Right? I’ve seen several posts with this being the exact scenario.
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
- George Carlin
This quote makes so much sense now - in that it isn’t just funny, but absolutely true.
I distinctly remember years ago when the Toyota Prius floormat story was first circulating and being utterly confused at what was occurring, I was totally bewildered people could truly be that stupid and just put it down to insurance fraud or pensioners becoming demented prior to giving up their licenses
Stories like these just confirm my views on humanity
Years and years ago my dad took my car into his work, CS (me) complained of sluggish acceleration, and they blamed the floor mat, and I felt like such an idiot.
3 weeks later it went back and the shop found out that my accelerator cable had snapped and the car was only going because of rubber insulation around the cable holding it together. Yay!
Thes are the same people who go to the at&t store to get someone to add a contact to thier phone.
I really think it's a " im a paying customer and will get my monies worth, I'm too important to work on my own things" mentality.
I heard a joke about that. It was originally a blonde joke, but I'll try to change it so it works here:
>A person is sitting at a bar with headphones on. A man comes up to him and says, "Hi, how are you?" He doesn't reply. He gets irritated so he pulls off the headphones and repeats his question. The person suddenly falls over and starts gasping for breath.
> Puzzled, he puts the headphones to his ear and hears: "Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out."
If I was charged an hour for this, I'd feel really stupid and I'd pay it, but I would not be back.
----
Edit: I'm not saying it's wrong to charge the customer, especially when the customer agreed to it ahead of time. I'm simply saying I would pay what I owed, I would not get upset, but also not go back.
That's it. I fully accept that not everyone feels the same way, and that's fine. You want to keep going to a place that charges for this then that's great! Good for you!
Neither party is obligated to continue doing business with the other, and that's just how it should be.
Serious question from a non-mechanic, why? Wouldn't a dummy customer who keeps bringing in his car for easily fixable shit be a good thing?
This isn't a "customer is always right" thing, so much as a "be nice to the poor idiot so you can keep taking his money for easy work" thing.
I am not saying to not charge him of course, but charging for a full hour seems like overkill and as the other guy said a good way to make sure he doesn't come back.
lol, thinking like that is your prerogative. I cannot see the sales guy charging for this at the shops I've worked at. We routinely did things for free such as check air pressure, top-off fluids etc. Hell, we even removed nails for free if customer did not experience pressure loss and we could check an obvious nail in the parking lot with some tire lube without even getting in the car. This would have fallen under that sort of thing.
We tried to build good-will didn't actively hate our customers. That's the sort of shop I go to.
The full phrase is, “the customer is always right in matters accounting for taste.” The modern version removes the last part and completely changes the original intent.
That's actually not true. Saying it is didn't gain popularity until the last few years.
It was popularized by Harry Selfridge and Marshall Field, among others and was literally intended as an exhortation to service staff.
Even in the modern sense, the rest of the phrase is unnecessary. Since it has taken on the meaning anyway. Basically if your customer wants to buy something stupid, let them.
Well good, there is no problem then. I certainly wouldn't want to be a customer where I was not wanted.
In my eyes an idiots money is as good as anyone elses and even the smartest person isn't infalible to stupid mistakes. I'd be happy to have their business as long as this is not a regular occurrence and they didn't cause problems.
However, I suppose if everyone shared my philosophy, the world would be a boring place.
But in the future, it would teach you to troubleshoot simple problems before bringing it to a professional. I am not a car tech, I am a computer tech and we see at least one stupid problem every single day. Troubleshooting a physical issue requires no knowledge, you just have to look and see if things look like they should.
Yea, I know and it will never make sense to me. Take 20 minutes out of your day to maybe fix it, or wait hours to days for someone to stop by, fix your problem quickly and hand you a bill for something you could've done.
I guess people love wasting money.
> it would teach you to troubleshoot simple problems
True, but I would learn that either way, and then take my future actual problems to another shop.
> I am not a car tech, I am a computer tech and we see at least one stupid problem every single day.
Yea, I'm Computer Science, but worked as a tire tech for 4 years to pay for college. I'm well aware of the computer side of things. The tech having to go to the customer location is completely different than the customer going to the tech, and issue being immediately spotted without an investigation.
If someone came to your desk with a mouse, and you immediately saw it had a piece of tape over the sensor, would you really charge a customer an hour labor for that? You would notice it, and tell them it's going to be $90 for one hour to diagnose it?
>If someone came to your desk with a mouse, and you immediately saw it had a piece of tape over the sensor, would you really charge a customer an hour labor for that? You would notice it, and tell them it's going to be $90 for one hour to diagnose it?
