Yesterday a Sante Fe comes in the shop with the customer complaining that it's making a beeping noise that happens even when the car is turned off and the key isn't in the ignition. "It sounds like some kind of warning signal from the alarm," he says. So I pull the car in, and sure enough, it's beeping about every 45 seconds. The noise is so faint that you can't really hear where it's coming from. This is weird, so I start to open the glove compartment, the console, and empty everything out. Nothing. Look up under the dash, nothing. Look under the seats and in the door panel pockets, nothing. So I gradually make my way to the back...the noise is getting louder! Now I'm at the back, open up the hatch, and the noise is the loudest yet. I start to look around, still don't see anything when I hear the noise again. It's coming from the right side. The only thing over there is a bag the looks like it's holding a bowling ball. I pick the bag up about to set it aside to see if it's beeping and what do you know...sitting right underneath of the bag is a bag full of SMOKE DETECTORS! WTF!?!?! This guy HAD to know he's got a bag full of old smoke detectors in the back, yet he still brings his car to shop and wastes 30 minutes of my time that!?!? Guess what buddy, you just paid me $59.95 for me to tell you that you need to replace the batteries in your smoke detectors!

that's the best laugh I have had all mourning.. pure stupity..

but atleast you got paid.. :) lol

HAHAH thats great man.

That is really beautiful...I can just imagine the look on your face...

Now the real question...who really carries a bag full of smoke detectors in their car's hatch?

Originally posted by Manu
HAHAH thats great man.

That is really beautiful...I can just imagine the look on your face...

Now the real question...who really carries a bag full of smoke detectors in their car's hatch?

or the bigger question.. "and forgets about them"

maybe someone planted it on him to.. who knows..

ROFLMAO!!! That CAN'T be your first experience with idiot customers Nic... I went on a pretty good rant about customers when Fight Club first opened up. "It didn't do that before we brought the car here", "What do you mean that's not included", etc... Wait til you get people complaining about the wind noise from the side mirrors on their SUVs too :rolleyes:

Along the lines of your situation though... I've seen people bring cars in for no start diagnostics that were simply out of gas or had a badly loose battery cable. OH LORDY do they squeal about being made to pay for the diagnostic too. I've also seen people run right over the safety cone blocking the door to the oil change bays and drive right off into the pit instead of stopping & wait two seconds to be greeted & guided in among numerous other things, LOL!

Wow, gotta remember to be nice to my family car mechanic, or I'm just going to turn into the freaking dinner time joke! Sheesh, you're not safe from stupidity anywhere! Haha. Man, I feel sorry for you, but I feel even sorrier for that guy. He had to pay 60 bucks for you to tell him he's a nut.

That CAN'T be your first experience with idiot customers Nic

LMAO! No, definitely not the first, but one of the funniest :D We had one lady come in once complaining that her radio was still playing even when she turned it off or when she turned the car off. Turns out she had a boombox in her trunk that was playing. I always get a little chuckle out of the guy that comes in complaining about the car pulling to one side or the other and you pull the car in and one of the front tires has about 60 psi while the other is down to about 18 psi. We get a lot of people putting diesel fuel in their cars. All sorts of things, but hey, they're part of what makes the job enjoyable! :D

LOL! Sounds like you're having fun with it anyways:D

I always seemed to work in parts of town where people had no sense of humor over crap like that.:( Relating to your radio story, I had one guy come back hopping mad cause I broke the radio in his Stang... Once I went out to his car & turned it back on though, he was happy:D

The tire story I can relate to as well. Been there seen that. One that ticks me off though is when people come in complaining that they still get tire vibration after a rotate & balance on the cheap ass 4 for $100 Pep Boys tires that they bought. Only when they're doing 80mph on the freeway though :rolleyes: After a while you just want to grab them by the neck and say "Look idiot, buy some quality speed rated tires then!":D

If they come in with crap like that we tell them that the only way we can verify the problem is if we can duplicate it and that nobody there is going to go out on the highway doing 25 mph over the speed limit so we can't help them.

AHH! Well that's the lovely thing at the shops I worked at... THe managers (non svc writers there) never verified why the customers wanted a R&B. It was only after they came back whining about the 70mph vibration that the truth would come out. Then they storm off in a huff like we ripped them off. :rolleyes:

Haha, never knew car mechanics had such a good sense of humor.

Hehehehe... Some do. Then again, some earn nick names like "Psycho Tech":D