Red Ring Tupperware Party, Autumnal Equinoctal Edition (24)

Jill-of-all-Trades wrote in post #17440806
I think I know that guy! Same person who's about 4 foot nothing and freaks out if the 6'5" tech moves the seat.

Yep! Sounds like the same person.

Jill-of-all-Trades wrote in post #17440782
I've had some customers that were pretty shocked to realize that their vehicle "learns" their driving habits

What?

Is this a feature of new vehicles that are more computer than car? If the old car I halfway-learned to drive in had been willing to cooperate with me, I might not have given up trying.

How do these miracle cars do when more than one person habitually drives them and the drivers have different styles?

The best upset customer I had was a surprising one. Guy in his 50's brought in his Mustang for an alignment. He always put it up on jack stands for winter storage, and when he drove it for the first time in the spring it pulled really bad. I test drove it, aligned it (major change), and test drove it again. He was waiting when I got back. He asked me if I had "seen what it could do". I said no, that I just drove it normally. (I'm used to getting grilled about how I treated a person's "baby") I was not expecting him to get upset that I had driven his car normally. His response was "I've put a lot of time and money into upgrading that car, I wanted you to have fun with it!" Wish he had told me that to begin with, I would have tried it out.

Jill-of-all-Trades wrote in post #17440868
The best upset customer I had was a surprising one. Guy in his 50's brought in his Mustang for an alignment. He always put it up on jack stands for winter storage, and when he drove it for the first time in the spring it pulled really bad. I test drove it, aligned it (major change), and test drove it again. He was waiting when I got back. He asked me if I had "seen what it could do". I said no, that I just drove it normally. (I'm used to getting grilled about how I treated a person's "baby") I was not expecting him to get upset that I had driven his car normally. His response was "I've put a lot of time and money into upgrading that car, I wanted you to have fun with it!" Wish he had told me that to begin with, I would have tried it out.

That's awesome. The closest I've had was a regular customer bough a 'new' 458 and wanted to show me how much faster it was than his 15 year old Corvette, umm.. yea Duh? He was a bit annoyed that I wouldn't push is real hard, as if 110 in a 65mph zone wasn't bad enough. lol

OhLook wrote in post #17440867
What?

Is this a feature of new vehicles that are more computer than car? If the old car I halfway-learned to drive in had been willing to cooperate with me, I might not have given up trying.

How do these miracle cars do when more than one person habitually drives them and the drivers have different styles?

Yup, it's true, cars learn your driving habits and customize themselves to react the way you want.

Anything that has computer controlled components, so it goes back 20+ years.

If you are the type of driver that wants to launch off the line from a red light, the computer knows. It sees the vehicle sitting in gear, brakes applied, at an idle. Then, all of a sudden the brakes are off and the throttle is opened quickly. The computer learns that this is the way you drive, so it gives the engine the fuel it needs to take off quickly, and changes the transmission's shift points to match.

If Granny has an identical car, but is in no hurry to go anywhere, the computer knows that too. The time from releasing the brakes to applying the throttle is longer, and the throttle opens slower. The computer recognizes this and gives Granny a softer response.

If there is more than one driver, it learns the average.

When you work on/drive vehicles all day, every day, you get to know how vehicles feel. If I test drive a Ford Focus that the first type of driver owns, I can feel that it takes off and the first touch of the throttle. If I drive Granny's Ford Focus, I can feel that it has a much softer response.

Disconnecting the battery for a long enough time will erase these adaptive learning strategies and everything will go back to the factory settings. Everything will have to be relearned, so the car will "feel different" because it is actually reacting differently.

Traci_Ann wrote in post #17440891
That's awesome. The closest I've had was a regular customer bough a 'new' 458 and wanted to show me how much faster it was than his 15 year old Corvette, umm.. yea Duh? He was a bit annoyed that I wouldn't push is real hard, as if 110 in a 65mph zone wasn't bad enough. lol

Ask him if he'll pay all the tickets and fines and increased insurance!

Same as when a customer complains about something that only occurs at high speed, which just happens to be much higher than the speed limit.

