Car Service Issues and Annoyances

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nzkiwiman

2585 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#240139 22-Aug-2018 15:51

Had to get four new tires (tyres? - what is the correct spelling?) so rang a week in advance to organise a day/time to do the install and organised to drop my spare key at the store the day before (as I needed to drop car off before they opened. Turned up on the organised day, advised who I was to find they my booking wasn't put in the system.

Organised the new booking (thankfully for the next day) and then dropped of key and then the car the next day.

Went to pick up car, paid and asked a bunch of questions on maintenance/care for new tires and just got told to come back when the sticker in the windshield tells me to.
Got to car and then spent ~5 minutes getting my seat in the correct place, the steering wheel in the correct place, the door mirrors in the correct place, the rear view mirror in the correct place and changing the heater settings, the radio settings and even the indicator settings ..
When I got home I spent a further 15 minutes changing things again as it didn't feel quite right on the drive home.. (thankfully I had images after the last time the Mazda service team moved things around)

Now the tire place did a good job doing their job, but I honestly have no idea how the process of changing my tires resulted in the need to change all the settings they changed.
I really want to email them and give them a piece of my mind ... but I may be over reacting

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7773 posts

Uber Geek

#2077541 22-Aug-2018 15:58

Most likely because they used your car for an errand or two. When I drop my car off for maintenance I note the mileage. I've busted a few places.

Mike

CYaBro

4582 posts

Uber Geek

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#2077574 22-Aug-2018 17:01

Yea they probably had to "road test" it.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

scuwp

3885 posts

Uber Geek

#2077583 22-Aug-2018 17:20

I always take a quick photo of the dash to record the odometer reading whenever I have to leave my car with anyone. Plenty have been caught out taking joy rides in customers cars or just using it as the workshop hack for the day. I suspect your car may have been used if that much has changed. I can accept seat back or forward but nothing more

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

Goosey

2829 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#2077611 22-Aug-2018 18:11

Rear View, of course

Seats, of course

Wing Mirrors, probably (for reversing off the hoist, and most likley moved when they folded them in for the hoist)

Radio, maybey just the volume... if it was a full reset then perhaps the battery was taken off.

What are the 'other' things that changed?

Fred99

13684 posts

Uber Geek

#2077669 22-Aug-2018 19:44

Never had any of those problems taking my '83 laser XL (Karitane yellow with racing stripe and big tachometer) for service.

SheriffNZ

671 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2077671 22-Aug-2018 20:03

Fred99:
Never had any of those problems taking my '83 laser XL (Karitane yellow with racing stripe and big tachometer) for service.

They’re missing out on a great opportunity!

Geektastic

17942 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2077710 22-Aug-2018 21:45

nzkiwiman:

Had to get four new tires (tyres? - what is the correct spelling?) so rang a week in advance to organise a day/time to do the install and organised to drop my spare key at the store the day before (as I needed to drop car off before they opened. Turned up on the organised day, advised who I was to find they my booking wasn't put in the system.

Organised the new booking (thankfully for the next day) and then dropped of key and then the car the next day.

Went to pick up car, paid and asked a bunch of questions on maintenance/care for new tires and just got told to come back when the sticker in the windshield tells me to.
Got to car and then spent ~5 minutes getting my seat in the correct place, the steering wheel in the correct place, the door mirrors in the correct place, the rear view mirror in the correct place and changing the heater settings, the radio settings and even the indicator settings ..
When I got home I spent a further 15 minutes changing things again as it didn't feel quite right on the drive home.. (thankfully I had images after the last time the Mazda service team moved things around)

Now the tire place did a good job doing their job, but I honestly have no idea how the process of changing my tires resulted in the need to change all the settings they changed.
I really want to email them and give them a piece of my mind ... but I may be over reacting

Tyres, unless you are American...

I don't see why they would have needed to move much around just to put your car on the ramp, to be honest, but it does make me glad I have memory seats etc when this happens.

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clevedon

1059 posts

Uber Geek

#2077753 23-Aug-2018 07:43

nzkiwiman:

and even the indicator settings ..

What did they do to change the indicator settings?

tripper1000

1617 posts

Uber Geek

#2077769 23-Aug-2018 08:51

Did you get an alignment done? A good place will often take your car for a road test after doing the alignment as a quality check (the proof of the pudding is in the tasting). Some models (particularly euro's) have horrible/deficient adjusters for the alignment and a good place will do several cycles of test driving and refitting the alignment gear to get it right and make sure it doesn't go out of whack as soon as you drive it.

As for adjusting drivers position - a clueless (young?) guy who thinks he knows everything and doesn't care/know about customer service will have driven it. The clued up guys will adjust only the bare safety essentials. Maybe one of the young guys fancies your model and was trying it out for size.

nzkiwiman

2585 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#2077928 23-Aug-2018 13:29

^ I did get an alignment done, so thanks for the information that a road test may have been required afterwards.
However I still don't see the need to make as many modifications to the setup as they did
(NZ New, 2014 Mazda 3, so not a Euro)

I thought about making sure I knew what the ODO was, but in the morning rush completely forgot.

clevedon

1059 posts

Uber Geek

#2077955 23-Aug-2018 14:12

nzkiwiman:

^ I did get an alignment done, so thanks for the information that a road test may have been required afterwards.
However I still don't see the need to make as many modifications to the setup as they did
(NZ New, 2014 Mazda 3, so not a Euro)

I thought about making sure I knew what the ODO was, but in the morning rush completely forgot.

I'm still intrigued to know as to what they changed with your indicators?

nzkiwiman

2585 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#2078526 24-Aug-2018 13:58

They turned on the quick flick for 3 flashes of the indicator setting that is deep in the settings .. I hate it and turned it off about an hour after getting the car home when I purchased the car

tripper1000

1617 posts

Uber Geek

#2078578 24-Aug-2018 14:51

Isn't the quick flick feature technically illegal anyway, given that you are legally required to indicate for at least 3 seconds before executing a manoeuvre?

Seems that some car manufacturers are trying to discourage the proper used of indicators. I have disabled the indicator cancel in some of my previous cars and I am on the verge of disabling it in my newest car. The auto cancel is supposed to save time and effort, but I find in some models it cancels far to aggressively and you end up having to "re-indicate" 2 or 3 times during a single turn, saving only electricity and costing time, effort and swear words. I reckon this is why many Aucklanders have entirely given up indicating.

CitizenErased

207 posts

Master Geek

#2078622 24-Aug-2018 16:15

tripper1000:

Isn't the quick flick feature technically illegal anyway, given that you are legally required to indicate for at least 3 seconds before executing a manoeuvre?

I use that feature every day when exiting roundabouts. On some cars you can adjust how many blinks the quick flick feature does, e.g. 3, 5 or 7.

Scott3

3963 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2078702 24-Aug-2018 18:51

Most smaller mechanics, and some tire specialists don't have the hardware to do wheel alignments on site, but provide the service using hardware (and specialist skills) elsewhere. In this case, they might drive the car some distance.

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