Shop Shots Volume 12 Insider Pictures of Automotive Service

VW Beetle TDI with damage

Well folks, it is that time again! We got Shop Shots of automotive service today! This week we have 3 “shots” and one quick video of a smoking Tiguan! 3….2….1…. GO

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What you are looking at here is the result of a Beetle doing some “off roading”. The part that is sticking out is the Tie Rod. The tie rod is part of the steering system. It is the link between the steering rack, and the wheel. As you might be able to guess, it should not be belt at a 90degree angle. The tire you see is the left tire. notice how it it turned all the way to the right. What you can’t see is that the right tire is completely straight. I have seen many bent tie rods, but I don’t think I have seen one ripped from the steering rack. I am pretty sure the damage totaled the car. Sad to see a TDI go out like that.

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This is a picture of the screen of our VW scan tool. We have a program called Guided Fault Finding. This program has several tests for almost every system of the car. If a car has a fault, it can automatically load a plan to test the fault. It usually works pretty good, despite what some mechanics would say. Every now and then, you get some random repair instruction like this one. It is basically telling me to

  1. Check the connection
  2. Find the problem
  3. Repair it

HAHA, Duh! What the heck else would I be doing? I always get a kick out of this stuff. That and when you get a random screen that is in German!

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If you read the post the other day called “Throwing Automotive Logic Out The Window”, you would have read the story about an alternator causing the engine not to start. Well here is the failed alternator. You can see the ball bearings at the bottom of the pulley mount. That should not be that way. I do not really have an explanation as to why this happened. Thankfully it fixed the no start problem. I wish I could have taken it apart, to find the failure. There are some parts that we have to return to VW. They will manufacturer this and resell it after fixing it.

Oh hello pollution! This is a little video of a VW Tiguan that is obviously smoking. The problem here is a fuel injector that got stuck open. It causes way too much fuel to be sent into the engine. The high amount of fuel is not able to be fully burned. The only place for it to go is down the tail pipe. The result is awful smoke coming from the tailpipe. I hope that the customer had the car towed it. I would be mad if I was driving behind that car!!

I hope you all have a really great Wednesday. I am off work, but will be busting my butt to get some flooring finished. Don’t forget to signup for email updates. I know I keep saying “I got things in the works”, but I do, and the email list will get 1st dibsies!

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6 replies
  1. Garrett Craven
    Garrett Craven says:

    What else was wrong with the “dune bug” that totalled it? And did anyone ask…WHAT THE H3LL WERE YOU THINKING?! I mean maybe…just maybe (and thats a very small maybe) if it was a 4motion hahaha

    Reply
    • Charles
      Charles says:

      The damage was a pretty high dollar amount, and the car had a ton of miles on it. Oh, and the trans was smashed up. I couldn’t get a picture of that.

      The crazy part is, the customer paid almost $700 to have the car towed to the dealer. They towed it almost 200 miles.

      I have actually driven a 4motion Beetle. It was a twin turbo VR6. It was such a cool car. I wish I had more pics of it…

      Reply
  2. Garrett Craven
    Garrett Craven says:

    700 bucks? Dang! Thats the reason i have AAA..and ive had circumstances where AAA wont cover it but my insurance did, hope those people can pass the bill off lol.

    And that beetle sounds like a BLAST! Im not a huge fan over the beetle (except the new ones look sweet) but that sounds like a bug i would love to have 🙂

    Reply

Trackbacks & Pingbacks

  1. […] “$weep$take$”? You have actually seen the other side of this Beetle before. It is the wrecked Beetle I posted a few weeks ago. If anyone knows why people do this, please post it in the […]

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