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Comments
What is 504? That's a strange code.
It's monitored by the ECU so you may be back to a flaky one of those.
While part swapping, I'd pull the MC out too.
Customer won't authorize any parts swapping unless you have absolute proof. (he doesn't want to spend any money)
His VIN is not on the recall list.....
Here is one of the points I want to make. It's one thing to say check for a vacuum leak. It's another to mention two of the tools that could be used. I could do the same with an ultrasonic microphone, carb cleaner, etc. This is all information that can be found in a very generic format but the process hasn't been explained with your answer.
Case in point.
If the smoke machine is connected to a vacuum nipple on the intake manifold and turned on, smoke will be seen at the drivers inner fender where the air cleaner inlet attaches.
That is accurate information about the car and what you would see if you tested in that fashion.
BTW, the customer authorized one hour of diagnostic time, no more. Be careful how you spend your time.
Like I said, the customer has to pull his MC out. Or a VISA. :shades:
There is something that seems to always get lost in the perceptions. Without the "nuts and bolts stuff" as you want to call it, a person isn't prepared to try and do the job. It's a misrepresentation to think that we walk up knowing how each car and every system work every time, there is just too much to have to know. What we have to be able to do is know how to gather pertinent information to allow us to focus on the most apparent issues and seperate them out when possible to try and identify all of the problems.
I purposely used what would seem like a normal way to use the smoke machine in that first description and someone without real experience doing that level of work would likely do exactly as I posted. The right way requires a restriction so that the smoke gets to pressurize the intake system. To do that one trick is to wrap the air filter with plastic wrap and put it back into the air-cleaner sealing that off. This allows the system to be pressurized all the way to the filter. When that was done on this car the smoke was visible coming from the intake tube between the MAF sensor and the throttle body. It's not a vacuum leak, but it is known as "pirate air" or "unmetered air".
So that is a major problem, and that tube must be replaced. But what about the rest of the codes? Are they related to this probem, or should they be treated as if they were occurring on a completely different car? Could they even be false codes caused by faulty diagnostic attempts previous to this visit?
This BTW is all leading back to your line where the mechanic replaced a half a dozen parts, but the car still stalled. Left at its word it could be assumed that they guessed at every part, but its also plausible that some of what they did was as obvious as this failed air inlet tube. How does anyone test past a major failure that has a direct impact on fel control?
So where does this go from here?
He did, for one hour of diagnostic time and that was plenty.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
When ever possible that's exactly what you have to do. I call it cutting down some of the trees to see the forest. The throttle body codes that were set actually rely on the computer using the MAF sensor input to make a volumetric efficiency calculation and from there try and determine if the throttle is really in the position that the throttle position sensors are reporting. The P0101 is a MAF sensor performance code and it was caused in this case by the air that was not being measured because of the torn tube. The sensor was under reporting the airflow by as much as 40% at times. The under reported airflow causes the computer to calculate a base injector pulse width that is too short to give the engine enough fuel for the air that is going through it and that results in the fuel trims needing to add additional pulse width to try and correct the air/fuel ratio. So all of those codes (except for the brake lamp switch code) were indeed caused by the tube being torn. However, there is still a trap. This car has had this problem for some time. The "Check Engine" light reportedly had been on for some six months. Certain codes block other tests from running such as the O2 sensor tests, the catalytic convertor tests, and even some of the evaporative emissions tests. For example this car uses short term fuel trim to detect cannister purge flow and with the fuel trims being out of tolerance that test hasn't run in some time. Since the car can't test the purge valve operation, it cannot test the rest of the evaporative system either and this is one of the aspects of OBDII that many people don't understand. This customer may easily have the check engine light come back on in a week or two and have totally different codes set. Traditionally if the lamp comes back on the assumption would be that the tech didn't repair the car correctly, the reality is there may be no way to know if any other problems exist until the system completes its testing.
More than 80% of the time that a check engine light comes back on after a repair can be attributed to a blocking condition or the failure of the system to meet code enable criteria for a particular test. An example of code enable criteria is where a given portion of a monitor such as the evaporative emission monitor won't run if ambient temperature is above 86f or below 39f. There could be a problem on a given car but unless the conditions for the test to run are met the test simply doesn't run therefore no code can be generated. Blocking conditions as I described earlier can quite often mirror code set criteria in fact the two can usually be looked at as essentially the same in many cases.
