Shop Shots – Page 8 – Humble Mechanic

Shop Shots Volume 32 Insider Pictures of Automotive Service

Hey everyone, I am back and all fired up. I know that I missed a few days worth of posts, and for that I am sorry.

If you are a new reader let me give you a rundown of what Shop Shots actually is. As you might imagine, auto mechanics see some interesting things. It can be anything from a wrecked car, something that broken in a strange way, or something weird a customer had in their car. I can’t tell you how many times I have found pot in a customer’s car. This series is a way for me to share what I find in the shop. Think of it as a behind the scenes look into a VW service center.

This is a close up shot of a VW battery. The “growth” on the terminal is corrosion. It can be caused by a leaking battery. Heat tends to aggravate the situation. This is not a good thing to have built up on your battery. It can cause issues with your vehicle. Modern cars are very very sensitive to low voltage.That means when the battery gets worn out, it will make the car do strange things. The most options a car has, the more important proper battery voltage it.

Be careful around this stuff. It is a product of battery acid. It will burn your skin, and eat holes in your clothes.

This is a picture I put together with a really cool Iphone app called PicStitch. It lets you frame and combine pictures. This is a picture(s) of a broken rear side glass on a Jetta Sport Wagon. The picture on the lower right shows the impact point. I am not sure what hit it, but no doubt something did.

I tried really hard to get a cool shot. One that showed the entire window, but still close enough so you could see the break. No such luck. The picture on the top right is from the inside out. There is just something so cool looking about broken safety glass. Oh and that is what a $400 piece of glass looks like.

This is a perfect example of preventative maintenance. This is a picture of the crankshaft gear on a 2006 GTI. The customer was in for his 120,000 mile service. That is a pretty big service. It also happens to be the mileage that the timing belt is due. I recommended the belt to him because it was at the proper mileage.

When I took the lower timing cover off, I noticed a slight pink trail. That is a dead giveaway that the car had a coolant leak. That is a free tech tip. If you see a crusty pink trail on your VW or Audi, just follow it and you will find your coolant leak.

The leak was coming from the coolant pump. With only the intention of replacing this pump as PM(preventative maintenance) I was also able to make a repair. At some point this pump would have needed to be repaired. Glad it was before the customer was stranded with a severe leak.

Okay today your are getting a bonus Shop Shot. I was working on this Passat yesterday. It was a 2012 and in for it’s first service. When I popped the hood, I noticed something sitting on the cowl right by the wiper blades. Well, it turned out to be a pack of playing cards. How in the world did a deck of cards get there? The world may never know.

That will wrap up another volume of Shop Shots. I am out of the shop today doing errands and heading out to Sears to exchange some broken tools. I might even get my wife’s truck detailed. Hopefully it will be a surprise. Don’t forget that to swing by and like the Facebook page. I do post a few things over there that don’t make it to the blog. 🙂

September 26, 2012/1 Comment/by Charles

Shop Shots

Shop Shots Volume 31 Insider Pictures of Automotive Service

Happy Shop Shots day everyone! I am back in the shop after having a few days off. It is always tough to get back in the groove. Okay, let’s get this show rolling!

This picture came to me from a buddy. As you might guess, that is a circuit board from a module. This is the central electrics module. It is one of the main computers in the car. The customer was driving the car, and BAM lightning stuck it. It melted part of the car’s roof, and fried 3 module. Thankfully the customer was not harmed. Well, not physically anyway. I know if that was me, I probably would need a few days to recover. I can’t even imagine what that was like

We are going a little old school today. This is the first car I worked on today. What you are looking at is a rear drum brake on a 1997 VW Cabrio. I was replacing the parking brake cable. Check out all the springs and clips that drum brakes have.

I remember when I first started. One of the guys in the shop told me to take my drum brake tools home. He said we never mess with drum brakes. About a week later, I had to rebuild a set of drums on a Golf. HA, glad that I am stubborn. A quick tech tip when it comes to rear drum brakes. Do one side at a time. That way if you get the springs mixed up, you can just compare to the other side.

