They want money!

[Guest]

I pulled my gse out of storage and it fired up no problem. But what do I see, gass dribbling from between carb3&4. So I call every shop in Saskatoon and every one tells me I cannot pull the end carb alone, I must pull the bank. So for three days I try to work around the problem and seal it. Then being totally frustrated, I looked at it closely and thought, I can do this. So I start undoing bolts and gee 4 just slid out. So I replaced the O-rings, 0.69$. Put it back together and no more problems.
I now just don't believe shops. I talked to a car mech friend of mine. He says, We often tell people it is impossible, then they will bring it in.
Well, fine I understand they need to make money. But if the waiting list is months long to get a bike in. Why? I am not going to wait months to ride. It doesn't seem like an honest way to deal with people.
:? :?

[Jeff Tate]

And that's only the tip of the iceberg. BEWARE!!

[DMPLATT]

I trust NO ONE.
My neighbor lady (divorced - 3kids) came to me with a Midas warranty. She said she had life time brake warranty, but they wanted like $450 to replace them???? I read the contract. It stated that the brake pads were a lifetime warranty, but you HAD to have Midas rebuild the wheel cylinders EVERY time. The brake pads only lasted about a year. I couldn't believe it.
SO, I replaced here front brakes with $18 lifetime Autozone pads. End of story.

No offense to any mechanics here, but I've never had any luck. I've had mechanics try to rip me all the time. Quit going to them. I learn as I go.

[Anonymous]

Quit going to them. I learn as I go.

Great advice. I have dealt with two shops in my life that I didn't feel like I was getting bent over when it was done. A few I have walked out of over stuff and the rest were in between. I know some honest mechanics, but there are enough of the sleazy ones that it is hard to know.

Get a manual, go slow and you will be fine. This is NOT rocket science, anyone who can read and follow directions can do almost every maintenance task and/or troubleshooting required to keep a bike on the road. It's FUN (for me anyways) and the feeling you get the first time you do a major repair or rebuild and your bikes runs again is fantastic.

Mark

[Sandy]

Had the local tire shop tell me to replace the CV joints on my work vehicle. Granted the car had 420,000 Kms on it. What I didn't tell him was that I replaced them 30,000 Kms ago. When I refused to have them changed he laid a guilt trip me and said he wouldn't even drive it in the condition they were in and that they could lock up and cause an accident. Guess I won't go back there.

[bwringer]

Did you just take the carbs off the bike, set the whole mess on a workbench, and then unbolt #4, etc.?

On most bikes, including my GS850, it would be impossible to remove one of the carbs without pulling the whole bank. You just can't access some of the mounting bolts.

But since it takes all of five minutes to remove the carbs, it's not a big deal. Once they're off the bike it would be no problem to remove one of the end carbs without disturbing the others.

Was the shop telling you they'd have to disassemble all the carbs, etc.? Or that they would refuse to do the work unless you let them do a complete rebuild?

In any case, I do agree that I've never seen more dishonest scum than in the mechanic biz, whether it's cars or bikes.

There's a guy I'm still looking for who took $500 of my money and vanished along with my original cylinder head a few years ago. He was supposed to press in new valve guides, but I suspect he cracked the head trying to pound them in with a hammer. He played me off for a few months, and then skipped town to try and beat drug charges.

That SOB cost me about a summer and a half of riding before I found another cylinder head.

Actually, I've seen more blatant lies from radio and TV people, but at least their BS isn't going to get anyone killed -- it just costs advertisers a ton of money.

[AOD]

most of the time if you call a shop on the phone, they're not going to tell you how to fix it...usually. they're going to say, bring it in, and we'll look at it.

it's common practice, because 9/10 times they can't diagnose things over the phone.

[fast eddie]

AOD;
I tend to agree with your last comment: no garage wants to be held liable for a guess they made over the phone, especially in a land as litigious as the USA (unfortunately, we're rapidly catching up here in Canadia).

I am in that situation right now; bike's been off the road for weeks now, while I try and locate the charging problem. Not too bad, considering I can drive my van to work in the interim, and the wife has her car for the kids; I'm not going to pay $70/hr for someone to do something I can figure out (eventually!). On the other hand, if it's your one and only car (or the only one that takes the child seats) then sometimes you're stuck going to the garage because you can't afford to take weeks to resolve it yourself (especially if you're a mechanical neophyte like me).

[TheNose]

Now that you know how easy it is to do, you won't hesitate the next time. I learned as I did my own mechanic work, and now I have the confidence to ride, knowing that if something goes wrong, I will most likely be able to diagnose and fix it so that I can get home. Plus when you fix it yourself, you don't have to be without it as long as if you had to take it to a shop.

