BAD HIRE NOW I"M PAYING FOR IT!

[TTP]

I have a question, I hired a guy to work for me that was supposed to have diesel repair certification. I put him on a few simple jobs the first week to test him, he did fine. I then put him on a harder job, this job labor hours booked at 22, should have it done in two days tops. Well after he was still working on it on day three I had my shop manager start to watch him more closely. When he still was not finished on day five for multiple issues that had to be redone twice and they still were not right, I let him go.

I then put my best tech on it to get it buttoned up. After a few hours he came to me and showed me several issues that were wrong, along with several broken or bent parts that have to replaced, lines that were kinked and no teflon tape on the connections, loose bolts and missing bolts. For safety's sake I had him tear it all down and go completely through it. He just came to me and showed me that he had broken a part of the oil gland on the head of this truck, now the bad thing is that the broken piece of the head cannot be found, so the entire motor has to come out and be broken down to see where that broken piece has landed.

NOW my question is this, do I have any legal recourse to go after this guy for the damages he caused, cause we are talking about thousands of dollars now, or am I just screwed?!

[Joe Marconi]

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[Gonzo]

Good help is hard to find. Keeping good help is just as hard. The loss in your case is just that... a loss. Not much you can do about it. I could write story after story about the "help" but, I shy away from that because I don't want to see the general public taking an even dimmer view of our trade. This is something we as shop owners have to police from in-house.

 

Hire right, do what's right for your business....even if that means you have to eat a few jobs. I have had to eat lots and lots of stuff over the years, and as long as there is somebody between me and the final consumer (ie...the tech) you've got to keep on your toes. The sloppy mechanic won't be the one taking the heat, they'll just quit, get fired or simply move on to another shop.

 

Keep this guys name handy just in case he tries to use you as a reference. Tell the next shop owner the straight scoop. That way we'll all know what kind of character you let go.

 

Sorry to hear stuff like this... but it is...what it is.

[xrac]

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[TTP]

That really sucks to hear that I cant go after him, but at least I can warn other shops about him. You know you try live an honest and good life, be kind and friendly and this is what you get for your trouble. You hire a person to do a job and pay them to do that job, you don' expect to have to go and hold their hand every step of the way. Hmmm maybe I will find him in a dark alley and explain the facts to him a little more clearly....SO FRUSTRATED!!!

 

I guess the worst part is that I had a sign he wasn't any good the week before, but since we are so busy, I ignored the warning and gave him another chance, now I am paying dearly for that mistake. Even when I brought him into the office to discuss the issue he completely denied that he did anything wrong. What a standup guy....NOT!!

[ncautoshop]

That really sucks to hear that I cant go after him, but at least I can warn other shops about him. You know you try live an honest and good life, be kind and friendly and this is what you get for your trouble. You hire a person to do a job and pay them to do that job, you don' expect to have to go and hold their hand every step of the way. Hmmm maybe I will find him in a dark alley and explain the facts to him a little more clearly....SO FRUSTRATED!!!

 

I guess the worst part is that I had a sign he wasn't any good the week before, but since we are so busy, I ignored the warning and gave him another chance, now I am paying dearly for that mistake. Even when I brought him into the office to discuss the issue he completely denied that he did anything wrong. What a standup guy....NOT!!

If you don't mind me asking what was the job on? What did he damage? Any photos? Makes me feel better about accidently letting one slip out without a test drive and issues still present! lol

 

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[TTP]

It was on a F350 6.0 Diesel. The question is what didn't he damage...I have about $1000.00 in parts so far, if it wouldn't fit the right way he would just bend or tweak it till it did, before we found the broken off part in the head now the entire engine has to come out (that means pull the cab=20+ hours) and be completely gone through till we find that broken piece of the head, inside the motor somewhere and hope it has not caused major damage, and the motor also now has an internal oil leak, probably from a cut O ring on either an injector or an oil tube under the HPOP. This just keeps getting better and better!! I got pics but dont know how to post them on here.

The sad thing is that I thought I was helping one of our vets, who served our country.

[ncautoshop]

It was on a F350 6.0 Diesel. The question is what didn't he damage...I have about $1000.00 in parts so far, if it wouldn't fit the right way he would just bend or tweak it till it did,  before we found the broken off part in the head now the entire engine has to come out (that means pull the cab=20+ hours)  and be completely gone through till we find that broken piece of the head, inside the motor somewhere and hope it has not caused major damage, and the motor also now has an internal oil leak, probably from a cut O ring on either an injector or an oil tube under the HPOP. This just keeps getting better and better!! I got pics but dont know how to post them on here. 

The sad thing is that I thought I was helping one of our vets, who served our country. 

The 6.0l has a steep learning curve but once you get them figured out there no bad at all. I have a ton of 6.0l parts that are known good if it helps at all. A lot of techs seem to struggle with a 6.0l hard start and there's a ton of known issues in the first place. As far as bending parts that's just ridiculous. Those are trucks that we work on pretty regularly so anything I can do to help let me know!

 

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[ncautoshop]

Just something I wanted to add,

I don't mean to get off subject but thought it was worth mentioning.

I'm guessing it was a head job at 22 hours billed, if he didn't remove the cab in the first place no wonder he bent stuff lol!

If you do a lot of these it might be worth setting a standard procedure for this job where everyone's got the same idea about how the job goes down. Removing the cab is the only efficient way to do those type of jobs! Hopefully I didn't cross a line with this, just wanted to throw that out there.

 

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[TTP]

NO!! thats one of the biggest issues, it was not a head job, just injectors, EGR cooler and oil cooler= Bulletproof kit. Why he was all the way into the HPOP is still a mystery to me, we finally found the internal leak is was the STC fitting, it was not tight and the O ring was damaged.

Our best guess is when he was installing the injectors, the rail didn't go on smoothly and he used force to make it fit and thats when the head got damaged. We thought we were going to have to pull the motor but we found the broken part of the head lodged in between a spring and the landing, Thank God for that, I was not looking forward to eating any more on this job. Its going back together today and hopefully will be delivered tomorrow.

[ncautoshop]

NO!! thats one of the biggest issues, it was not a head job, just injectors, EGR cooler and oil cooler= Bulletproof kit. Why he was all the way into the HPOP is still a mystery to me, we finally found the internal leak is was the STC fitting, it was not tight and the O ring was damaged.

Our best guess is when he was installing the injectors, the rail didn't go on smoothly and he used force to make it fit and thats when the head got damaged. We thought we were going to have to pull the motor but we found the broken part of the head lodged in between a spring and the landing, Thank God for that, I was not looking forward to eating any more on this job. Its going back together today and hopefully will be delivered tomorrow. 

wow! That's pretty rough! Anything I can do to help let me know!

 

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[Moremph]

Injectors egr cooler and oil cooler should be done 1.5 day at most, High Psi Oil pump would be for an stc fitting repair kit. We do alot of work on these, a compentent mechanic can pull the cab on one in 3 hrs. If you need an odd ball part I prolly have it

Travis

[TTP]

Travis appreciate the offer, but thank god its over and behind us now. He was hiding behind his army training but he was really totally incompetent. Every vehicle he touched came back for one reason or another. We had to eat a lot of crow to salvage our reputation, but it's all good now.