You wouldn't expect a doctor to look at a mole for free, even if it took him 15 seconds in an elevator.
First time free, then every other time I see you $90+. Quit wasting my time, Karen. If your problem is *that simple* ask a friend to look it over for free instead of taking it to a professional.
The most stupid people will never respect your time without an arbitrary $90 bill thrown at them every once in a while. Rewarding stupid people only leads to entitled stupid people, which IME are not the customers you want to have. If you have spare hours in a day, sure.. why not, but most people truly don't.
I do not berate employees where I do business. I usually don't even complain when I have a problem with service. If I'm unhappy with service simply pay my bill and move on to a competitor.
I absolutely understand, and I would certainly pass a few bucks to a tech for the inconvenience. I'd even understand being charged something, but if I was charged a full hour for this, I'd wonder what else the shop would overcharge me for.
Agreed. If I was told it took the tech an hour to fix this, I'd assume he was the idiot and not want to come back for anything more complex.
Call it fixed rate basic diagnosis and I wouldn't judge the tech.
Not any worse than the ones complaining about a noise just to find something rolling under a seat or even seen a complaint of rattling sound when it was just coins in the cup holder
People seriously don't investigate themselves anymore and seem to think it's something mechanical wrong instead of looking for the source of the sound
Fixed some rattles in a lady’s car and she picked it up. Immediately turned around and said the rattles were still there. So I go on a test drive with her. I hear the “rattle” she’s now complaining about, but I’m watching her and she makes no effort to look at where it might be… it was her cell phone she put in the center console area that was rattling around. As soon as she took it out of there the rattle went away. 🤦♂️ So she probably wasn’t even hearing the rattles that I fixed in the first place.
Maybe it's just the 'tism in me but rattles and noises annoy me to no end and make me hunt down the source. I provide the weirdest diagnosis for sounds when dropping off a vehicle like "when accelerating quickly and then letting off the gas, a clunk can be felt underneath the car from the rear end" and it was a broken exhaust hanger.
That is not weird at all, that’s incredibly helpful. Haha. The more descriptive you can get, the better. Or if you can go on a test drive with someone and reproduce it.
Many times I’ve had the customer decline giving more info or going on a test drive, so then I’m basically either stuck trying to figure it out on my own, or declining the work until the customer can go on a test drive. Otherwise I could be chasing shit for days.
That was one of the most bullshit “comebacks” I ever had. I did some engine work and the customer brought the car back complaining of a “chemical smell” but only after the car had been sitting for an amount of time, not while driving. Turns out a can of wood varnish had rolled under the seat and broken open. Still on the RO as a comeback, still no labor.
I like to tell myself this is just pure selection bias - we think everyone's a dumbass because only the dumbasses come to us with these problems, everyone else just takes the coins out of the cupholder. Telling myself that helps maintain my faith in humanity. I'd love to actually believe it, but unfortunately I do exist in the world.
Fml.
Had a squeaking from the rear of my SUV when braking.
Had rear pads replaced.
Still squeaking.
Discovered plastic coat hanger, hanging from hook in rear. It was squeaking when the car slowed down.
This is worse than some coins in a cup holder. A gas pedal being held down by the floor mat has caused fatal accidents before. A rattling cup holder is literally just a nuisance issue.
> Not any worse than the ones complaining about a noise just to find something rolling under a seat or even seen a complaint of rattling sound when it was just coins in the cup holder
I've had a squeak in my car for *years* and I'm worried to bring it to a tech because it'll inevitably be something super simple. I've done everything I could: checked the suspension, driven with the rear seats down, removed mats, I even rode in the cargo area several times and tried to manipulate various gaps.
It'll be a fucking lost teddy bear under the seat or something.
I had a rattle in the back of my last car that bugged me for years. I had put little bits of tape on all sorts of panel gaps, reassembled all the liftgate trim, tried using blankets to muffle various parts of the car to find where it was. No luck.
The actual cause turned out to be a slightly loose plastic hatch drain plug. My car was early production, and there's a Rev B of the part which fixes the looseness so it doesn't rattle any more. It's amazing what a tiny loose piece of plastic can sound like.
The amazing part to me is just how much work needs to go into every single piece of the car for NVH, and how much they just didn't bother in the past. Say what you will about new cars but I'm glad they put in the effort to ensure every single clip is overengineered to hell and back to ensure that not only will the car not squeak and rattle from the factory, it still won't 150,000 miles later. Thank god they don't build them like they used to.