The limited experience of most "experts" exposes itself in the fact that they have never (or very rarely) written about how codes are generated. They have to date failed to sufficiently explain why certain tests are prevented from running in the event of other failures which once those failures are dealt allow the other tests to run and quite often everyone simply has to wait for the computer to decide if the car is working correctly or not. It's so easy to pass off the light coming back on as to the tech simply failing to fix the car that the writers themselves have failed to look deeper into how OBDII really works. For the average driver that answer to whether the car is working correctly or not essentially comes down to whether the check engine light comes back on or not. With the right tools, and given the time to try and find out techs can force certain tests to run on some manufacturers vehicles outside of the normal conditions that would allow the tests to run. Some manufacturers give us very little control in that regard, while others VW/Audi for instance let us run just about every test right in the bay. BTW, you can thank a tech from a small town who took the time to drive to Ann Arbor Michigan, got the floor, and asked the engineers to make it possible for us to do that back in 2000. (You should have heard all the gasps and whispers and then the rustling of papers while most of the engineers were suddenly jotting down some notes and starting to form ideas of how to do it while that tech still had the floor)
If you haven't really studied OBDII at an engineers level, then you really don't know OBDII. Now sure you can probably pull some codes and solve some problems, but there is so much more to it than meets the eye. We could fill the forums with discussions on equivelancy ratio, commanded equivelancy ratio, lambda, bank to bank fuel trim, rear fuel trim, variable cam timing controls, gasoline direct injection, air/fuel sensors and the fact that oxygen sensors don't sense oxygen and on and on. But what good would it really do? The average DIY'er has no way of accessing this information or running any of these tests with the kinds of tools that you'll see paying for advertising here. Then again, how could writers even write about something that they don't know anything about accurately. In the end they keep the information watered down and pretend that's all there is and that leads to confusion for the consumer when they do have to get their vehicle repaired and especially if it does take more than one visit to complete.
That little tidbit has made all the time I've spent following this forum worthwhile.
My scanner has the option of telling the computer to run the Evap testing. The mechanic can do that with some cars before the car leaves rather than aggravating the customer with a comeback due to new codes showing up.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
On some cars, and sometimes that still requires specific conditions to enable the testing (Fuel level, coolant and air temperatures, hot or cold soak time, no codes set, +,+,+). In some cases you can command the large and medium leak tests to run but not the small leak test. In others the small leak test is what runs.
My scanner has the option of telling the computer to run the Evap testing.
BTW you're welcome.... It wasn't part of the original functionality of the system and only got added because of input from top techs around the country.
The mechanic
canshould do that with some cars before the car leavesYea they should, and the time to do that should be accounted for in the diagnostic time that was sold to figure the car's problem out in the first place in order to prove that the car is in fact repaired.
That functionality if the vehicle's system was designed to be able to do it should be in every scan tool but it's not. If a shop/tech has never seen that demonstrated, that's on them but at the same time if their tool doesn't do it and they have never see it discussed anywhere that it should be able to then its fair to expect them to simply keep struggling along. That's one of the ways articles like Mr. Reeds O2 sensor ultimately fail to help the consumer and can be shown to make things worse for both the consumer and the tech/shops
hoo-hah....not ME brother. I know better from a series of bitter defeats over the years... :P
There is STILL one problem, that after 30 years, I *still* think about sometimes.
There is STILL one problem, that after 30 years, I *still* think about sometimes.
LOL, one? ONLY ONE???? I think some of them will haunt me to my grave....
And a lot of those drivers just want the CEL to stay off long enough to pass emissions.
No they can't bust someone for clearing codes and turning the light off. But someone doing that can have an impact on the stations(techs) star score.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Can you explain that a little more?
From the BAR website.
http://www.smogcheck.ca.gov/80_BARResources/03_Standards&Training/STAR/pdf/STAR_- - QA_7.pdf
Max Readiness Monitors ..........10
3.10 Should I pre-screen vehicles for unset readiness monitors to avoid a possible deviation? ....... 11
The “Max Readiness Monitors” measure is intended to identify stations that, prior to performing the initial test on vehicles for a given inspection cycle, reset the OBD II system in an attempt to get vehicles through the inspection process without making necessary repairs. An initial inspection may be an official inspection or a pretest and is the first test performed on a vehicle in its current inspection cycle, which may be for biennial inspection, change-of-ownership, or initial registration. Stations routinely engaging in this practice of resetting computers to mask diagnostic trouble codes (DTCs) will tend to have an elevated percentage of vehicles undergoing an initial inspection with exactly the number of unset readiness monitors allowed to pass the OBD II portion of the Smog Check inspection. The same will be true for stations certifying vehicles for third parties who are engaging in this practice.
