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As a service writer I am doing more questioning and it helps everyone one.

Flat can be a difficult way to make a living. It is either feast or famine.

Gonzo dealing with customers and "trust" can sometimes drive you crazy. In situations like you described when there is an intermitten problem is when "trust" is destroyed. All one can do is tell them I fixed the fusable link and the seat problem and I have experienced no dying issue. Maybe that was the problem maybe not. Don't be suprised if the dying issue reappears but it didn't occur while it was here in the shop or on our test drives. We have learned to hedge more and more on all our repairs because you never know about cars.

About four times in the thirteen years I have been in this business.

This one had an arrow.

We ran into an interesting repair yesterday. Our shop is located about one block from a brand new VA Clinc that opened here in December. An older verteran who had never been to our shop beforfe came in with an Isuzu Trooper that would barely pull itself into the shop. He asked us to find out what was wrong. We found for starters the right side catalytic converter completely stopped up. When we replaced it the vehicle would run with some power but was still missing and had a check engine soon light on. The technician started checking it out further and found that the vehicle had what looked to be a fairly new Mass Air Flow sensor. There was one problem with it however. It was installed backwards? Think that might have had something to do with the CEL and running problem? We reinstall the MAF correctly, put one new spark plug in cylinder #5, and dumped a can of Sea Foam in the gas tank. The Trooper started running just fine. Reckon the reversed MAF and the dummy who installed it had anything to do with causing a $500+ catalytic converter replacement? I can't say for sure because I know nothing about the vehicle's history but you know what I suspect.

Gonzo, this story isn't far from the truth. I haven't picked up a club in over 20 years but I use to play regularly. When I was playing I was the guy who always had a lot of golf balls because I aways found lost balls when I was out in the briars and posion ivy looking for mine.

Rob, our shop opened in April of 1999. Welcome to the forum.

Illinois is a labor/union state. The Illinois Department of Labor hates any nonunion business in my humble opinion.

How has your experience been with hiring dealer techs? The ones who have been deaaler techs for very long haven't done too well for us?

During my physical, my doctor asked me about my daily activity level, and so I described a typical day this way: "Well, yesterday afternoon, I waded along the edge of a lake, drank eight beers, escaped from wild dogs in the heavy brush, marched up and down several rocky hills, stood in a patch of poison ivy, crawled out of quicksand, jumped away from an aggressive rattlesnake and took four "leaks" behind big trees." Inspired by the story, the doctor said, "You must be one hell of an outdoors man!" "Nah," I replied, "I'm just a very bad golfer!"

We are up about 16% over the first quarter last year.

The Brake Best selects are good pads.

I have used some Wearever Golds and they have been just fine. The Wagners are also good pads.

You don't have to be an engineer to appreciate this story. A toothpaste factory had a problem: they sometimes shipped empty boxes, without the tube inside. This was due to the way the production line was set up, and people with experience in designing production lines will tell you how difficult it is to have everything happen with timings so precise that every single unit coming out of it is per...fect 100% of the time. Understanding how important that was, the CEO of the toothpaste factory got the top people in the company together and they decided to start a new project, in which they would hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem. Six months (and $8 million) later they had a fantastic solution - on time and on budget. They solved the problem by using high-tech precision scales that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box would weigh less than it should. The line would stop, and someone had to walk over and yank the defective box out of it, pressing another button when done to re-start the line. A while later, the CEO decides to have a look at the project. No empty boxes ever shipped out of the factory after the scales were put in place...very few customer complaints, and they were gaining market share. "That's some money well spent!" he says, before looking closely at the other statistics in the report. It turns out the number of defects picked up by the scales was 0 after three weeks of production use. It should've been picking up at least a dozen a day, so maybe there was something wrong with the report. After some investigation, the engineers come back saying the report was actually correct. The scales really weren't picking up any defects, because all boxes that got to that point in the conveyor belt were good. Puzzled, the CEO travels down to the factory, and walks up to the part of the line where the precision scales were installed. A few feet before the scale, there was a $20 desk fan, blowing the empty boxes out of the belt and into a bin. "Oh, that," says one of the workers - "one of the guys put it there 'cause he was tired of walking over every time the bell rang".

Discount Tire is using the Coats 70XEHL in their store here.

I saw a woman leaving a restaruant today in what appeared to be as new dress. The tires on her van were bald. It is often a matter oF priorities. We had a woman this week with a car that is due for spark plugs every 30k. She was at 90K and had never changed the plugs and now had a bad coil. She was also 10k OVER ON HAVING THE OIL CHANGED.

Good advice. It reminds me of a verse in the Bible.

Gonzo is a renaissance man. He is an business owner, automotive technican, automotive electric expert, author, convention speaker, and a darn good golfer.

We have an older Coats changer. I would like to get a newer one with the second arm eventually. We struggle with run-flats and extreme low profiles. However, I know we have a brand new Discount Tire up the street from us. They use all Coats changers and balancers except they do have one Hunter road force balancer. I am friendly with those guys so I will check Monday and see what model they use. Discount is the largest tire seller in the nation and I figure they know what works. Just my thoughts!

When it comes to tire changers Coats is the brand that I swear by.

Great story! Tough job! You are the man! Very few technicians could have figured it all out.

Yes, that is the case. The other dealers are pretty fair to deal with. Our local BMW-Mercedes-VW-Audi (euro dealer) gives us a whopping 5% discount on parts and does not deliver. I can get 20% discount out of Nashville with delivery.

We have good working relationships with several dealers especially with Ford. However, our experience with VOLVO has not been good.