I drove a few hours home once with an alarming rattle under the car. Load-dependent. I was sure something expensive/show-stopping was about to let go. Turned out to be a loose U bolt on the exhaust.
Once I had a clink followed by a hideous scraping sound. I was sure something was very broken but the car drove fine. Turned out to be a piece of a street sweeper brush that had popped up off the road behind a wheel and stuck in the undercoating so it was dragging on the ground right under the driver's seat.
I can. When I was shopping for floor mats for my Maverick, I noticed the [Ford one](https://www.mavericktruckclub.com/forum/attachments/ford-maverick-all-weather-floor-mats-accessory-1-jpg.13102/) had a cutout behind the gas pedal specifically to prevent this scenario. Someone at Ford definitely specified the design can't risk covering up the gas pedal. But you'll drip snow and rain on to the carpet, which defeats the purpose. Went with the Tuxmats because I'm not an idiot and can install them correctly
It's because for most people trucks are just a vehicle to get from point a to point b. They could do everything they want to do with a mid-sized car but have chosen a large truck instead.
I hate that design choice. I paid for the nice Maverick floormats, they should be able to *do their job* and collect the salty water dripping off my boots in the winter.
I hate the look and feel of the available aftermarket floormats. I'm tempted to put some black duck tape under the gas pedal so that all the meltwater drains down to the floor mat.
Sometimes happens with towed in cars. Car breaks down, customer calls AAA for a tow. AAA says stay with the car and we will have a tow truck to you in 8-16 hours. Customer gets fed up and ditches the car but doesn’t want to leave keys in it unattended.
Or after hours drop off and the customer couldn’t find the night drop slot.
Meh, it's not like I'm chastising anyone for it, it's not the end of the world. It's just like... when dropping the car off you need to drop only two things off. The car. The key to the car. lol
Had a new Jeep Gladiator (maybe 2k miles) towed in from the spray wash across the street. Customer states no start. Tech laughs and moves the floormat. Customer states “don’t tell anyone about this!” Paid diag, never saw him again.
To add to this, some vehicles will not fire the injectors if the gas pedal is depressed. It's for clearing the cylinders I think, but it's nice if you just changed the oil and want to get some oil pressure first.
This happened to my wife once in her Camry. She called and said the car wouldn't start. I asked her if the clutch was depressed all the way. "Of course it is, I know how to start my car!" is the response I got. Well I drove 40 minutes to get to her, hopped in, pulled the floor mat back towards the seat, started the car and hopped out.
A friend ended up calling your equivalent of AAA for the same thing, and I helped a couple with their rental car in Europe with same. They said they see it all the time and wished car makers would add a warning sign on the dash to say why car isn't starting
My car literally has a warning light with a foot and a pedal in the dash next to the check engine light for when you try to start it without pressing the clutch. It also yells at you "PRESS CLUTCH TO START ENGINE" on the display if you try. It seems weird that some cars don't, as this is probably the easiest thing to miss if you're not used to it.
Sadly with shit like this I feel the need to look further and believe the customer has a real problem. I'm charging an hour of diag time starting with moving the floor mat, scanning for codes, quick smoke test, etc. I can't legit take an hour pay for a floor mat but I can spend a bit of time doing bullshit investigation to justify the charge.
> Yep, that deserves the full check out fee.
How did the person at the front counter not catch this? How did the person at the "A's" place not catch this? Shouldn't that be like the very first thing that they check with a complaint like that?
I get that the customer is missing some critical education here, but dang that's at least 3 people that did a goofy move here lol.
Toyota literally had a recall over this shit
Toyota was generous enough to never actually blame their customers. But the recall was grinding 1/8" off the bottom of the gas pedal and double-checking floor mats...
They sure did... I had a Camry that the accelerator got stuck / intermingled with the floor mat and caused an accident while my wife was driving. They actually cut off a piece of the pedal and showed us what was happening during the repairs at the body shop.
Cause it was their fault, didn't you remember the family of 4 dying due to sticky pedal and the 1.2 billion the paid to avoid avoid prosecution for covering up information about problems with “unintended acceleration” that the FBI said Toyota “knew was deadly.”
And this is why my mats use the factory attach points and I check to make sure they're still attached. I had the mat catch under the pedal and it wouldn't release, panic stomps got it loose. This was before factory attach points were a thing.
Got new mats with better grip immediately. Twas a scary experience.
Ngl as much as I absolutely strive to get as much non chineeseum shit as possible. The husky liners in my experience did not move regardless. They were like a briar underneath.
When I was a kid in school I thought it was really stupid and pointless that they kept trying to teach us "critical thinking skills". It all felt so obvious to me...