Terry

[Jethro]

While we are on the subject:

I went to a local shop with my 93 VW Jetta because the e-brake was sticking. This has happened before, it's a stupid cable design- nothing to do with the calipers at all, just a corroded cable. The cable costs about $38 from the dealer, so I'd replace it every year myself. Well now I have a real job that I commute to, a house with a big lawn and a wife to deal with, so basically I don't wanna do this kind of work myself. Even though it is a 30 minute job, I take it to a local brake shop. They tell me I need to replace all the calipers (back and front- hey wait, didn't I just come in here about the e-brake which is only attached to the rear calipers?) and that it will be about $1200 for this job to make the e-brake work correctly. I tell them to forget it, I have been through this before, it's just the damn cable, but they insist I am wrong! So I came to pick it up and of course they have parked it with the e-brake set even though I have told them not to pull the e-brake handle cause it will stick! So now I have to drive for 18 miles with the e-brake engaged until I can get home and push the cable with a pair of pliers. In the end I bought a cable for the $38, replaced it myself and wasted an hour dealing with the idiots at the brake shop.

Everyone who drives a car should have to work on it themselves so the mechanics are forced to be more ethical.

[SqDancerLynn1]

I (my friend) has a Hyundai Elantra 140K I take care of the car here in Calif She lives in Texas. It Has been a very good car. I have been screwing with 6 different Air conditioning shops over the last 3-4 years It is very frustrating

[jeneralist]

I've seen plenty of bad mechanic stories here -- heck, I've got plenty of bad mechanic stories myself -- but I just have to say that they're not all scumsucking weasels.

I got stuck wihle I was on a long tour earlier this month. Now, you're never more vulnerable than when you're away from home. If someone wants to be unscrupulous, they can tell you anything -- because you don't have the resources or the knowledge to go many other places I needed a new clutch when I was about 400 miles from home. And there was only one place close enough for me to limp my bike to.

The guy fixed it, didn't fix anything that didn't need fixing, charged me a very reasonable price, and when a brief test-ride showed that one of the guys in the shop didn't put it back together exactly right, the owner of the shop stayed several hours past closing time to make it right.

When you find a good mechanic, hold onto him or her like treasure.

[KennyJ]

Not all mechanics and shops are bad. If you need to use one, check with the local BBB and ask around. Check with people/friends much like yourself to see who they would use. Secondly, shops change personel and practices over time. One here in Spokane I would refer to regularily in the past, now I wouldn't take a dead Chrysler there!!!!

My luck with bike shops is quite poor. Parts departments are fine, but the cost, time required to wait, and the flat rate for many repairs seems extensive. If it were a Ford dealership, they would fail miserably in the customer ratings. If you do find a good one, post it! Many of the mechanics are riders, so they can't all be bad.

As for brake shops like Mineke and Midas...well the previous stories all seem to hit it on the head!

Kenny

[Anonymous]

Well, I'm 1 mechanic that can proudly say I've never tried to rip anyone off. Then again some of these guys work flat rate as apposed to working hourly, so they need more work to make money seeing as they get paid according to what the job is.

[Anonymous]

"work on it yourself!!!!"

While we are on the subject:

I went to a local shop with my 93 VW Jetta because the e-brake was sticking. This has happened before, it's a stupid cable design- nothing to do with the calipers at all, just a corroded cable. The cable costs about $38 from the dealer, so I'd replace it every year myself. Well now I have a real job that I commute to, a house with a big lawn and a wife to deal with, so basically I don't wanna do this kind of work myself. Even though it is a 30 minute job, I take it to a local brake shop. They tell me I need to replace all the calipers (back and front- hey wait, didn't I just come in here about the e-brake which is only attached to the rear calipers?) and that it will be about $1200 for this job to make the e-brake work correctly. I tell them to forget it, I have been through this before, it's just the damn cable, but they insist I am wrong! So I came to pick it up and of course they have parked it with the e-brake set even though I have told them not to pull the e-brake handle cause it will stick! So now I have to drive for 18 miles with the e-brake engaged until I can get home and push the cable with a pair of pliers. In the end I bought a cable for the $38, replaced it myself and wasted an hour dealing with the idiots at the brake shop.

Everyone who drives a car should have to work on it themselves so the mechanics are forced to be more ethical.

SO.....You all wanna work on your own cars Huh????
Let me rattle off some devices & you tell me how they interact with each other, how they pertain to performance, drivability, economy & emissions

Throttle position sensor
Mass airflow sensor
Bank 1 upstream O2 sensor
Bank 1 downstream O2 sensor
Bank 2 upstream O2 sensor
Bank 2 downstream O2 sensor
Crank position sensor
Coolant temp sensor
Intake air sensor
EGR Valve
EGR Feedback Solenoid
PCV
Purge Control Solenoid
.........I'll stop here (Theres' more)
Todays modern cars are far too complex for most of you all, Ive been at this for twenty years now & I can barely keep up with it all.
Ive seen the results of customers trying to do this themselves & they usually mess it up royally & I have to decipher what their intentions were & backtrack to fix what was originally wrong.
Rick.......
Cam position sensor