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My hope in starting this thread is that it’s a long lived thread where we can tell seemingly tall tales about strange customer interactions. The stories you’d never believe until you’re reminded of that wierd customer complaint you had yourself. The ones where the car comes back after fixing the first complaint with an inexplicable new complaint that your customer swears has to be your fault. What’s your story? Maybe your changed a wiper blade and their exhaust fell off. Maybe you didn’t even work on the car, but then it was your fault anyway. Any story with the context of absurdity as the fallout for what should have been a job well done will do.
For me personally; I remember changing out a multifunction switch on an Impala once. The customer requested a salvage yard part be installed and I knew that switch was about to fail in the same way as the original. The customer acknowleged my concern and I had to install the used switch anyway. He came back a week or two later to have a new switch installed and asked that I not leave my laundry in his car this time. He left “my laundry” in the front floor board to grab before we gave him his car back. Sure enough, there was a single tube sock and a large jug of laundry detergent in the car. I still have no idea who’s sock that was.
A coworker installed a starter into an Escort last year and the little old lady that owned the car came in screaming at us because the dash board was hot and the vents were blowing hot air. She screamed it was burning up inside the car….after it spent most of the afternoon outside in the hot sun. She said we did something wrong. We think it had to be black magic.
Another coworker was accused of stealing some GPS equipment out of a customer’s car. Ben is a 6’3″ white man who, by the customer’s description, was indeed named Ben. But, Ben became a 6′ tall black man by the end of the dialogue. Ben didn’t even have a tan to show for.
The perils of under hood courtesy checks: My friend Tony had a customer come out to the shop and yell at him for contaminating the car’s air system. Tony had opened up the air box to check the air filter. One day, I was doing the under hood checks on an Equinox before lifting the car to fix a flat. The customer came out and tells me I wouldn’t find the tire under the hood. She was right!
So that’s just a little to get the ball rolling. So…what’s your story?
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Just last week, the guy next to me (who is exceptionally good and rarely makes mistakes) had a “comeback”. It started with a couple of us out in the service office eavesdropping on this really whiny, snivelly, asshole guy at the counter who sounded like one of Louis CK’s impressions of an asshole. I didn’t really pay attention to what he was saying but I remember thinking “If there’s ever a car I feel like vandalizing…”
So it turns out it’s the Outlander I just saw get towed in a few minutes before with a front wheel falling off. 3 lugs and studs were missing, and the other 2 lugs and studs were loose flopping around so you couldn’t even push it. The guy next to me had it apart 5000 miles ago and the customer says it’s our fault the wheel came loose. 5000 miles and then it comes loose? Not likely. Plus, the guy next to me never has that kind of thing happen and I’d be surprised if it ever does.
So the punchline is that after going back and forth forever, the customer finally says he’s been having some kind of feud with a neighbor of his. It couldn’t be more obvious at this point what happened. We all agreed that this guy could easily push somebody to do something like that to him.
I am a big rig mechanic. I had a guy come in and tell me his hvac isnt working just add more refrigerant. Well after replacing his compressor (bad clutch), high pressure switch, 1 high pressure line, an accumulator dryer, 1 hvac door actuator, the blower motor, Linear Power Module (LPM) for the hvac blower, both air filters, cleaning the permanent air filters, and resealing the leak that caused the blower and LPM to be rusted. He came back and told me I made his hvac too cold and he can’t go down the road with it on low as it freezes him out and I must fix it.
Had a guy come in with a very clean truck. I started working on it and I am like I am going to have to thank this guy and make sure I keep it clean. I always love to appease these guys as it is a rarity to have an immaculate truck and it makes my life soo much easier. Had to pull up the floor and fix an exhaust pipe leak on the back of the engine. After replacing the bad pipe and installing new gaskets we have to run a regen and burn out all the soot and check for exhaust leaks. He comes back while the truck is running a 2k rpms tries to get in it and leave. Then starts flipping out about his fuel mileage, how I got his truck dirty, etc. I am said “Dude, I am not even done working on it.” I clean out his truck as planned but, he gets a free refuel after we fix the truck so his fuel mileage is unaffected.