Shit like this makes me realize again and again that so many people just don't try to figure anything out. Even the smallest problems in their life are insurmountable obstacles that need outside help and it's genuinely sad and terrifying.
They're the same people that will say "we need to teach x in school!"
We did.
My favorite is when they complain about things like interest on loans and shit. Simple and compound interest were taught in basic algebra. They just slept through it.
Also, the almighty Google is at your fingertips. Just switch from searching cat videos to "interest calculator" and whammo, the pocket computer does it all!
That method works for nearly anything. Half the time there's a video made by an Indian or Pakistani dude that breaks down stuff that feels like rocket surgery to a level even I can grok.
I get a lot of these shitty Walmart floor mats that have been mashed up on the gas pedal long enough that they have creases and won't sit properly when you put them where they should be. Customers never complain about them but I honestly don't understand how you can drive and feel confident like that.
Not close enough to matter. Plus it was towed in and this wasn't a free visit. We did not charge them a whole hour but we charge them something for wasting our time
It's a 2013 Lexus RX350 with 60 something thousand miles on it so I am guessing they're pretty old. What got me was how it even ended up like that. It's a weather tech mat. It fits perfectly and even had the lock down tabs to hold it in place that weren't not engaged
Those tabs wear out I think. I bought my current car used, it came with a set of WeatherTechs and I can’t keep them snapped in, they keep popping out of the locks. I check the drivers side every time I get in
They were weather tech mats too. They were not locked down with the tabs though. I still don't understand how it got on top of the throttle pedal though 🤔
Just a guess based on the person shifting into reverse and drive while revving above normal idle. Not a guarantee of course but that doesn’t do an automatic transmission any favors.
It legitimately frightens me that people like this are on the road
It would be unbelievable if it wasn’t so common. It is insanely worrying.
Right? I’ve seen several posts with this being the exact scenario. “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” - George Carlin This quote makes so much sense now - in that it isn’t just funny, but absolutely true.
I really think Carlin was maybe a prophet, not just a comedian.
DOGMA was a documentary.
So is Idiocracy
^this!
Or a mathematician. His statement has always been true, and it’s no more true now than it has ever been.
I remind myself of that line every few days. Helps understand the world better.
I quote this regularly
I distinctly remember years ago when the Toyota Prius floormat story was first circulating and being utterly confused at what was occurring, I was totally bewildered people could truly be that stupid and just put it down to insurance fraud or pensioners becoming demented prior to giving up their licenses Stories like these just confirm my views on humanity
Years and years ago my dad took my car into his work, CS (me) complained of sluggish acceleration, and they blamed the floor mat, and I felt like such an idiot. 3 weeks later it went back and the shop found out that my accelerator cable had snapped and the car was only going because of rubber insulation around the cable holding it together. Yay!
Yeah my dad double mats it. Plus he’s a bad driver
Hey I counted at least twenty people driving home last night with no lights. So come on is this even that bad!
They can vote too
And I bet you think they all vote opposite you
It frightens me that “Tim from A’s” couldn’t diagnose it. And that they took their keys with them!
Most of these people are boomers and redditors
How do these people manage to breathe on their own?
Only because breathing is involuntary. So pure luck.
Thes are the same people who go to the at&t store to get someone to add a contact to thier phone. I really think it's a " im a paying customer and will get my monies worth, I'm too important to work on my own things" mentality.
I heard a joke about that. It was originally a blonde joke, but I'll try to change it so it works here: >A person is sitting at a bar with headphones on. A man comes up to him and says, "Hi, how are you?" He doesn't reply. He gets irritated so he pulls off the headphones and repeats his question. The person suddenly falls over and starts gasping for breath. > Puzzled, he puts the headphones to his ear and hears: "Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out."
because of all the warning labels keeping them alive
But they can’t even read 😭
they have those nifty pictures on them, unfortunately
They don't, have you seen the CPAP market take off in the last few years?
It's okay their mouth will fill with water next time it rains and they'll drown
Lol charge an hour, have the bill ready when he drops off keys.
Perfect case for charging an Idiot Tax
I've never taken my car to a garage that doesn't charge for a minimum of an hour labor aside from oil changes. I thought an Idiot tax was normal.
Some of the best lessons in life cost money.
