Never-Ending Repairs

Tuesday, December 13, 2022 | December 2022

Cartoon diagram of a male customer calling a mechanic shop as his car broke down. Handling difficult situations with customers
BY LEAH MARXHAUSEN

WITH THE INFLATED COST OF USED CARS, PEOPLE ARE DRIVING THEIR vehicles longer than ever, but at what point is a car beyond repair?

MWACA asked Brad Holtkamp, owner of Brad Holtkamp Automotive Inc., and Mike Goodwin, owner of Buddy’s Automotive, what they would do in the following situation:

A customer with a very well-maintained 2005 Honda Civic brought the vehicle in for regular maintenance. At 209,000 miles, it was inspected, and the inspection was then presented to the customer. His comment was he wanted to make it last "until the wheels fall off." At that time, several fluid services, including oil change, spark plugs, valve cover gasket, and the timing belt along with the other belts were replaced.

Then 18,500 miles later, it was in the shop for a Service Engine Soon lamp on. At this time, the oil service had been done elsewhere,
and the engine oil and all fluids were inspected and determined to be full and clean. For the repair, the EGR valve was replaced, and the
vehicle was road-tested and repair confirmed. 

One week and 375 miles later, the car was towed in with a horrible knocking noise. It was determined it could be carbon or, most likely,
a connecting rod failure. It would need to be disassembled to know for sure. 

What would you do?

Brad Holtkamp

The first thing you need to do is educate the customer. 

They want to drive the vehicle till the wheels fall off, I understand that. I'm one of those people. The wheel falling off is more or less a metaphor for: when does it get to the point where they don't put any more money into this vehicle and what is that dollar amount. Our customer here of course has done all this maintenance doing everything he can to make this thing last and I can greatly appreciate that. Sooner or later, that wheel’s gonna fall off.

Yes, we can check everything that we can visually see on a vehicle, but do we take it apart piece by piece and inspect every piece? If we did, would we have found something catastrophic, like an engine failure? We have a bad knocking noise. It could be carbon, but I would like to do a little more diagnostics on it to find out exactly what the cause is. Did we have an oil pump that is going out? Do we have carbon on top of the cylinder? What is causing this, and how are we going to determine a cost to tear this thing apart, find out what it is and then we can give them a true estimate of what's going on.

"Ultimately, I would tear the whole thing down and find out exactly where the noise was coming from." - Brad Holtkamp, owner, Brad Holtkamp Automotive LLC

We can pull the oil pan off pretty easily. Do we put a borescope down in the cylinder and find out if it's carbon cylinder? A knocking noise doesn't necessarily mean you have to take the pan off the vehicle. We can turn the crank back and forth and see if something is loose inside. Could we have a cracked flex plate? There are other things that go with a knocking noise other than a total engine failure. My first thing is to find out where that noise is coming from.

In our shop we have some guarantees, we use an aftermarket company for oil protections and stuff like that. We would look into any outside product or service we use to get some help from them.

Ultimately, I would tear the whole thing down and find out exactly where the noise was coming from, what is causing the noise and go from there.

Mike Goodwin

In this situation, I would probably go back to 24,000 miles ago and see what the customer’s goal was. Even with a really nice car that is very hard to find right now, we still have to take into consideration that it is 17 years old.

But on the other hand, because of the popularity of the car, both reconditioned and used motors are out there with fewer miles and can be replaced. I think information is more important than anything and finding out what can be done and going from there. That's probably where we would start and try to get the customer totally involved from the minute it started making noise, and we would start a plan either to fix it or not. This decision changed in the last two and a half years in our shop, especially because used cars are inflated right now, so if you have something you know everything about, you’re going to want to hold onto it.

Final Takeaway

Regardless of what situation you may find yourself in, making sure to educate your customer is the most important step. Taking the time to slow down and explain the situation fully can help empower them to make a decision they feel confident in. Allowing your customer to make an informed decision helps them know what to expect and can prevent frustration if something else goes wrong down the road. Investing in an old vehicle can be a risky decision, but well-informed care and maintenance can help any car last...‘until the wheels fall off.’

 

 

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