now retired) was a leading Bosch Service Agent, highly trained in vehicle electronic control systems. Much of his work was cars that had faults that eluded main dealers (he also did development work with Rover cars and sorted out an issue causing a certain Citroen model to fail emission tests on PDI in early models
). Many cars were quite recent, some under 2 years old, and virtually all had had significant components replaced at the owners expense without solving the faults, hence the referral. In most cases the cause was quite simple but not effectively diagnosed by the modern computer diagnosis systems unless proper understanding of electronics was applied. None of the owners were offered refunds for the unnecessary work.I had the discussion with him a number of times that dealers were getting away with fraud and that court action should be taken. He agreed but said that he couldn't offer evidence against them or he'd be ostracized from the trade.
He used to describe the "technicians" in many main dealers as "fitters" because all they did was plug in the "computer" and fit what it told them to.
Ignore all the shiny certificates you see behind main dealer service desks: in most cases the lad only has to attend the course to get the certificate, not to demonstrate that they understood what was in the lectures. They could sleep through the course or spend it on their phones and still get the certificate.
- Location
- N.Lincs
I trust you're using the term 'experts' in it's loosest possible sense in this case.
- Location
- N.Lincs
I'm afraid there are very few proper engineers/mechanics anymore - most are, as you say, just fitters.
Campbell
Member
- Location
- Herefordshire
Our old Passat and an Audi with occasional low power issues. Diagnostics inconclusive, talk of leave it with us and possible v expensive parts etc. However, I had a good look at the maze of small rubber pipes connecting the various vacuum and pressure sensors I discovered a chaffed pipe or two, I replaced them all with £5 worth of silicone pipe from Ebay. All Sorted . This type of fault diagnosis seems beyond some of today's Technicians. Computer diagnostics are no doubt a fantastic servant, but they need to be coupled with some old school Analog thinking.
. This type of fault diagnosis seems beyond some of today's Technicians. Computer diagnostics are no doubt a fantastic servant, but they need to be coupled with some old school Analog thinking.Greenbeast
Member
- Location
- East Sussex
Rain made ground soft, pigs started digging in earnest, shorted out the shared fence with the cows and our stupid 'mad cow' (her sister is sensible) escaped (AGAIN), time for them to go. Too much effort, they're only here to cut the grass.
pycoed
Member
- Location
- Pontarddulais, UK
Absolutely right! I happen to enjoy working on mechanical & electrical stuff, so I frequent a few car forums. The knowledge on some of them is amazing (with the usual caveat about signal to noise ratio!). The number of times that dealer replacement of expensive parts fails to fix a problem that is often caused only by a simple failed sensor, or split pipe is approaching a national scandal.Our old Passat and an Audi with occasional low power issues. Diagnostics inconclusive, talk of leave it with us and possible v expensive parts etc. However, I had a good look at the maze of small rubber pipes connecting the various vacuum and pressure sensors I discovered a chaffed pipe or two, I replaced them all with £5 worth of silicone pipe from Ebay. All Sorted
Personally I can endure the complexity in engine management systems because of the corresponding improvements in performance, flexibility & economy, but I can see no benefit whatever from the complexities added by a "body computer". Fiat's can be flummoxed to the point of failure by wiring the wrong replacement radio, while the Vitara's can be done in by fitting an interior light bulb of the wrong wattage FFS. Of course the body computer is coded to the ECU, so things go from bad to worse.