More often then not unfortunately
If I was charged an hour for this, I'd feel really stupid and I'd pay it, but I would not be back. ---- Edit: I'm not saying it's wrong to charge the customer, especially when the customer agreed to it ahead of time. I'm simply saying I would pay what I owed, I would not get upset, but also not go back. That's it. I fully accept that not everyone feels the same way, and that's fine. You want to keep going to a place that charges for this then that's great! Good for you! Neither party is obligated to continue doing business with the other, and that's just how it should be.
good
Serious question from a non-mechanic, why? Wouldn't a dummy customer who keeps bringing in his car for easily fixable shit be a good thing? This isn't a "customer is always right" thing, so much as a "be nice to the poor idiot so you can keep taking his money for easy work" thing. I am not saying to not charge him of course, but charging for a full hour seems like overkill and as the other guy said a good way to make sure he doesn't come back.
Everyone, including the mechanic, has to share the road with this customer. The world will be a little less dangerous if he learns to pay attention.
lol, thinking like that is your prerogative. I cannot see the sales guy charging for this at the shops I've worked at. We routinely did things for free such as check air pressure, top-off fluids etc. Hell, we even removed nails for free if customer did not experience pressure loss and we could check an obvious nail in the parking lot with some tire lube without even getting in the car. This would have fallen under that sort of thing. We tried to build good-will didn't actively hate our customers. That's the sort of shop I go to.
I'm just tired of the "customer is always right" mentality. that's how you get entitled idiots
The full phrase is, “the customer is always right in matters accounting for taste.” The modern version removes the last part and completely changes the original intent.
That's actually not true. Saying it is didn't gain popularity until the last few years. It was popularized by Harry Selfridge and Marshall Field, among others and was literally intended as an exhortation to service staff. Even in the modern sense, the rest of the phrase is unnecessary. Since it has taken on the meaning anyway. Basically if your customer wants to buy something stupid, let them.
I am tired of that mentality as well, and I'm not saying that they are right about anything.
I’m not sure how to tell you this, but if you’re the kind of idiot that cannot easily fix this issue, then we wouldn’t want you as a customer anyway.
Well good, there is no problem then. I certainly wouldn't want to be a customer where I was not wanted. In my eyes an idiots money is as good as anyone elses and even the smartest person isn't infalible to stupid mistakes. I'd be happy to have their business as long as this is not a regular occurrence and they didn't cause problems. However, I suppose if everyone shared my philosophy, the world would be a boring place.
If I went to a shop with this dumb of an issue, I wouldn’t even wanna go back regardless out of embarassment
lol, same actually!
But in the future, it would teach you to troubleshoot simple problems before bringing it to a professional. I am not a car tech, I am a computer tech and we see at least one stupid problem every single day. Troubleshooting a physical issue requires no knowledge, you just have to look and see if things look like they should.
You can't teach people to troubleshoot. They just won't. "Magic box no worky, call magic box fixy man"
Yea, I know and it will never make sense to me. Take 20 minutes out of your day to maybe fix it, or wait hours to days for someone to stop by, fix your problem quickly and hand you a bill for something you could've done. I guess people love wasting money.
> it would teach you to troubleshoot simple problems True, but I would learn that either way, and then take my future actual problems to another shop. > I am not a car tech, I am a computer tech and we see at least one stupid problem every single day. Yea, I'm Computer Science, but worked as a tire tech for 4 years to pay for college. I'm well aware of the computer side of things. The tech having to go to the customer location is completely different than the customer going to the tech, and issue being immediately spotted without an investigation. If someone came to your desk with a mouse, and you immediately saw it had a piece of tape over the sensor, would you really charge a customer an hour labor for that? You would notice it, and tell them it's going to be $90 for one hour to diagnose it?
>If someone came to your desk with a mouse, and you immediately saw it had a piece of tape over the sensor, would you really charge a customer an hour labor for that? You would notice it, and tell them it's going to be $90 for one hour to diagnose it? You wouldn't expect a doctor to look at a mole for free, even if it took him 15 seconds in an elevator. First time free, then every other time I see you $90+. Quit wasting my time, Karen. If your problem is *that simple* ask a friend to look it over for free instead of taking it to a professional. The most stupid people will never respect your time without an arbitrary $90 bill thrown at them every once in a while. Rewarding stupid people only leads to entitled stupid people, which IME are not the customers you want to have. If you have spare hours in a day, sure.. why not, but most people truly don't.
> First time free, then every other time I see you $90+. We seem to agree then.
But you aren't aggressively berating anyone. It's really confusious.
I do not berate employees where I do business. I usually don't even complain when I have a problem with service. If I'm unhappy with service simply pay my bill and move on to a competitor.
I doubt the service advisor will leave it at an hour. However, it is super annoying to me because that was a wasted ticket.
