Don’t always blame the Mechanic / A Head Scratcher

[Multi69s]

My dad was a mechanic for his whole working life, if fact he had the first VW / Porsche shop in this area (50s-60s), and I was a mechanic (professionally) for about 5 years. The one thing that he instilled in me was that parts or systems failures can happen at any time, and sometimes it is just a coincidence. IE you take your car to the shop to get one thing fixed, and you leave with a different problem, so you blame the mechanic.

I just had that problem; I was waiting for one fitting and my vacuum pump to come in so I could finish my A/C install on my Squareback, so I took it in to get some new tires. When they were finished, they called me out to show them how to open the hood to put my spare back in. Then I jumped in the car and headed home. I then noticed that the tire changer had twisted and pulled on every knob trying to get the hood open. When I went to turn on the radio, it was dead, also the turn signals didn’t work. Got it home and a fuse was blown. Installed a fuse, radio played, left turn signals worked, but the right side was abnormal. Also, when I tuned on the emergency flashers, the fuse would blow. First thought was “what in the hell did the tire changer do”. Did he pull too hard on the flasher or turn signal switches?

Then I stepped back and thought that it might have been my fault. After all I had just drilled a bunch of holes on the right side for the A/C line clamps, maybe I hit a wiring loom. So got a flashlight and a mirror on a stick and started searching, nope didn’t do it. So back to blaming the tire changer, figured he broke something. With the A/C evaporator in place, you can’t get at the wiring or switches, so I had to drop it down a little. Pulled out the E-flasher switch and checked per the Bentley – good, checked the relay – good. That left the turn signal switch, and I didn’t want to pull the column apart. I decided to do one last test before pulling the column apart. I was going to send power through each turn signal line individually (just in case).

I had already made up a little power lead setup for testing things. I had made up a plug that goes into the cigarette lighter hole that had a 5A fuse, long leads and alligator clips on the end. I had my son watch the lights as I applied power to them individually. Everything was good until I connected power to the right front bulb, the fuse blew. Replaced the fuse and tried it again, fuse blew again, I had found my short. Rechecked the wiring loom, hadn’t drilled into it, so I pulled the turn signal assembly off of the body and WHAT THE HELL. I couldn’t wrap my brain around it. Back when I had my car painted a YEAR ago, they had rewired the turn signal wrong. The ground wire was going to the light bulb, and the turn signal hot wire was going to the turn signal frame. How could this wiring have worked for over a year? Then it dawned on me, our turn signals have a rubber gasket between the housing and the frame. Since they had painted the car, the mounting holes were full of paint, so the housing was isolated from the body. Finally from vibration or maybe lifting the car on the hoist, the paint broke away in the mounting holes and the screws grounded out the housing.

So here I was blaming the tire changer, when I should be thanking him. If this had happened on a road trip, it would have definitely caused me grief. I think that I am going to pull off all of my turn signals and check them out.
_________________
69 road Bug 2110
73 Squareback - 2L, T4, Automatic W/ AC
Gone, but many fond memories 69 Baja Bug 2010 - 5 Rib Bus Transaxle
Gone but not forgotten 72 Baja Bug 2010
My builds
T4 into Squareback http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=458944&highlight=
Auto Trans Rebuild http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=516066&highlight=
AC in Squareback https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...highlight=

[Tram]

[Multi69s]

That's why it was such a head scratcher. There was absolutely no indication from the cockpit area that anything was wrong. In total honesty, I can not remember if I did a visual light check when I got it back from the painters .
_________________
69 road Bug 2110
73 Squareback - 2L, T4, Automatic W/ AC
Gone, but many fond memories 69 Baja Bug 2010 - 5 Rib Bus Transaxle
Gone but not forgotten 72 Baja Bug 2010
My builds
T4 into Squareback http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=458944&highlight=
Auto Trans Rebuild http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=516066&highlight=
AC in Squareback https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...highlight=

[KTPhil]

Seeming left turn here, but I'll link this to the "thermostat removal" practice of mechanics years ago. I've posted this theory before, so sorry for the re-runs if you saw it.

Say you are a mechanic in a temperate climate rebuilding a customer's engine. The last thing you want is a customer to return with an overheated engine, and they blame you. So you consider what to do about the thermostat and flaps:

1) You reinstall it, and risk it jamming and forcing the engine to overheat, which you will be blamed for, even though you put the original parts back on the car. This is rare, but pretty much NO owner checked, adjusted, or lubed those parts. He will wrongly tell his friends what a bad mechanic you are. Business suffers.

-or-

2) You know better, but you remove the system, and have one less thing to worry about causing a customer return. Sure, it will warm up more slowly, and the extra carbon will build up in the heat riser, and maybe lead to an increase in compression ratio down the road, causing a slow death. But that will take years, and the customer will not associate this later failure with your job. Your reputation is intact.

All this to avoid what you were ready to do: blame the mechanic. We all think that way; it's a natural conclusion. But it isn't always correct.

Good story to share!

[icelancer]

Although I am not a professional mechanic, I work on everyone car that I know. That being said; this really is a great topic. Some cars I do not want to work on because they are such POS...but I end up working on them anyway and have run into problems like this wayyyy too often. So from a non professional standpoint I trust my attention to detail and I found it is best to be honest with the person/customer. If I feel there is a chance something is my fault (IE i rushed a job) I will fix my mistake.
My buddy has been a vw shop owner for years and although its mainly watercooled now, he has the same mentality. Vws in particular tend to have very weird problems so I vote DO NOT blame the mechanic. We need a topic "Blame the engineer" or "Blame the previous owner" Im sure the rage I have for previous owners is felt quite often around the t3 forums....
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71 squareback (1904 A/T)
71 super beetle (1904 M/T)
B5.5 wagon M/T daily driver
SB for squareback or san bernardino....who knows.

[Tram]

[Bobnotch]

[marujo.sortudo]

Reminds me of a time that all my dash lights went out on an Audi 5000CS I used to have. It took me a long time to realize that the stereo I had installed 6 months earlier had slowly worked through the insulation on a wire and grounded it out.

[Tram]

[marujo.sortudo]