Stations concerned that they may get a deviation for unset readiness monitors, either because they certify a lot of vehicles for third parties or because already published scores show an issue at that station, may want to prescreen OBD II systems for unset readiness monitors. Both Test-Only and Test-and-Repair stations may prescreen for OBD II readiness and have OBD II scanners available for that purpose.
So if a test center deals with a few used car dealers who could be repairing the cars that they want to sell correctly, are fixing them but simply not completeing all of the monitors it will show up in the stations Max Readiness score. Of course that also applies to people disconnecting batteries, or using a scan tool to clear codes and turn the lamp off and trying to make a car pass the test.
Sounds like you have a GM vehicle. Test not run on a given trip, or not run since cleared is a GM strategy.
I assume the emission check stations have the same capability and must check that all tests have been run by the onboard computer
They don't need to check that, it's main use is for a repair technician to try and prove that a vehicle has been repaired without waiting to run every monitor to completion. However it is worth noting again, not all scan tools are created equal and in a number of cases a shop/tech could be using a tool that doesn't support that function and they might not even know that it exists.
I got it towed home and put it away.
Today, I went to a local car repair/body shop to have them get it back running.
The owner was pretty good with what I asked, which to me seems reasonable, get it running and check out the brakes and cooling system.
A few years ago, I took it to another shop, asking them to just inspect the car and let me know what it needed, but I got a bunch of attitude, so it took a lot for me to try someone else.
I got to the point where I have to do something.
Keeping my fingers crossed.
When I told him there are new plugs/wires/cap/rotor in the trunk, he said ok.
I asked him to get an oem MAF if it wasn't way more expensive than a NAPA.
The parts in the trunk, that's a deal buster. It's NOT OK to provide your own parts, there are just too many things that can go wrong. For one, what if one of your spark plugs is defective? The odds are that the shop/tech will get blamed for having damaged it when they installed it. Any and all disclaimers are virtually meaningless when it comes to a job that fails to meet everyone's expectations. Heck, even if the shop then turns around and makes the job right out of their own pocket they usually still end up losing because the stories will be told about how they screwed up the tune-up.
When the shop provides the parts, if there is anything wrong with any of them, or any part of the job that's just part of the cost of doing business and what the warranty expense that is applied to the job is there to take care of. When the customer ends up being the parts supplier the shop loses the support of the parts supplier that they normally expect to have.
Experience has proven the following statements:
By using your parts, their GP on the job is lower than it should be for that given job.
By using your parts they have lost control of the quality of the replacement part. (The plugs could have been dropped by a stock person, counter person, or the consumer, and nobody would know what happened to them)
By using your parts the shop doesn't have the support of their parts supplier for any possible warranty expense which in some cases would include labor fees.
By using your parts the shop will end up assuming all of the responsibility for the final outcome regardless of any disclaimers.
By using your parts and assuming all of the above risks, the shop isn't guaranteed to earn all of your business, even if it works out perfectly for you.
So they have to take a loss to do the job, assume significant risks beyond the norm, and the most they can expect to gain for the effort would be a repeat of the situation where the customer will want to provide the parts all over again.
That's why I (we) say no to providing your own parts. I'd sooner just hand you back your keys and send you down the road to someone who doesn't know better.
Kids now days order performance parts over the internet after reading forums and getting Dad's approval though neither Dad or the son has the vaguest idea what it takes to install parts like a turbo or nitrous and the tuning required. Have you ever done or considered doing that type of work?
I've seen kids armed with Dad's charge card come in to a shop needing a new motor and asking how much is the labor to do it. Mechanic told him $3-4K and kid says when can you do it without batting an eye. We're talking new motor from the manufacturer and not the junkyard.
Nope.
But I do have to add something here, I often end up taking modifications off of engines and restoring the cars back to O.E. specs and designs once people decide that the extra ponies aren't worth tolerating the quirks that they often come with.
It's funny how it seems like it's easier to get parts for old car nowadays than it was years ago...even though the cars themselves could be 20 years older than they were back then!
Now that I think about it, when my grandmother quit driving in 1999 and gave me her '85 LeSabre, and I had to get it inspected, the mechanic told me to go to the Yates Auto parts around the corner and get the ball joints it needed, and bring them to him. He said that's where he would get them, anyway.
I think nowadays though, labor rates are so high that mechanics can't afford to make a mistake of someone bringing iffy parts to them, and then have the customer pitch a fit when those parts fail.
