Just a reminder guys, young, veterans and even myself alike
When presented with a job especially where the vehicle has been thru multiple shops reach out and network with your industry peers near and afar. .. the reason I say this is was I had a 2010 Dodge Grand Caravan I was trying to win the used car dealer over to get some of his business the other day.
He smiled at me and said I have the test for you. He had the stated man above what the 4.0 liter engine and said it had been passed around the three different shops, dealer Supposedly fried a pcm locally after they had had key cut for it because the car lot had lost the last key. It went to the dealer and then went downhill from there and kept getting passed around.
I had the vehicle towed from the last shop it was at over a month, no fix and $240 bill later to customer and the mechanic could only say everything looks good (which it was) but he kept telling the dealer on the phone that the shop the used car dealer bought the pcm from in Florida would only call back once a week, then said they wanted a case ID.
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I had it towed to keep any conflict of interest from occurring and to show the customer or would be customer I was pretty confident that I could handle it. Later that afternoon we had it towed. I had a couple things at hand that I didn't know how to do so I had someone remote in that I know from the industry but I also know their time it's valuable so they were compensated as well and the customer understood this upfront. We got hooked up to the vehicle went in to the module what the Autel IM-608, checked the vin swap and since it had no skim the wcm didn't need as I understood reset.
We were then going to remove the PCM and then put it on the bench and put the previous one on the bench as well and we hoped not to have to put the third one on the bench. When I flip the key forward, wait let me back up a second we noticed the throttle was off in the vehicle so we did a throttle relearn being that the PC and was new to the vehicle.
Then fast forward and after we did all of our scans, looking into the computers, excetera when I flip the key forward I noticed I wasn't getting any crank or sounds that you would normally get and to my surprise the fuel pump was actually priming up as I initially I thought that was the issue but then I listened more closely with my headset out of my ear. I told associate I don't even hear this cranking and that's when Bells started going off. We thought maybe when I swap the PCM they might have bumped a wire or something like that but then I had the thought of let's go check the fuse box.
Keep in mind this cost the car dealer over $1,000 not counting our fees. I'll throw a photo in. I had to take a photo of the box as the fuse was hard to see if anyone knows what I'm talking about.
This earned me another key today, a throttle body on the same van causing a misfire the dealer said wasn't there previously and now a 07 Toyota Rav 4 that's stumbling.
Remember everyone "KIS" , Keep It Simple.
Yes I went big but before I did I made sure I had not only me but knew my other resources out here. We're getting smaller and smaller as a industry so it's imperative we network as a industry to improve, deliver good service, etc. There's more than enough work to go around, believe me I've found that out since opening doors the first of the year.
No 1 complaint I hear is dealers charge 3 times as much as aftermarket shops, mobile guys do.
Here's the photos. Looking at them one can be easily overlooked. I've found taking a few photos of the ones I suspect then taking them and zooming on my phone works great seeing the finer details as at 49 I need to get in to the eye Dr again.