I thought it would be fun to keep with the old school theme today. 😉 This is not a Volkswagen carburetor. This is the carb from my 4wheeler, and the reason that there was not a post yesterday. I was in the process of selling my 4wheeler. It had a dead battery so I had not ridden it in a few months. I picked up a new battery, to the tune of $80 btw, and popped it in. It fired right up, SUCCESS!

Well that was until I gave it some throttle. It would just shut off. I messed around with it most of the day yesterday. Finally I just gave up and brought the carb to work. completely disassembling it, and cleaning it. I really hope that this fixes it. Another quick tech tip, working on a magnetic tray is perfect for things like this!

Finally today we have a Reader’s Rides submission. Check out Mathew’s Golf! I love love love those seats! If you want to have your car on Readers Rides, just email me some pictures and a description to Charles(at)HumbleMechanic(dot)com!

I come from a family of Volkswagens, my Golf is the 13th consecutive VW purchased in my family. I learned to drive in a B3 Passat and have been in love with hatchbacks/wagons ever sense.

Without further ado, here’s the details:

2000 Golf 2.0L – 151,000+ Miles

Unitronic Stage 1+ ECU Software
22lb Flywheel
Sachs VR6 Clutch
Techtonic Tuning 260/268 Sport Cam
ABD CAI with K&N Cone
Audi TT Pedals
GLI Brushed Aluminum Trim (door handles, pulls, radio cage, & E-Brake)
GLI Shift boot with Euro Sport Edition shift knob
Custom Rebadged JOM Honeycomb grill
10mm Rear Spacers, 7mm Front Spacer
28mm Rear Sway Bar
Bilstien OE Sport Shocks with H&R OE Sport Springs
Helix LED Tail lights with rear fog
ECS Lower Grill Fog Lights
GLI Recaro Seats
Custom Pinstripe Headliner
Rebuilt Headlights with dual LED blinkers
Pioneer AVIC F-900BT Headunit
3-spoke GTI steering wheel
17″ Santa Monica Alloys, wrapped in Falken Ziex 912s (215/45 ZR 17 87W)

Soon:

12″ Alpine Type-S, 2Ω + 2Ω, SWS-1222D
JL Audio JX-500:1 Class-D Mono Amp

Not the best pics, but there they are…

Mathew

September 19, 2012/6 Comments/by Charles

Shop Shots

Shop Shots Volume 30 Insider Pictures of Automotive Service

It’s hard to believe that this is volume 30! I would have never thought we would make it this far. Oh, and there is no sign of slowing down. All right, enough of my blabbing, let’s get into some pictures!

What you are looking at here is the power steering pump on a 2013 Passat. The car was towed in from Enterprise Rental Car. Their concern was the the car felt like it had no power steering. I hopped in the car and took it around the parking lot. I didn’t want to drive it too far because, well it had no power steering.

When I opened the hood, I found the engine bay covered in oil. The power steering fluid reservoir was totally empty. Generally when something like this happens a line as a hole in it. I dug around for a while but found nothing. And since the engine bay was covered in oil, I couldn’t identify the source of the leak. Finally I started wiggling hoses, and found this. The line was not even threaded in to the pump. I tightened the line, filled the system, bled all the air and she was good to go. Oddly enough the pump didn’t make any noise. Even when the system had to fluid in it. Does that seem strange to anyone else?

I hate when I have to post pictures like this. This is a little frog stuck in the belly pan of a 2008 Passat. I have no real idea of how this happened. It looks like he was there for a while. I think the tech working on the car left him here. I know that he didn’t have to take the belly pan off for the job he was doing. At least it looks like it was quick for this little guy. Poor froggy.

This is how I started my day today. The customer came in saying “A week after you replaced my suspension bushings, my car has a slight clicking noise” I test drove the car. As soon as I put the car in drive, it started screaming. You will see why in the next picture. I didn’t want to take it too far because of the noise. While I was pulling it into the shop, I could hear a really loud clunking coming from the engine bay.