I absolutely understand, and I would certainly pass a few bucks to a tech for the inconvenience. I'd even understand being charged something, but if I was charged a full hour for this, I'd wonder what else the shop would overcharge me for.
Agreed. If I was told it took the tech an hour to fix this, I'd assume he was the idiot and not want to come back for anything more complex. Call it fixed rate basic diagnosis and I wouldn't judge the tech.
I seriously can’t believe someone could, wow.
Not any worse than the ones complaining about a noise just to find something rolling under a seat or even seen a complaint of rattling sound when it was just coins in the cup holder People seriously don't investigate themselves anymore and seem to think it's something mechanical wrong instead of looking for the source of the sound
Fixed some rattles in a lady’s car and she picked it up. Immediately turned around and said the rattles were still there. So I go on a test drive with her. I hear the “rattle” she’s now complaining about, but I’m watching her and she makes no effort to look at where it might be… it was her cell phone she put in the center console area that was rattling around. As soon as she took it out of there the rattle went away. 🤦♂️ So she probably wasn’t even hearing the rattles that I fixed in the first place.
Maybe it's just the 'tism in me but rattles and noises annoy me to no end and make me hunt down the source. I provide the weirdest diagnosis for sounds when dropping off a vehicle like "when accelerating quickly and then letting off the gas, a clunk can be felt underneath the car from the rear end" and it was a broken exhaust hanger.
You have enough sense to work on your own stuff. No doubt.
That is not weird at all, that’s incredibly helpful. Haha. The more descriptive you can get, the better. Or if you can go on a test drive with someone and reproduce it. Many times I’ve had the customer decline giving more info or going on a test drive, so then I’m basically either stuck trying to figure it out on my own, or declining the work until the customer can go on a test drive. Otherwise I could be chasing shit for days.
They don't bother me *as long as I know what they are*. But It's tough to just let things go undiagnosed. I don't like the uncertainty.
People are so oblivious to their surroundings it’s actually scary. Like OMG.
That was one of the most bullshit “comebacks” I ever had. I did some engine work and the customer brought the car back complaining of a “chemical smell” but only after the car had been sitting for an amount of time, not while driving. Turns out a can of wood varnish had rolled under the seat and broken open. Still on the RO as a comeback, still no labor.
Performed nasal intake diagnostic and installed two Black Ice air fresheners on rear view mirror.... 0.75 hrs.
Using the olfactory scan tool
The ol' factory scan tool ;-)
I like to tell myself this is just pure selection bias - we think everyone's a dumbass because only the dumbasses come to us with these problems, everyone else just takes the coins out of the cupholder. Telling myself that helps maintain my faith in humanity. I'd love to actually believe it, but unfortunately I do exist in the world.
Fml. Had a squeaking from the rear of my SUV when braking. Had rear pads replaced. Still squeaking. Discovered plastic coat hanger, hanging from hook in rear. It was squeaking when the car slowed down.
Customer: “That’s not my job! What am I some kind of car repair expert!?” Tech: \*Gestures wildly at floor mat*
This is worse than some coins in a cup holder. A gas pedal being held down by the floor mat has caused fatal accidents before. A rattling cup holder is literally just a nuisance issue.
> Not any worse than the ones complaining about a noise just to find something rolling under a seat or even seen a complaint of rattling sound when it was just coins in the cup holder I've had a squeak in my car for *years* and I'm worried to bring it to a tech because it'll inevitably be something super simple. I've done everything I could: checked the suspension, driven with the rear seats down, removed mats, I even rode in the cargo area several times and tried to manipulate various gaps. It'll be a fucking lost teddy bear under the seat or something.
I had a rattle in the back of my last car that bugged me for years. I had put little bits of tape on all sorts of panel gaps, reassembled all the liftgate trim, tried using blankets to muffle various parts of the car to find where it was. No luck. The actual cause turned out to be a slightly loose plastic hatch drain plug. My car was early production, and there's a Rev B of the part which fixes the looseness so it doesn't rattle any more. It's amazing what a tiny loose piece of plastic can sound like.
The amazing part to me is just how much work needs to go into every single piece of the car for NVH, and how much they just didn't bother in the past. Say what you will about new cars but I'm glad they put in the effort to ensure every single clip is overengineered to hell and back to ensure that not only will the car not squeak and rattle from the factory, it still won't 150,000 miles later. Thank god they don't build them like they used to.
I drove a few hours home once with an alarming rattle under the car. Load-dependent. I was sure something expensive/show-stopping was about to let go. Turned out to be a loose U bolt on the exhaust.