Today’s winner came in mad claiming that his alignment wasn’t done right. Ben, who is still not black, had to talk to the customer and the guy showed him the alignment couldn’t be right because the front wheels were not sitting straight up and down. The customer proved it with a small carpenter’s level. It was a Honda of some sort that had a negative camber spec and it wasn’t even adjustable anyway. What’s worse is that the actual camber was well in spec on both sides.
A carpenter’s level. I knew I was doing something wrong the whole time.
I am a Locksmith. One day I got a call from a lady that had locked her keys in her car. Normal call for a Locksmith right?
Well I pulled up to the car and the lady said my keys are in the ignition and I am locked out. I looked at the car and I could not believe what I was seeing! Her keys were in the ignition but the part I could not believe was her car was
a convertible and the top was down! I reached over the window and opened the car. The woman looked at me and said
“I could have done that.” I responded by saying, “but you paid me to show you how.”I have a comeback due here within the hour that is the son of one of my business partners, his complaint is that after I installed a new tank to injection rail fuel line a year ago his truck is leaking fuel. At the time I put it on the lift it had been botched together with rubber hose and regular fuel clamps, I redid the whole line in metal and a new OEM fuel rail fitting and let him know the return line was due as well, he declined to pay for the return line and the truck was parked due to him getting a “DWI” and it has sat in a field for at least six months. Now in most cases I would not be so nice but his dad is a great guy and just because his kid does not get it I will run a new return line and charge him the “Sunday” rate and try to explain what happened as best I can while resisting the urge to plant a size 12 in his rear end.
Someone came in for just a routine oil change, no big deal obviously. Keep in mind this is a routine customer. He bought the cheapest oil for his 2007 Nissan Altima. A day later he calls and says that his engine blew up on the side of the highway. He gets it towed to a nearby garage. He says that they took a look at it and said that the engine was blown. I go up there personally and low and behold, the car is still sitting in the parking lot untouched by anyone there. I check the oil and everything myself and everything is perfectly fine as far as things we did at our shop. I told him that it was nothing that we did. He then said we put “bad” oil in his car. Obviously that’s impossible and he knew that. He then called a week later and said that he was suing us for ruining his engine.
I’ve also had a person call and demand that someone comes out to the side of the highway to fix their tire. They thought that us putting the tire at manufacturer’s recommendation caused the tire to blow.
People are always so quick to blame the last person that worked on their car.Someone came to my shop about a week ago saying that their brakes were messed up. We did their brakes back in the beginning of the year; new rotors, pads, the whole nine yards pretty much. He took it to another shop (one I know will do anything to make you spend more money) and they told him that he needed to replace both front brake assemblies, when in reality, it was just a bad caliper and pad on his driver side, so he spent a good $800 for a repair that we could have done for a whole lot cheaper.
Slightly off topic, but frosts my balls even worse. Working at a small shop in a gas station. Guy comes in early in the morning. Wants someone to look at his car and tell him whats wrong with it while he stands over you watching every move like a hawk. Annoying but not the worse I have been treated by a customer. Tell him the problem and he says he will return it for repair “when he gets paid”. Forget it till he shows up with a different vehicle wanting it diagnosed for free also. Other tech gets the same song and dance. It happens three times in the next two weeks. Always different vehicles. And I can tell you this guy does not own all of them. We tell the owner about it. He makes sure he is the first to talk to the guy the next time he shows up. Starts to write up a work order and the guy freaks. Says he doesn’t want to pay for anything just wants to know what to do to fix it!
The two worst and funniest I can think of are:
1) We had done a brake job on a ladies vehicle. Put it out in the parking lot for her to get later and when she did she started to pull off. Rear tires squalling and smoking the whole way out. She proceeds to slam the door, storm into the customer waiting area and give the sale guy a good reaming about it wasn’t like that when she brought it. He walks the customer to the tech and asks what the problem is. Giving the tech all the credit in the world, without laughing he looked the lady square in the eye and told her she didn’t dis-engage the parking brake. Mid stride of another “it wasn’t like that..” she caught herself short, apologized and asked if we could show her where the release was.