Or maybe it's just that the cars I was bringing to some of these guys were so old, that it was easier for them to have me track down the parts? The same mechanic that had me order the front end parts also sent me out to the local junkyard on separate occasions, to get a right side exhaust manifold, and a power steering box and pump for that '68 Dart
At one point I wiped out in the rain and hopped a curb and bent one of the axles on that car. Unfortunately, it was an 8 3/4 rear end, which I had recently put on the car, and they were pretty rare in the narrow A-body width. But, I was able to get online (I had discovered the internet by this time!) and found some place out in Arizona that had one, and they shipped it to me and the mechanic put it in.
After he went into a longer than needed monologue about the condition of the parts that needed replacement and hadn't been replaced in a long time, I told him it was all original stuff he was looking at.
My parts are all Motorcraft matching part numbers.
I'm trusting that they will actually be installed and reminded him to check the brakes too.
I do want to add that the only times the car has been in a shop was when the shift interlock needed to be fixed (warranty), I brought it into a shop to have the oil changed (I supplied oil and filter), and I had the 18 year old tires replaced.
Yep, "They don't build them like they used to". In years gone by we would "Tune-Up" cars every couple years, now we have cars that might go their entire lifespan without that service being performed. When someone shows up and asks for a tune-up, my first question is "What kind of a problem are you having with your car?"
My parts are all Motorcraft matching part numbers.
The problem is break the rule at all, and the rule has no reason to exist. I send back any part that the box shows any external damage. I've had parts delivery people walk in the door and drop my spark plugs. If that happens they don't get used in my shop. If I drop one while I'm working on someones engine, it goes in the garbage and I get another one. Any part carried in that falls out of strict control routines can't be trusted today. A faulty spark plug can ruin a $1000 catalytic convertor in a very short time. It doesn't matter what someone else does or did years ago, to reduce the risks for me and my customers, and ensure the best possible quality of work goes out the door each and every time the rule stands, no carry in parts.
That's what my local indie shop told me to do when I wanted to replace failed parts on my 1999 Wrangler with upgraded items. In one case it was a Banks Torque Tube Exhaust Manifold and in another it was Bilstein HD shocks. They provide the parts for regular maintenance with the exception of synthetic motor and gear oils, which they again ask me to provide.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport; 2020 C43; 2021 Sahara 4xe 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i Son's: 2009 328i; 2018 330i xDrive
http://www.wranglerforum.com/f5/banks-torque-tube-vs-borla-header-22396.html
I had to diagnose one Grand Cherokee for a misfire on cylinder #4 that started after the customer had an aftermarket header installed. The #4 runner was blocked at the flange weld. I'll try and pull up the compression pressure waveform from that cylinder if I still have it. The guy drove the thing with that misfire for a year and had tried injectors, plugs, coils, lifters, and even had the head off and sent it out to be reconditioned.
The truth is most of the guys were so concerned about losing a customer that they often just went along and installed the carry in parts and accepted the losses that came along with doing that job. So to you, the customer everything was fine but the mechanic had to lie to himself and you to allow you to cling to that illusion. Self proclaimed consumer experts told the public that it was OK to carry in in your own parts and the shop owners only went along with it because it seemed like the easiest way out of a no-win situation and they didn't have the nerve to say no.
The closest that I still come to this situation is that I will program modules that someone installs in their car. About two years ago one guy had a Taurus that was setting an EGR system code. He said that the dealer had diagnosed it but they wanted too much money to replace the PCM and program it. (Note he claimed that the dealer diagnosed it, there is no proof of that occurring)
Before we went into the routine I asked him if he wanted me to investigate the vehicle problem and he declined. So the routine is I connect my equipment and ID the car and pull the current software and options. Then he installs his replacement computer. After that I flash the computer to the current vehicle software which gives him any updates that may have occurred, and then program the PATS system. Once the car is running, I'm done.
Guess what happened two weeks later? His light was back on and the new PCM was setting the same code that the old one was only now he wanted to know what I was going to do about it.
I gave him the same estimate to diagnose the vehicle that I gave him before he replaced his computer and showed him again the written proceedure that he agreed to that we followed for his first visit. In his eye's he already paid to have the car repaired and felt that he shouldn't have to pay again and the fact that it wasn't diagnosed correctly by who-ever was responsble for that at that moment didn't seem to matter.
The only thing helping him at all got us was trouble. We can't always tell in advance who is going to be reasonable and who isn't if their plan goes south. Meanwhile if they simply allowed us to run our business as its set up to be run we prevent problems like that from occurring. He spent more money on his replacement PCM that he didn't need, even without the programming than the diagnostics and the correct repair probably would have cost him.