I popped open the hood and didn’t see anything strange. It sounded like the engine mount was loose, but it didn’t look that bad from the top. I put the car up on the lift to check the work that I had done. Everything I did looked fine. I glanced up to check the engine mount and found this. The timing belt was replaced a few months ago. I am not sure if the bolts were not tightened, or what but the result is bad. There is an ear broken off the engine block(where the top bolt goes). It looks like the threads are damaged on the bottom bolt. There is some type of aftermarket repair kit for the bottom bolt, but I am not sure about the top one. If we can’t find a proper repair kit, the engine block will need to be replaced.

Here is the result of the broken mount in the picture above. The is also the screaming that I heard the engine make when I put the car in drive. The timing belt tensioner is cutting in to the engine mount. The timing belt is also rubbing on the mount. The tensioner is destroyed! It is a pretty lucky thing the customer brought their car in. We might still have to replace the engine, but at least we have a chance at saving it.

September 12, 2012/4 Comments/by Charles

Shop Shots

Shop Shots Volume 29 Insider Pictures of Automotive Service

Hey folks, it’s Wednesday so that means is time for some Shop Shots. As always this is your behind the scenes look at Volkswagen repair. Think of it as your way to see the crazy things that a VW mechanic sees, with out getting dirty. Don’t forget, if you want to share a picture from your shop, or of your ride, just contact me! Let’s do this

I hate to see wrecked Volkswagens, but I really like to share the pictures of them with you guys. This is a picture of a 2010 CC. The left front got hit pretty hard. The outer edge of the wheel was about an inch off the ground. The strange thing about the damage is how isolated it is. I don’t think that a car hit it. The impact area is too small. I guess if a car hit at the right angle it would do that damage.

I would almost say that maybe a deer hit the CC. But the way the wheel is pushed in makes me rethink that. I will try and find out what happened. The truth is I probably won’t. I also find it strange we get so many wrecked cars. We don’t have a body shop.

This is fan destruction. This car came in with the concern “A blade on my fan broke and cut my coolant hose. When I opened the hood, I found this. The fan is missing all the blades. The radiator was all beat up, and a coolant hose had a big cut in it. I have never seen a fan break completely off the mount before. I also don’t really know how it didn’t punch a hole in the radiator.

I had to replace the radiator, the main cooling fan, the fan holder(also called the shroud) and the coolant pipe. Once I got all the parts replaced, I found the fans didn’t work. It turns out, luckily, the fuse was blown. That is probably the reason there was not more damage. Sadly we didn’t have the fuse in stock. I was not able to fully test the system. The customer declined ordering the fuse.

Okay this will take some explaining. This is a shot of from under a beetle convertible seat, and behind the trim panel. I had to replace the rear window regulator on this 2005 Beetle. To gain access to the window regulator, the rear seat and the trim on the side. I removed the seat and trim no problem. So far nothing crazy, just another broken VW window.

When I went back to remove the window regulator I noticed something odd. There was something that was laying at the bottom. It was painted the same color as the car. That is odd because everything is just primer. Some how, there was a door handle just sitting behind the trim panel. How the heck does a door handle for the outside of the car get behind a trim panel in the rear of the car? Maybe it was at a body shop? I don’t know how it happened, but it sure is funny.

I did a post yesterday about the new 2013 Jetta Hybrid.I had mentioned that the information is really limited because the car has not been released yet. Well here is a screen shot of our diagnostic software. As yo can see, it is mostly in German. Even though I have worked for VW for some time, I don’t speak any German.

The bad part is, this is the procedure for de-energizing the high voltage system. Good for us, the instructors had translated the test. I am 100% sure that this will be fixed by the time the car hits dealers.

