Shop Shots Volume 57 Insider Pictures of Automotive Service
Hey everyone, It’s time for everyone’s favorite thing SHOP SHOTS! If you missed the blog post I put out yesterday, you missed the giveaway! Yep, you missed the Growler-Box Giveaway from my buddy Mike at Growler-Box.com. Be sure that you enter! Even if you are not a beer fan, it is still awesome. You have until Friday night!
Volkswagen seems to be known for their “electrical problems”. That is a very generic statement that I love debating. In fact we could write an entire book about it. The issue is a perfect example of an “electrical problem”. The connector on this module has come out of the module. This is caused the airbag light to come on. A pretty easy diagnosis once you know the code stored.
At first look, we think “How can VW build a module that the connector can just come out?”. Oh but friends lets not just to conclusions. Many things that happen are due to outside influence. This car had a water bottle jammed under the seat. That pushed the connector out of the module. So the question is, Is this the customers fault, or poor design??? INTERESTING
As a mechanic, most of what I do is maintenance. Oil changes, tire rotation, and the like. My dealer also does a good amount of tire work. We have a dedicated guy to mount and balance tires, patch leaking tires, and perform alignments. To be very honest, doing tire work is not my favorite.
Finding leaks in a tire can be extremely difficult. This little metal sliver was in a tire causing a leak. I removed the tire from the rim to check for damage. It took me about 10 minutes of inspection to find it. The penny is there for scale. If I had my way, the tire guy could have all the tire repairs he wants. 🙂
A few months back I wrote a post about A typical day for an auto mechanic. In that post, I talked about a 2009 EOS with a top issue. Based on the parts catalog, the only way to fix the issue was replacing the top. After many phone calls and much digging, we found out that a repair exists.
Last week we made the repair to the EOS top. We brought in 6 QTMs to help make this repair. The QTM is the guy we call out to the dealer to help with repairs. This was a crash course in EOS top repair. The QTM from Florida gave me and the other QTMS all the tricks and tip to make this repair. It was a really fun, hectic, intimidating, and educational day. It is very intimidating being around a much of guys that have forgotten more in their career then I will ever know.
What you are looking at here is the reason the top was not functioning properly. To explain how this broken track makes the top fail would be impossible. Even showing you guys with a video would be crazy confusing. Let me just say that an EOS with any type of damage to it is a huge red flag. This car took a year and a half for the damage to surface.
That rounds out our Shop Shots this week. Please don’t forget to enter to win the Growler Box. I am getting excited to pick the winner on Friday!
I would say if a water bottle under the seat caused the connector to get disconnected, it is a poor design. More so on the placement of the connector though. Things tend to end up under the seats,
I have had enough things go rolling under a seat when I am driving, and get forgotten by the time I get to where I could take it out.
Enjoyed the post, as always!
As a new Eos owner, I am curious what the part even is. I’m guessing it has something to do with the wings that open when the trunk lid moves? Then again there are more moving parts on that thing than I wish to remember, so I’m sure I’m wrong!
Re: the airbag connector, it does strike me as a design problem. Although I’m sure there were reasons for its current design, users are generally one of the biggest issue to design around!
The tracks are for the pillars that are just above the window glass. When they are about 1ft away from the header above the windshield, they spread open to tuck in the trunk. That track is how it happens.
Thanks for the post. I think that majority of those technical problems stem from poor design of the automobile and not really from technical problem.