I'd be a much happier mechanic if I didn't have to deal with the customers. Lots of them are absolutely wonderful, but lots of them are really to nail you to the wall for anything that they don't like. Customers with sports cars are often the most difficult. The GM dealer I worked at was also a Cadillac and Corvette dealer. I was there long enough that most of the Corvette owners got to know and trust me with their cars. The Cadillac owners were rather difficult though, same with Mustang owners.

The Corvettes and higher end Mustangs are typically owned by people who actually want a sports car for what it is. But the lower priced cars are often owned by people who are usually more timid with them, and don't drive them like they were designed to be driven. And they don't understand the car.

Try selling an old lady new tires on her Cadillac CTS-V. She wants cheap tires, the car requires speed rated tires. She argues that she never drives it on the highway. I argue that that doesn't matter, the law is the law. She threatens to report you to management. I say go ahead, I will not be the one that's held responsible when your teenage grandson borrows your car for the weekend, drives it like it's a sports car, the tire blows up, and he's killed along with the everyone in the minivan he hits head-on.

A Mustang problem that I ran into often was the rear brakes would get rusty, and noisy. Car would sit in the garage all winter and in the spring the customer would freak out about the horrendous noise coming from the brakes. I'd look at it and take it out for a drive. One nearby road was a convenient place for hard braking. Get the car up to about 80 km/hr and jump on the brakes, back up to speed, on the brakes. Rinse and repeat till the noise was gone. The Mustangs use the front brakes so much that the rears would only be lightly applied under normal driving conditions. Under hard braking they would actually get used and the rust would get polished off. I did this one day, not thinking anything of it, and the lady showed up in a huff. Turns out her workplace was on the road I used and her office faces the road. A bright blue Mustang is easy to spot. She did calm down once I explained to her what I was doing and that it was far cheaper than replacing the rather new brakes.

After many years I have noticed a lot of similar patterns with European car owners.

European vehicles just add to the drama.

I know so many girls that just go gaga over Volkswagons. "My V-dub is soooo cute! It's a diesel and it gets the best fuel economy! The rims are just awesome!" Until the harsh reality of owning a diesel comes and smacks them in the face. All that cuteness turns into whining that their car won't start in the cold, but they can't afford to replace the glow plugs. Or they need new tires but can't figure out why the tires for this car cost so much when they put "really good" tires on their old car for $400.

Then there's the synthetic oil changes with the oil filter that can only be bought from one place in the city and it costs $42.

And the price of parts. One guy simply could not understand that shipping parts from Germany takes a few days.

VW have been my favorite since I was very young, I've owned 60+ air cooled VWs. But over the years of working on them I've come to hate VW. I see the same problems and failures on their cars for 20+ years now and they don't care because it always happens just outside of warranty. Great for business, horrible for longevity.

Yup, I always cringe when I see someone buying an older one with high miles. Sure, the car will only cost you $3000 to buy, but then you have to safety it and keep it on the road. Good luck with that while you're in college and working part time at a coffee shop.

I like trucks, but not all trucks. I will not buy something that I am not familiar with. My current truck, a 2002 GMC 1500, has had the typical problems that those trucks are known for. The paint peels, the intake manifold gaskets leak, and the ABS suffers from low speed activation. I don't care about the paint as I'm not keeping the truck forever, I replaced the manifold gaskets, and I pulled the fuse for the ABS. In the spring I'll have to fix the coolant leak, which is most likely the pump gaskets. I don't complain about the fuel economy as I knew that buying a truck would cost more to fuel than a car would.

People should research a vehicle before they buy it.

Jill-of-all-Trades wrote in post #17441027
People should research a vehicle before they buy it.

This!

These are for you poor people back east. Springs coming

Took these about an hour ago.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/qkp3​B5

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/qkp3​CN

Jill-of-all-Trades wrote in post #17441027
People should research a vehicle before they buy it.

I'm learning of the pitfalls of buying high-mileage older vehicles. My 1998 Dodge Dakota needs a complete front end rebuild and my wife's 2004 Suzuki (never gonna buy one of these again) XL-7 is currently in the shop getting the rear axle seals replaced (for the second time) and the rear brakes completely redone because of the oil leakage.

Nothing but new cars for us. I don't feel like dealing with previous owners' leftover problems. And I like that new car smell. Hondas and Toyotas only.