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The part I'm waiting for so the dealer can lamely attempt to properly repair my 2018 Ram 2500 with 23k miles got delayed for another month. Again. Coming up on a year staring at a CEL. At least it's fully operable as far as I can tell. No outward signs but still, a year. Multiple attempts, the waiting.
 
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The part I'm waiting for so the dealer can lamely attempt to properly repair my 2018 Ram 2500 with 23k miles got delayed for another month. Again. Coming up on a year staring at a CEL. At least it's fully operable as far as I can tell. No outward signs but still, a year. Multiple attempts, the waiting.
My bro's van has been with the dealer for 1.5 of the last 2 years. He has literally (not figuratively) put 12k miles on a loaner.
 
Discussion starter · #9,766 ·
Yep. It's been a pain in the balls.

Is the entire car being rebuilt!? [emoji15]

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Nah.

The timing belt tensioner doo-hickey broke, which broke the timing belt, which in turn wreaked havoc with valves or some other engine parts.

The shop is a small mom-and-pop operation. Just two bays / lifts. Run by a husband (mechanic) and his wife (shop manager). They told us it would be an expensive repair, and it would take a few weeks...

So, a lot's happened since then. It's been a bit of a tragic comedy. I can't even be sure I remember all the events in the correct order, but here goes...

They said they'd give us a loaner car, one of the cars that they owned, an Infiniti G35 they bought from a customer who didn't think it was worth fixing. They just needed to get the title transferred, get it registered with the state, get it running again, and get it inspected. It was actually one of the cars we considered buying for my son, before we bought the one they're supposed to be fixing.

But then, they had some big marital spat, he moved out for a couple days, and she wasn't coming into the shop. So that slowed things down for about a week.

Then, his mom, who has Parkinsons, went into the hospital. It's a long story, but his brother was supposed to be taking care of the mom, but instead he just took all her money and left her alone to die, so that was a big problem that started eating up a lot of the mechanic's time for about a month.

She finally gets around to transferring the title and registering the Infiniti, and he can't get it running. It seems like the car sat so long that the battery drained so low that the computer died, and some major component (a chip?) needed to be replaced. They bought two chips, one after another, but neither worked, so the car still isn't running. This is the LOANER, not even my son's car.

Meanwhile, my son's car has just been sitting there. They finally got around to tearing into the engine to see what parts it needed, and ordered those parts, but it took forever to get them.

They've had the parts for 2-3 weeks. They keep saying they'll have the car fixed soon, but every week, it's something else slowing things down. One of their other customers has had a newer BMW 6 series in one of their bays for at least 3 weeks. They couldn't fix it, but he refuses to let them send it to the dealership.

Now they're saying they'll give us a different loaner car, which we should have by the end of the week. She's supposed to have the registration updated tomorrow, and swears the car is running, and doesn't need any work done on it.

I know what you're thinking - they're stringing us along. We should have the car towed somewhere else to be fixed.

The thing is, I know from my friend the service manager at a local dealership that it has been crazy-hard to get some factory parts lately. If we have the car towed somewhere else, we're back to square one. We're already four months into this. I just want the damned car fixed.

I had a line on another used car I wanted to buy, from another guy I know, but he decided to keep it.

It's been really frustrating. I waited until the last minute to have my car in for inspection, oil change and brake job, because, A) it's hard enough for us to just have 2 cars for 3 drivers in the house, and B) I wasn't convinced they could get it in and out in one day. But, they did, so we were only down to 1 car for 1 day, yesterday.

Ordinarily, I'd be more skeptical, and not nearly as trusting of what they've been telling us, but we've been taking our cars there for over a year. It's a husband and wife team with kids, nice people, not rich people, who live locally, Coptic Christians who fled persecution in the Middle East. The other guy I was going to buy the other car from has been taking his cars there for years. I don't think they're BS'ing me. This feels more like small-biz blues than anything else.

One of my other friends is a business consultant to auto repair shops. He once told me that the typical neighborhood 2-bay garage with a single owner-operator barely breaks even as a business. I totally see it now. If I'd taken the car to the local VW dealership, we'd have had it back months ago, maybe, but it probably would have cost us double whatever this couple is going to charge us.
 
In the defence of your mechanic, there are some crazy things rippling through the automotive supply chains right now. I was talking to one of our fleet mechanics last week and he shared the struggle that he is facing right now in acquiring some pretty simple parts. He told me that vented fuel caps for generic tractor trailer fuel tanks are on an EIGHT week back order for all of North America! That’s crazy!