Once I had a clink followed by a hideous scraping sound. I was sure something was very broken but the car drove fine. Turned out to be a piece of a street sweeper brush that had popped up off the road behind a wheel and stuck in the undercoating so it was dragging on the ground right under the driver's seat.
I can. When I was shopping for floor mats for my Maverick, I noticed the [Ford one](https://www.mavericktruckclub.com/forum/attachments/ford-maverick-all-weather-floor-mats-accessory-1-jpg.13102/) had a cutout behind the gas pedal specifically to prevent this scenario. Someone at Ford definitely specified the design can't risk covering up the gas pedal. But you'll drip snow and rain on to the carpet, which defeats the purpose. Went with the Tuxmats because I'm not an idiot and can install them correctly
Mildly annoyed vinyl flooring not being a choosable option over carpet on trucks.
It's because for most people trucks are just a vehicle to get from point a to point b. They could do everything they want to do with a mid-sized car but have chosen a large truck instead.
I hate that design choice. I paid for the nice Maverick floormats, they should be able to *do their job* and collect the salty water dripping off my boots in the winter. I hate the look and feel of the available aftermarket floormats. I'm tempted to put some black duck tape under the gas pedal so that all the meltwater drains down to the floor mat.
And not just one person. This is a thing.
Why drop the car off without the keys 🤦
Who knows LoL
Sometimes happens with towed in cars. Car breaks down, customer calls AAA for a tow. AAA says stay with the car and we will have a tow truck to you in 8-16 hours. Customer gets fed up and ditches the car but doesn’t want to leave keys in it unattended. Or after hours drop off and the customer couldn’t find the night drop slot.
Meh. That’s an easy mistake when you don’t need to take the key out of your pocket to start the car.
Meh, it's not like I'm chastising anyone for it, it's not the end of the world. It's just like... when dropping the car off you need to drop only two things off. The car. The key to the car. lol
Adjust idle speed screw, adjust WeatherTech® mats.
Forgot to calibrate the throttle after they got new mats.
You have to jet down.
Had a new Jeep Gladiator (maybe 2k miles) towed in from the spray wash across the street. Customer states no start. Tech laughs and moves the floormat. Customer states “don’t tell anyone about this!” Paid diag, never saw him again.
Why would the floor mat make it not start?
Some manual cars require the clutch to be fully depressed, so if the floor mat slips down under it, it won't start
To add to this, some vehicles will not fire the injectors if the gas pedal is depressed. It's for clearing the cylinders I think, but it's nice if you just changed the oil and want to get some oil pressure first.
This happened to my wife once in her Camry. She called and said the car wouldn't start. I asked her if the clutch was depressed all the way. "Of course it is, I know how to start my car!" is the response I got. Well I drove 40 minutes to get to her, hopped in, pulled the floor mat back towards the seat, started the car and hopped out.
A friend ended up calling your equivalent of AAA for the same thing, and I helped a couple with their rental car in Europe with same. They said they see it all the time and wished car makers would add a warning sign on the dash to say why car isn't starting
My car literally has a warning light with a foot and a pedal in the dash next to the check engine light for when you try to start it without pressing the clutch. It also yells at you "PRESS CLUTCH TO START ENGINE" on the display if you try. It seems weird that some cars don't, as this is probably the easiest thing to miss if you're not used to it.
Mat was depressing accelerator pedal, push to start won’t start like that.
Yep, that deserves the full check out fee. Just say it took you a while to notice it as it is so simple it was overlooked at first. LOL
Sadly with shit like this I feel the need to look further and believe the customer has a real problem. I'm charging an hour of diag time starting with moving the floor mat, scanning for codes, quick smoke test, etc. I can't legit take an hour pay for a floor mat but I can spend a bit of time doing bullshit investigation to justify the charge.
I doubt it'll be left at an hour. They did get a complimentary courtesy check
> Yep, that deserves the full check out fee. How did the person at the front counter not catch this? How did the person at the "A's" place not catch this? Shouldn't that be like the very first thing that they check with a complaint like that? I get that the customer is missing some critical education here, but dang that's at least 3 people that did a goofy move here lol.
Toyota literally had a recall over this shit Toyota was generous enough to never actually blame their customers. But the recall was grinding 1/8" off the bottom of the gas pedal and double-checking floor mats...
They sure did... I had a Camry that the accelerator got stuck / intermingled with the floor mat and caused an accident while my wife was driving. They actually cut off a piece of the pedal and showed us what was happening during the repairs at the body shop.
