No, you are not going crazy, it is actually Friday. We generally do Shop Shots on Wednesday, but there is little scheduling change for this week. If you are a new reader, first welcome, and let me tell you a little about Shop Shots. This is your look inside a VW dealership’s service department. It should come as no surprise that mechanics see some strange things. I wanted to find a way to show and tell these things. And Shop Shots was born. Thanks again to Brett for coming up with the name.

These crack me up every time I see them. They are just stickers that go over the blanks. The one at the top is for a radar detector. What a cool spot to put that. If you were to have your own stickers made, what would they be?

OUCH! Living in the south means we do not get much snow. I think that is a good thing. Working under a car with snow dripping down your back is an awful feeling. Plus we do not have the equipment to maintain the roads like you folks up north do. Every time we get a winter storm, our shop will see things like this.

This is the rear end of a new Golf R. For those of you that may not be VW people, the Golf R is an all wheel drive version of the Golf/GTI. It is also has a bit more horsepower. And for you super VW folks, yes there are more differences, but those are the big two. The driver of this car slid into a curb. The result was:

• 2 bent arms on the rear suspension
• A damaged rear wheel
• And a ruined rear wheel bearing

It doesn’t sound like that much, but the bill totaled about $3000. Thank goodness for car insurance.

Here is another one for the OUCH category. This is a brand new Nissan Altima. A sales person and a customer were test driving the car. From what I understand, the customer ran a stop sign and hit a Toyota. The Toyota had damage from the right front to the right rear. Thankfully everyone was okay.

This picture is pretty interesting. You can see the car did what it was suppose to. The metal is pushed in a way that absorbs the impact. The design behind crumple zones is really fascinating to me. I did a post a while ago about vehicle safety systems. I recommend checking it out.

I think that about wraps up another week of pictures. I do have other thing. If you have been reading for a while, you might remember the interviews that we did. It featured folks in the industry talking about their job, and their experiences in the auto industry. You can go back and read all the “Behind The Wrench” interviews by clicking the link. I want to get that going again. Here is what I am looking for.

• Automotive technicians, it can be at ANY level. Brand new, still in school, seasoned vet, dealership, indy performance
• Custom audio folks
• Body Shop techs
• Performance shops, talking about what you do
• Indy shops, talking about how you are different
• Anyone else in the industry. I want to get all points of view.

The reason I am doing this is for the readers. I want everyone to know how each part of the industry works. It will be an amazing to hear from the folks that do this all day everyday. If you are someone, or know someone, please contact me!