I once owned a Subaru that I purchased new. I owned the car for ten years. Whenever I wanted the oil and filter changed, I took the car to a nearby “quickie” oil change shop. I used this shop the entire time I owned the car. The shop was near my home and on the way to a nearby mall. I drove past the shop almost every day, so it was very convenient to stop in, tell the manager what I wanted, and sit down and flip through a magazine while I waited. Fifteen minutes later the car would be returned to me with (I hoped) new oil and filter. They also had a checklist which indicated other items they had checked, like brake fluid, steering fluid, transmission fluid, and so on.
One day, instead of reading a magazine while I waited, I stood at the window between the waiting room and the service bay and watched the mechanic work on my car. The Subaru’s spare tire was mounted in an unusual location: beneath the hood, on top of the engine. In order to check the gearbox oil, the spare tire had to be removed. I saw that the mechanic never removed the spare tire. When the mechanic finished and the car was brought around to me, I paid the bill and looked at the checklist. Gearbox oil was checked off. I confronted the manager.
Me: “This checklist says you checked the gearbox oil. You didn’t check it.”
Manager: “Yes we did.”
Me: “No, you didn’t. You have to remove the spare tire in order to pull out the dipstick, and no one did that.”
Manager: “You don’t have to remove the spare tire to pull out the dipstick.”
Me: “Yes you do.”
Manager: “No you don’t.”
Me: “Show me.”
We walked out to my car and raised the hood. The manager reached under the spare tire and grabbed the gearbox dipstick. He pulled it this way and that way. He twisted it until I thought he would break something. But the dipstick could not be removed.
He finally gave up and ordered one of his minions to remove the spare tire. After the tire had been removed, the manager grabbed the dipstick and pulled it out of the gearbox. We both examined it. There was not a speck of oil on the dipstick. It was clean and dry all the way to the end.
That shop was the only place I had taken my car for oil changes. They had been changing the oil every 3000 to 4000 miles for 10 years, and yet it appeared they had not checked the gearbox oil in a very long time, if ever. But the mechanic (and no doubt there had been several over the years) had always checked off “Gearbox Oil” on the checklist.
Running the gearbox dry will destroy it. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to be damaged. There must have been a little oil left in the gearbox — enough to lubricate the gears but not enough to measure. If you have a job and you’re supposed to do something, then do it or get another job. Don’t say you did it and charge the customer for doing it, and then not do it because it’s extra work. I trusted the lube shop and they let me down.
Why do I keep trusting people to do a good job? I know better.
There’s a footnote to this story. When I started to drive away, I realized the engine was running poorly. I stopped and raised the hood. A vacuum hose had been pulled off the engine’s fuel injection throttle body — probably by the manager when he was trying to remove the gearbox dipstick. I pushed the vacuum hose back onto the throttle body and the engine ran normally again.
I hate it when I take my car to a shop and then I have to fix it before I can drive it home.
One day I sold the car to a young man whose name I no longer remember. Soon afterward, he took the car to a mechanic to have, ironically, a repair made to the gearbox. (Maybe running it almost dry did damage it, after all.) The mechanic made repairs to the gearbox, but he neglected to put gear oil into the gearbox. The young man picked up the car, drove off, and quickly destroyed the gearbox.
What did I say about doing a good job? Oh yeah, I remember: I said it’s hard to find people who care about doing a good job. Most people want to do just enough to get by. Airplanes have crashed and hundreds have died because somebody took a shortcut while servicing an engine, or locking down a cargo door, or fixing an instrument in the cockpit. Countless injuries and deaths have occurred in factories because somebody took a shortcut.
I’m telling you, robot workers can’t get here soon enough.
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