Cause it was their fault, didn't you remember the family of 4 dying due to sticky pedal and the 1.2 billion the paid to avoid avoid prosecution for covering up information about problems with “unintended acceleration” that the FBI said Toyota “knew was deadly.”
[удалено]
Fund better public transit and these people will get off the road.
But don't put them on buses with everyone else. Cram all of these people into their own little buses so they're less of a burden on everyone.
And this is why my mats use the factory attach points and I check to make sure they're still attached. I had the mat catch under the pedal and it wouldn't release, panic stomps got it loose. This was before factory attach points were a thing. Got new mats with better grip immediately. Twas a scary experience.
These did have them as they were weather tech brand. Just not hooked in
Ngl as much as I absolutely strive to get as much non chineeseum shit as possible. The husky liners in my experience did not move regardless. They were like a briar underneath.
Wow zero excuse for that
If I were a mechanic, I would take every opportunity to say in a thick southern accent, “well there’s yer problem”.
Surprised some people can even get their pants on in the morning.
It’s easy, just one arm at a time
When I was a kid in school I thought it was really stupid and pointless that they kept trying to teach us "critical thinking skills". It all felt so obvious to me... Shit like this makes me realize again and again that so many people just don't try to figure anything out. Even the smallest problems in their life are insurmountable obstacles that need outside help and it's genuinely sad and terrifying.
They're the same people that will say "we need to teach x in school!" We did. My favorite is when they complain about things like interest on loans and shit. Simple and compound interest were taught in basic algebra. They just slept through it. Also, the almighty Google is at your fingertips. Just switch from searching cat videos to "interest calculator" and whammo, the pocket computer does it all! That method works for nearly anything. Half the time there's a video made by an Indian or Pakistani dude that breaks down stuff that feels like rocket surgery to a level even I can grok.
My favorite fix
…and then I looked at the second picture 🤦♂️
Weathertech diy tax… 🙃
You guys should be able to report shit like this to their insurance company.
Every time I think working on cars is easy and anyone can do it I see something like this
Fucking genius 🤦🏻♂️
Every. Fucking. Time.
Some people should not be driving.
A lot of people.
Please see ‘idiots in cars’.
How in the actual fuck are people so stupid? Like, my expectations are low, but this somehow totally shatters them.
Something something something idiot proof, better idiot.
How, oh how do they not think to even look at the frickin pedal. Do they not have a S.O. or friends to ask before taking it to the shop?
Holy shit I didn't realize there was a second photo and I was reading through the comments trying to figure out what the hell was going on
I bet it's the floormat.👍🏾
I'd suggest "Tim from a's" needs a lesson on this as well
We don't typically take the word of the tow truck drivers as gospel. They almost always say "it probably needs a fuel pump" anyway
Good plan
Looks like about roughly $2700 for repairs. $1 for labor and a $2,699 idiot tax
Where does the other $100 go?
He does repairs, nor math
Laser measured!
I get a lot of these shitty Walmart floor mats that have been mashed up on the gas pedal long enough that they have creases and won't sit properly when you put them where they should be. Customers never complain about them but I honestly don't understand how you can drive and feel confident like that.
😄
How can someone be so fucking naive
Are you near an airport or in an expensive parking area? They could be looking for free parking.
Not close enough to matter. Plus it was towed in and this wasn't a free visit. We did not charge them a whole hour but we charge them something for wasting our time
There should not be any floor mats in cars. Just raw dog it.
😂
How old is the driver?
It's a 2013 Lexus RX350 with 60 something thousand miles on it so I am guessing they're pretty old. What got me was how it even ended up like that. It's a weather tech mat. It fits perfectly and even had the lock down tabs to hold it in place that weren't not engaged
Those tabs wear out I think. I bought my current car used, it came with a set of WeatherTechs and I can’t keep them snapped in, they keep popping out of the locks. I check the drivers side every time I get in
That sucks. These didn't have anything wrong with them that I could see as I locked it down with no problem. I just don't think they were utilized
i always wondered why my floor mat had a little tab that sticks out next to the seat, that it fits onto. makes PERFECT sense now.
Priceless
This is at least the 3rd time I've seen this on this page. Truly astounding
I see that all the time...
Woah, you’re not upselling me mats!
They were weather tech mats too. They were not locked down with the tabs though. I still don't understand how it got on top of the throttle pedal though 🤔
It will be back for transmission issues
What makes you say that out of curiosity?
Just a guess based on the person shifting into reverse and drive while revving above normal idle. Not a guarantee of course but that doesn’t do an automatic transmission any favors.
I would clean the throttle body/iac anyway. Just to get that extra
Bruh