I don’t know if VW’s engine is an interference or non interference type, but if it is an interference type and the timing belt snapped, there will be some absolutely insane wait times for some very integral parts. My condolences to Doctor Vail Junior.


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You fancy guys with your modern cars. The ‘94 4Runner gets a random CEL all the time. I just do what IT Managers do: I reboot it and the problem goes away!


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You fancy guys with your modern cars. The '94 4Runner gets a random CEL all the time. I just do what IT Managers do: I reboot it and the problem goes away!

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03 Suburban Z71 here, same deal. Oil pressure gage went crazy on a trip one day.

Pull over, check oil level, disconnect it, continue

It sacrifices some fuel mileage, but it is cheap to repair and maintain
 
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Discussion starter · #9,770 ·
You fancy guys with your modern cars. The '94 4Runner gets a random CEL all the time. I just do what IT Managers do: I reboot it and the problem goes away!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
True Story - went out for drinks with my best friend, Sean, the service manager at the local Chevy Dealership, on Friday. We were in his beat-up, old Chevy pickup, with 224k on the odometer.

CEL was on.

ME: "You know your check engine light is on?"

HIM: "It's always on."

ME: "You know...you got that big promotion recently. You're making good bread... You think about getting a new truck?"

HIM: "What?!?!? Why?!?!? There's nothing wrong with this one. My daughter would never forgive me. She loves this truck."

ME: "She'll get over it. You can afford to splurge a little."

HIM: "I think I've washed it like....five times in twelve years."

He told me he'd have fixed my son's car for me, had he known it would be in the shop four months. But how can I ask? He bought a classic GTO as a project car, to fix up with his son, who's had his license for a year. It's been sitting under a car cover the last 2 years.
 
Discussion starter · #9,771 ·
03 Suburban Z71 here, same deal. Oil pressure gage went crazy on a trip one day.

Pull over, check oil level, disconnect it, continue

It sacrifices some fuel mileage, but it is cheap to repair and maintain
On my way to the computer store today, I made the mistake of scrolling through all the available info on the digital display to see what kind of gas mileage I've been getting lately from my "efficient" turbo-charged four cylinder GTI.

17 mpg. On 93 octane.

I think I might drive too fast.
 
Discussion starter · #9,772 ·
The CEL on my old Passat came on like, five years ago, and never went off. I gave up asking the mechanic to reset it.

When we gave the car to my son, I pointed out that the light was always on, but told him if it started blinking, pull over, stop, and call me.
 
On my way to the computer store today, I made the mistake of scrolling through all the available info on the digital display to see what kind of gas mileage I've been getting lately from my "efficient" turbo-charged four cylinder GTI.

17 mpg. On 93 octane.

I think I might drive too fast.
Did not know that was possible.
 
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Discussion starter · #9,774 ·
Speaking of fancy parties with fancy people, this just popped up in my FB feed...

Clock Font Measuring instrument Parallel Tool
 
The CEL on my old Passat came on like, five years ago, and never went off. I gave up asking the mechanic to reset it.
 
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Discussion starter · #9,779 ·
Apparently NTH is the first brand to do a collab with Watch Gecko. Even I didn't know...

 
No worries, Peter.

Yes, they are priced the same, with the proviso that Watch Gecko's prices include the UK VAT, but also that they ship import taxes and duties paid to the USA, EU, Canada, and Australia.

I'm not 100% certain how that works out for you in Australia. My loose understanding is that you pay 5% import duty on the value of the goods being imported, plus 10% GST on the value of the goods, plus that 5% import duty, which I think would add up to 15.5%, total.

It that's all correct, then ordering from the UK only adds 4.5% to the price for you, I think.

We've assembled 25 pieces of each SKU for this release, so there are 25 pieces of the white, and 25 of the blue.
Thanks Doc. Our GST is around 15% on nearly all goods. It used to be anything bought internationally and shipped under $1000 was exempt. However after lobbying by some larger Oz retailers technically everything you buy and have shipped you pay the GST. Tough to enforce and sites like ebay etc now add that to the price even if not the Oz site. They just run off your ISP and shipping address. They then send the taxed amount to our government.

I've yet to pay GST on anything sent to me, which is one of the attractions of buying from the UK etc where I am VAT free because I'm not in the country.

That being said I know there are Oz members on here who have been stung by Oz customs on some purchases... it seems to be a bit of a lottery.

I shall await the final release buy watch gecko and see how my finances are faring. Thanks again Doc. [emoji106]

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