Well, you have squandered away another Wednesday, but reading Shop Shots. Thank you Click and Clack for that line. HA. Most likely while you are reading this, I will be driving back from my training. Hopefully traffic will be good. Bad traffic turns a 5 hour drive into a 9-10 hour drive. You will know I hit bad traffic by the number of tweets I send from the road. Mass tweets=bad traffic. 🙂

September 5, 2012/6 Comments/by Charles

Shop Shots

Shop Shots Volume 28 Insider Pictures of Automotive Service

Hi folks, it’s Wednesday so that means you get some Shop Shots today! These pictures come to you from behind the scenes of a Volkswagen dealership’s service department. This is some of the things that auto mechanics see.

There is actually a lot going on in this picture. This is a 1999 VW Passat. The car came in for an issue with the ABS module. I hopped in the car and seen this. The door panel was missing. This is not something I was overly concerned about. The customer didn’t mention anything about it. If you look where the glass meets the door, you can see two wedges. That is what is holding the window up.

I am sure that the regulator had failed. The funny thing is, the left rear window was the same way. This poor Passat was just about at the end of it’s life. Oh, and it smelled awful.

OUCH! What you are looking at here is the oil pan for the transmission. This customer ran something over. What ever they hit punched a very strange hole in the transmission pan. Generally when a transmission have this type of damage the underside of the car has multiple impact points. This one didn’t. It was just this damage.

If you look inside the pan you can see some of the valves in the valvebody. Those are the valves that control the transmission fluid and make the transmission work. As you can imagine, this caused a pretty severe leak. The transmission actually had to be replaced. Thank goodness for car insurance.

I was getting out of a car last week. As I went to shut the door, this little guy caught my eye. I had to take a second look. Then I had to pick him up and see if it was in fact Jim McMahon. I am sure I have told you guys that I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. I have been a Bears fan my whole life. I still remember the 1985 team and the Super Bowl Shuffle. Granted I was 5 but I still remember it.

What the heck is a customer doing with a Jim McMahon figure in the door panel of their car? You just can’t make this stuff up.

Well, that does it for another week of Shop Shots! I am back in the shop today after having a few days off. Next week I will be traveling for VW training. I will be going to class for the Jetta Hybrid. I am really looking forward to the class. I really think hybrid tech is cool. I can totally foresee many of the things on hybrids being standard equipment on nonhybrid cars in the near future.

Do you dig this blog? What to help spread the word and grow our community? There are so many really easy ways to do it. Share it on Facebook, tweet it out on twitter, and for shop shots, feel free to pin it to one of your board on Pinterest. I am pretty sure if you do that your car will get better gas mileage. (okay, probably not, but that would be really awesome!)

August 29, 2012/5 Comments/by Charles

Shop Shots

Shop Shots Volume 27 Insider Pictures of Automotive Service

I feel like I have been posting a lot of car pictures lately. But hey, pictures are fun right? I dug deep into the archives for some good pics today.

BOOST!!! This is a close up picture of a turbo charger. This is the side the exhaust bolts to. Turbos chargers are pretty easy to understand.

As exhaust gas exits the engine, it turns this little wheel. This wheel is connected to another wheel called the compressor wheel. This compresses the air coming into the engine. When the air is compressed, more air can fit into the cylinder. More air into the engine means more fuel can be used. More air+more fuel is more power!

This particular turbo is bad. the wheel came loose. It made one heck of a noise when boosted was built. Then is just stopped working all together.

What you are looking at here is a coolant flange. This is actually the coolant flange that I replaced on my Passat 1.8t. This is a pretty common things on most 4 cylinder VWs. The issue generally comes from engine oil.

How can oil make a coolant leak?

Excellent question. Generally what happens is oil leaks onto this flange. The oil will seep onto the seal. This will cause the seal to expand. This will eventually cause coolant to leak past the seal. This is one reason to not put off repairing an oil leak. It can cause a coolant leak too.