I suppose the Bilsteins were a bad idea as well... :P
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport; 2020 C43; 2021 Sahara 4xe 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i Son's: 2009 328i; 2018 330i xDrive
That's why my old mechanic probably didn't have a problem sending me out to get various parts...probably saved him some legwork, too. And for the most part, we were dealing with suspension parts, or used mechanical parts that were at least guaranteed by the junkyard, that this mechanic had a good working relationship with.
So far, my current mechanic has been pretty good about fixing anything that my old cars have needed, and hasn't needed to send me on a parts run. But lately, my old cars haven't needed anything too obscure, yet. I was a bit worried last year, when I sent my '79 5th Ave in for a fuel leak. I was worried the tank might be rusting. And I don't know how easy it is to get a fuel tank for an R-body. If it was a '78 or earlier C-body New Yorker, or the '82+ M-body, no problem, but '79-81 is sort of a [non-permissible content removed] era. Thankfully, the tank was fine, and it was just some gasket/seal leaking, where the filler tube went into the tank.
I wonder with a fuel tank if they'd just refurbish it rather than try to find a replacement.
If there is a problem with the repair, it will normally be discovered by you experiencing a symptom when you are using the vehicle. There is a chance that it could occur right away when they are initially done with the service but most likely it will show up after a few uses of the vehicle.
I can hear the line that will be used already, "It never did it before you tuned it up".
From there they will have to get it in and experience the symptom and then start testing for the problem. That could mean the use of a secondary scope to watch the spark Kv demand, the burn time and burn voltage. So then hopefully they identify what cylinder has the problem and maybe they find that a plug is cracked, or carbon tracked. The difference for them right now is that I have laid this out here so maybe they won't be taken advantage of. But when this happened to me(or others) as a tech working for someone else there wasn't any consideration of cause, it simply always went straight to blame and I (or they) must have broken the plug(s). So the shop gets to eat the part, and since it was a comeback I (they) didn't get paid for the time.
This gets carried to another whole level when someone else in the shop did the first service but then couldn't do the recheck for one reason or another. The second tech still doesn't get paid to deal with the problem even though he/she had nothing to do with the first service. As the guy who was usually asked to deal with situations like that I fixed many a car that I didn't get paid for in the name of customer satisfaction.
No regrets on any of my other mods- Dinan and/or Conforti chips in my OBD I Bimmers, and the Mazdaspeed cold air intake on my Mazdaspeed 3. If I keep the Mazda-which looks increasingly likely-I'm going to replace the near dead OEM struts/shocks with Koni FSDs, replace the rear motor mount with the one used on the E-Focus(and now fitted to the Focus ST per TSB # 13-6-10), upgrade the fuel pump internals, and run a mild tune-either COBB or Hypertech.
Now, I could go with coilovers and a stiffer rear mount, but in this application I don't want to compromise everyday driveability for a very slight additional increase in handling and shift quality.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport; 2020 C43; 2021 Sahara 4xe 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i Son's: 2009 328i; 2018 330i xDrive
Here is one of my previous experiences.
Brought my truck in to have a leak fixed.
It was fixed, but on the bill was a charge for a bolt.
When I questioned it, the owner said 'We lost it'.
You are going to charge me for a bolt you lost? That doesn't seem right.
That's the way it is.
I have never gone back there, although I have had to reluctantly use some some of their other business services(AAA towing).
It was fixed, but on the bill was a charge for a bolt.
When I questioned it, the owner said 'We lost it'.
You are going to charge me for a bolt you lost? That doesn't seem right.
That's the way it is.
So should he have lied about why it needed a bolt to complete the repair?
If he had simply eaten that expense wouldn't that have only forced you to find another reason to never go back?
I have never gone back there, although I have had to reluctantly use some some of their other business services(AAA towing).
You need to try harder to make him go put of business over that bolt. JMHO.
If the car falls off the lift, are you going to bill the customer for fixing that too?
I recently had the oil changed on my company owned Pacifica and the mechanic said the drain plug was rounded off. He installed a fresh one at no charge.
2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic / 2022 Ram 1500 Bighorn, Built to Serve
In this part of the country we have something called Business Insurance, you should look into it sometime.
>You need to try harder to make him go put of business over that bolt. JMHO.
That's not reasonable. In fact ridiculous: did the customer lose the bolt? Shop should neither have mentioned the bolt nor charged for it.
According to CarDoc, "Hey, we burned out your alternator (or lost it) while we had your car, and that is the $359 charge you see on the bill that wasn't part of the estimate." is an acceptable line charge on the bill.
Gotta make the business responsible for nothing other than "We just love makin' money."
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Then that "Business Insurance" which you have in your part of the country would have covered the lost bolt.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,