What Auto Mechanic incompetence have you been suffering?

We just spent $1K on replacing the AC compressor in our Honda CR-V. That's a lot, but not as much as new car payments would be. We got it back from the mechanic on Wednesday, and Thursday we hear a mysterious thump. As Thursday goes on and we drive more we hear a little 'thump thump thump', in time with the wheels turning. By noon today the thumping is pretty noticeable, and it mysteriously goes away when the car accelerates or brakes. Thumps when cruising, stops when there are changes of speed.

I'm throwing ideas out there; CV joint bad? CV joint boot torn and flopping around (had that one personally and it makes a racket)? Wheel bearing? God know what. We go home to swap cars, and now the other car won't start (another, much more boring story). I work from home the rest of the day, and she drives back to work.

Get a call from her about quitting time, and she is in tears. When she got off work she did another walk around the car. It turns out that the cause of the Mystery Noise was that those morons at the mechanic's took the right front wheel off to change the AC compressor (sort of in the way) and didn't bother to tighten the lug nuts when they put the wheel back on. Three of the lug nuts were gone, and the remaining two were finger-tight. Wheels falling off your car on the interstate during rush hour would be bad.

Swear to god, at this point I think that a mechanic is an idiot with a good set of tools. My transmission went out this past February and I had to get it rebuilt. That's $3K. I'm driving it home and the speedometer dives to zero and the transmission goes insane. It turns out that the trained gorilla at the shop didn't bother hooking up the speedometer cable all the way. When I take it back to get the cable fixed, the guy says, "Your tires are low. We put some air in them but you might want to get them looked at." They needed looked at alright - they put 60 lbs of air in each tire.

Finding an auto mechanic that you reasonably trust is, besides maybe doctor and construction/handyman, the most important thing you do when you first move.

I feel for you. My car kicked the bucket after a bunch of expensive repairs this spring but I had a rock solid mechanic I've used for 8 years that I trust implictly. I often wonder how fucking rough this spring would have been if I was second guessing every bad thing he was telling me.

My 2007 Nissan Frontier passed recently. Due to a well known, documented issue where the transmission cooling tube leaked into the radiator, it overheated and spewed a pink “strawberry milkshake of death” out of the coolant reservoir. Would not crank. Quoted $4700 to. Nissan didn’t issue a recall, but was offering assistance to pay for repairs...up to like $500 if it goes over $3000. Fuck that.

So I just bought my dream car instead, a Jeep Wrangler. Sold the broke down truck for $2k.

The broken down truck for 2k thing makes me laugh, Americans love trucks so fucking much. I took advantage of the fact that Americans hate station wagons to buy a new buick regal station wagon for 14k (!) off MSRP this spring. Apparently buick thought they'd compete with the subarus but even the memory of buick station wagons was enough for no one to buy them.

Gary Sax wrote: Americans love trucks so fucking much. I took advantage of the fact that Americans hate station wagons to buy a new buick regal station wagon for 14k (!) off MSRP this spring.

And they're all too vain to admit that their SUV is just a station wagon with taller springs and louder tires.

I’m insanely jealous of the selection of wagons Europeans have to choose from. I managed to get one of the last BMW diesel wagons before they stopped making them here in the US, I’m gonna drive it as long as I can.

Run, don't walk, to get a highly discounted Regal Tourx if that's the case. It's an almost completely unchanged Opel Insignia wagon with a little bit of plastic cladding. My Regal was built 100% in Russelsheim according to the door sill sticker and then just brought over and slapped with Buick badges. It even has Opel sharks hidden in it, they didn't even bother to take those off.

It's no BMW wagon, but I'm not even sure they offer the gas 3 series wagons in 2019 anymore.

Gary Sax wrote: Run, don't walk, to get a highly discounted Regal Tourx if that's the case. It's an almost completely unchanged Opel Insignia wagon with a little bit of plastic cladding. My Regal was built 100% in Russelsheim according to the door sill sticker and then just brought over and slapped with Buick badges. It even has Opel sharks hidden in it, they didn't even bother to take those off.

It's no BMW wagon, but I'm not even sure they offer the gas 3 series wagons in 2019 anymore.

Nope, 3 series wagon is no longer available in any configuration . I’ve only got 69K miles, I’m driving it for 100K more if I can if not more.

Only mercedes offering them now, right? smdh.

So weird that the outback is this fucking *wildly* popular car but no one else can get the pitch and sell right to make an extremely similar wagon work. Basically every person where I live (mountain town, snowy, outdoors) drives an outback if they aren't driving a 4runner or a truck and yet no american, south korean, or even other japanese company can make the wagon work saleswise.

Sorry for hijacking, robert.

Outbacks really aren’t super popular. There are a handful of states that buy a lot of them so it is generally just the area you are in where they are common. They are only ranked 8th for sales in 2019 among cars; behind the Camry, Corolla, Accord, Civic, Fusion, Altima, and Sentra. Hell, it’s barely above the Elantra.

They are everywhere in Missoula (something I am also guilty of), but in a lot of the US, Subaru barely sells. The RAV 4 sells 2/3 as much as all of Subaru together.

Yeah, it's a smaller niche company relative to like Honda or especially Toyota.

Still, it is their best selling vehicle and their sales keep hitting records every year in the U.S.

www.autonews.com/automakers-suppliers/to...-tell-tale-2-subarus

I don’t disagree. I’m just pointing out that wagons (which I love) are just way down on the popularity scale when the best seller is the eight best seller in the worst selling larger category (pickup, SUV, car). Why compete when you can slap on some extra plastic, give it a slight lift and call it an SUV?

Sag’s right, many SUVs are just wagons or four-door minivans. The Outback is probably closer to what people think an SUV is capable above than many of the smaller types which tend to have very weak AWD systems and low clearance.

I'm feeling this thread right now. Have a 2014 Malibu and just had to get the cam actuators replaced. Check engine light came back on the next day. I take it in and they clear it, say it's probably just residual. Hit the highway for the first time since they cleared it today and it's still stuttering slightly when maintaining higher speeds, check engine light back on.

Get a BlueDriver. It’s about $100. You plug it in to a port you may not even know exists under the dash. When the check engine light comes on, you download an app to your phone and it transmits the OBDII codes to your phone along with other information. I’ve used mine quite a bit when the check engine light is on. On my old truck, I was able to self-diagnose and repair a couple of worn-out valves. Saved about $600.

I long ago came to the conclusion that auto mechanics and doctors are pretty much the same. They both work hard to cultivate an air of infallible wisdom and experience ... but the reality is that their jobs are just "trial and error." Sometimes they guess right, but most times they don't.