It has taken me forever to find this picture. I know the quality is just awful. It was taken with my BlackBerry from years ago. We had a really bad storm at the dealership. It knocked over a few big trees and caused a ton of hail damage. This is an Accord that got totaled! The weird thing is, they put the tree back up. It is still standing today.

The other strange this is the damage that we had. There were 300+ Hondas that had hail damage. Plus the 3 or 4 that got totaled from this tree. We had 4 VWs that had hail damage. What does that say about the build quality of Honda vs Volkswagen?

I was going through the setup for our new VW diagnostic software. When these type of updates come out, I found it VERY necessary to follow the process step by step. This is a the list of our current scan tools. My dealer has the 5051B, and 2 6150 laptops. This is the first I have heard of the 6160 tablet. I can only assume that VW is coming out with some type of Ipad like device. How cool would it be to have an Ipad as the vehicle scan tool?

It also makes me wonder what the price point would be.Generally our scan tools cost a fortune. The 6150 laptop costs about $5000, and that is without the test equipment box. That is another $6000.

Well that wraps up another volume of Shop Shots in the books. I do need a little help from everyone. The help I need is pretty simple. I just need everyone to answer this question.

What do you buy for you, or your car online?

Tools? Car parts? Car wash stuff? I want to put together a little discount club for everyone. I want to make sure that I can include the things you guys want, or already buy. Just with a discount. Help me out everyone. I want to make this a really great program for you guys.

August 15, 2012/12 Comments/by Charles

Shop Shots

Shop Shots Volume 26 Insider Pictures of Automotive Service

WOW, Wednesday always seems to come around in the middle of the week. What’s the deal with that?(you have to say that like Jerry Seinfeld) I have actually been out of the shop for a few days. My wife and I are taking a little road trip. So, I am going to be really selfish on this Shop Shots. I know I know, I should not be selfish. I still think you guys will like this weeks Shots!

This is what a complete body wiring harness looks like. Never mind the seatbelt mixed in. This harness came from the 1998 Jetta that I picked up. This must be about 40lb of wires, connectors, fuses and tape. I was not sure what I would need for the engine swap, so I took it all. Basically every connector that is not the engine. Every light, button, airbag, and switch is on this harness. Replacing this harness might be one of the worst jobs a mechanic has to do.

This is a picture of my tool box at the house. YES I know it is a total disaster. I keep my work box really neat and organized. For some reason, I just can’t keep my box at the house straight. I think it is because I wont buy the organizers for it. This is actually the box I started as a professional mechanic with. It lasted about 2 years before I ran out of room.

I took a picture of it because I might be trading it. A buddy of mine has a yellow Matco box that I would like. So I might trade it for a tool cart, then trade the cart for the yellow box. I must admit, I will be a little sad to sell this box. I need to figure out how to save a few of the stickers that are on it.

Ah yes, back to the donor Jetta. When you remove an entire wiring harness, most of the interior needs to come out too. This is what it looks like behind the dash board of a car. I have seen so many cars with the dash out. It makes me cringe every time. I don’t dislike doing dash work. It is just not my favorite. I think that I have stipped all I can from this car. It will be given a proper send off. It has been smashed and abused it’s entire life. I am the 7th owner. It has been totaled twice. Now she has donated organs to help another car live. Thank you Jetta for your sacrifice.

GRRR. This is a picture of the rear bumper on my Passat.(please ignore the chicken legs in the reflection) We got rear ended last week.

We were coming home from seeing Batman. This very bad driver in front of me basically cut me off. I had to slam on the brakes. The guy behind us didn’t stop. He hit my poor Passat. We pulled over and the guy that hit us took off. No one got a ticket, even though the lady that cut me off should have.

Maybe I should do a post on what to do if you are in an accident. Odds are, the bumper will need to be replaced. Ugh!

Well, thanks for checking out another round of Shop Shots. I will be out of town the rest of this week, and into early next week. Be sure to stay tuned. I will be doing some fun posts from the road!

August 8, 2012/9 Comments/by Charles