2) The other was a customer came in for a basic oil change, nothing special. She drove off and came back 10 minutes later upset that she now hears a whistling sound that wasn’t there before we did the oil change. I was asked to ride with her after collectively not imagining what an oil change can do to make it whistle. During the drive sure enough I start hearing the whistle and promptly asked the young lady to roll her window ALL THE WAY UP. As you can imagine she got really red faced, apologized profusely and told me that’s why she lets her dad take care of things because she didn’t know about “car stuff”Did an inspection on a guys car. his front pads were a 7, rears were probably a 5. The car was fine. A brake flush was suggested along with some other maintenance. He declined and brought the car elsewhere for a second opinion.
Forward a few days…
Boss pulls us together to ream us out. Apparently we had let a customer pass inspection. Then when he brought it to the next shop they told him he needed a bunch of work. They put some brake fluid on the caliper and convinced him he needed both front calipers pads and rotors. The customer had called to complain to my boss that we had passed his inspection even though his car was “dangerous” to drive and he would only be going to this new shop from now on.
I couldn’t even handle it. The three techs in the shop all figured it out. Our boss didn’t care, he figured we fucked up.
[quote=”higgimonster” post=118038]Did an inspection on a guys car. his front pads were a 7, rears were probably a 5. The car was fine. A brake flush was suggested along with some other maintenance. He declined and brought the car elsewhere for a second opinion.
Forward a few days…
Boss pulls us together to ream us out. Apparently we had let a customer pass inspection. Then when he brought it to the next shop they told him he needed a bunch of work. They put some brake fluid on the caliper and convinced him he needed both front calipers pads and rotors. The customer had called to complain to my boss that we had passed his inspection even though his car was “dangerous” to drive and he would only be going to this new shop from now on.
I couldn’t even handle it. The three techs in the shop all figured it out. Our boss didn’t care, he figured we fucked up.[/quote]
This one is especially sad… that anybody would flat out lie to a customer about bad caliper…
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One time customer told advisor after I worked on his car his floor mats were missing, advisor asked me if I took the customers floor mats out,,im like wtf, I would not take anything from a customers car..found out customer had a medical condition but got floor mats for free after he brought it up to service managers attention..
I forgot about this one. I did a blower motor on a Honda Pilot last summer and the guy came back claiming I broke his glove box. I was in a tight space both in and around the vehicle so I wasn’t sure if I actually needed to remove the glove box. I did remove it to gain some perspective on the repair. It turned out I didn’t need to remove it so, of course, I put it back in totally unscathed.
So the customer comes in and complains that it’s gapped wrong on the far right side. According to him, it’s hanging out way to far. He also tells me that because of this, he’d never be able to resell the vehicle and that his feelings were hurt. I made him watch me take pictures of the glove box and then successfully open and close the glove box repeatedly with no real effort or struggle. I told him that the box was fine, the gap he was so upset about is something you have to go out of your way to notice and was probably like that already, it’s just the first time he’d actually noticed.
I would have liked to hurt his feelings with a sledge hammer.
I had a lady bring in a 2014 Honda Cr-V with 15 miles on it. She said the wipers made a wierd noise. We went out to her vehicle so she could show me. The made a screech noise when she hit the switch, so I put some water on her dry windshield they where silent. She apologized for taking up my time and left.
I love ever since stuff. My most recent one was on a Chevy Colorado. I did the t Stat and housing. After my final test drive I parked it. A few hours go by, customer shows up, pays and then as she is trying to leave she stops and goes back inside. The driver master window and door lock switch is now inop. This was at 6 pm closing time. I pull the door panel, do some testing around and boom. Master switch is now bad. I didn’t exactly get accused of it being my fault but customer did mention that it was working all day until now. Bad luck of the draw I guess.
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