Shop Shots Volume 67 Insider Pictures of Automotive Service

Happy Wednesday folks. I hope you are all having a great week so far. Today is my first day back at work this week. That usually means a few hours to get back in the swing of things. Don’t worry, I still have some great pictures this week. For those of you that are new to the community, Shop Shots started pretty early in the blogs history. I posted a few pictures, and they got a great response. It because a great way to have some fun and share some of the behind the scenes type stuff that most folks never see. A great member of the community suggested the name, and Shop Shots was born. Thanks Brett 😉

Before we get into this weeks pictures, I have a few things to catch you all up on.

1. My trip to for the Chicago Auto Show is all booked. I will be pretty busy but I want to set some time a side for a meet up. I will post more about that as the event gets closer. It will probably be something low key near the show.
2. There is a giveaway coming next week. I am ironing out the details now, but it will be awesome. All I can tell you is, if you have a messy tool box, get some pictures ready.
3. I still have the Snap-on Tool box I am looking to sell or trade. I am looking for a Caddy in good shape. If you have one or know someone, let me know

First up is a picture sent to me by my buddy. This car came in for an alignment. That is where we basically reset the suspension angles back to factory specs. When I first got this picture, I thought the tire had blown up. I was really confused. On closer inspection, the tire has debris jammed between the rim and the bead pack of the tire. The customer had been in an accident not too long ago. This must have been debris left over. I gotta say, it is not everyday you see something jammed in it like this.

I had lots of help from friends this week. This picture came from a fellow VW tech. This car was towed into his dealer with the following concern “Customer states vehicle still will not start after battery replacement”. If you are not familiar with VW batteries, you might not see the issue right away.

VW batteries come with a black cap on the negative terminal of the battery. This black plastic cap needs to be removed before the cable is installed on the battery. If you look just below the cable, you will see the cap is still installed. This is exactly like not hooking the battery cable up. This is one of those times where it would have been cheaper and easier to have someone do the work for you.

Last week much of the country seen record low temperatures. The news jokers were calling it the Polar Vortex or something like that. For us mechanics, it means cars acting crazier than normal. This is ice build up on the floor board of a VW. If you look at the top of the picture, you can see the water line. That is not really a water line, but more of an ice line. I thought I left this type of weather when I moved from Illinois. I also seen my first TDI with ice build up in the charge cooler. We actually seen 5 or 6 TDIs with frozen charge coolers.

That about does it for this weeks Shop Shots. Thanks to my buddies for helping me out with the pictures this week. Like I said at the top of the post, stay tuned for the announcement on the giveaway. We have done a lot of giveaways, but this one will be huge! Don’t forget, you can sign up for all the updates here on the blog. Just sign up at the top right with your email. Don’t worry I wont sell your email or spam you. As Sweet Brown would say, “Ain’t nobody got time fo dat”!

Oh, I almost forgot, I made this MEME a few weeks ago. I am a fan of the show Futurama, and I am also a beard fan. I happened to lean down on my beard and this is what I thought.