wiring problems – Humble Mechanic

Shop Shots Volume 80 Insider Pictures of Automotive Service

Hey everyone! It’s Wednesday, so that means it’s time for some behind the scenes action. This series is where we look at some of the crazy things that auto mechanics see. Unless otherwise stated, I take each and every one of these pictures.

I have a few things to let y’all know before we get rolling.

Humble Mechanic Shirts
For those of you that ordered shirts, I should have them by Friday. I will let you know by email, when they ship out. There is a slight chance I will have a couple extra. I will let everyone know when I get them. 🙂

Humble Mechanic Podcast
If you have not checked out the Podcast, please check it out. As of now, they live on YouTube. But I am working on adding an audio only version. That will go on Itunes.

Show with Rusty
In addition to the solo Podcast, I have been doing a weekly show with my buddy Rusty. That is a super fun show. We spend about a hour chatting about tons of things in the car world. You can see all of them here.

Okay, let’s do some Shot Shots!

First up, we look at one of the things that VW seems to be known for, WIRING PROBLEMS! I must say, I do fix a fair amount of wiring issues. I am just at a point where that is normal. 😉 I was working on a Passat on Monday. This car was not in that great of condition. As I was looking over the car, this caught my eye.

This is an electrical connector for the after run coolant pump. I wasn’t really looking for any issues here, but this pin out of place really caught my eye. I am not really sure how this pin came out of the connector. There are 2 different locks that hold the pin in a connector. I will be working on this car again today. Hopefully I can get the pin back in.

Next up we have another “stumble upon” thing. This Golf came in for a check engine light diagnosis. One of the things I do while waiting for the scan tool, is to just look around. Some times the universe presents information to you, and this is one of those times.

I opened the hood of this car, looked down and spotted a broken hose. I went back to the scan tool to find out the code. It may come as a shock, but it was related to the broken hose. The fault was stored for a secondary air pump leak. This is the pressure hose of that system. Sometimes, it is nice to be lucky.

Last up today is something that makes me really mad. It makes me made because I know this was done at a dealer. A customer of ours was out of town. When she was out of town, her transmission failed. She had the transmission replaced at another dealer. Luckily she was still under warranty.

A day later, she called my dealer and said that the car was making a clunking noise. We got her in and this is what we found. The “tech” that did the repair, left 4 bolts loose in the subframe. Not only were the bolts loose, but they were not installed in the proper location.

We got the customer all fixed up. The other dealer paid for new bolts, and the labor to install them. She was pretty darn happy that it was an easy fix.

Well, that wraps up another round of Shop Shots! I hope these pictures give you guys a little pick me up in the middle of the week. Don’t forget that you can follow me on:

October 8, 2014/2 Comments/by Charles

Shop Shots

Shop Shots Volume 65 Insider Pictures of Automotive Service

Happy Wednesday everyone. As I am writing this, I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Christmas is next week. That means this will most likely be the last volume of Shop Shots of the year. I know that you are probably weeping. Don’t worry Shop Shots is not going anywhere. In fact next year should be the biggest year yet for all of us. Let’s get to it.

The story behind this picture is one of those “you have to be kidding me” moments. A customer stopped by the dealer. He was driving through and the check engine light came on in his 2012 Passat. We worked him in because he was just passing through. When I pulled the car in the shop, it sounded a little funny. I started scanning the car for faults. While the scan tool was doing it’s thing, I popped the hook to have a look.

With the hood up, I found the reason the check engine light was on. It turns out the customer had his car serviced before his road trip. He made it 900 some miles before the check engine light came on. The place that serviced his car did not put the oil cap back on. Luckily it was just sitting by the wipers. The car’s ECM had faults stored for an air leak. Leaving the oil cap off creates a pretty good sized air leak. 🙂 I am just shocked he made it so far before the check engine light came on.

Next up is a common issue that is taken to a level I have never seen. This is a shot of a coolant bottle on a 2003 Passat. I have seen quite a few 1998-2005 Passats have issues with cooling systems getting clogged up. It usually comes in with a “My heat does not work” complaint. Over time coolant breaks down and starts to block up the system. This prevents coolant from properly flowing in the system.

In this picture you can see just how clogged up the system got. This is a shot down into the coolant reservoir. I am pretty sure I have not seen a system this clogged. The customer declined making an repairs. I think it was a good choice on her part.

Last up we have a VW wiring problem. This one was a good one. The customer complained about the seat moving while driving. He said that sometimes the seat would move forward or back all by itself. It car has power seats. The car had been in 2 other times for the same issue. We were never able to duplicate the issue. But the car had a fault stored in the computer that controls the seat. We had replaced the seat memory buttons, and the module. I pulled the seat out to inspect the wiring. Hidden in the seat rail was a wire that had a been grounding against the frame. Basically the car was seeing the button being pushed. Kind of funny really. I guess this is one of the electrical demons everyone talks about.

Well, that wraps it up for the final Shop Shots of 2013. I really do love posting Shop Shots. It is the most fun for me. If you like Shop Shot, please sign up for email updates. It is the best way to be sure you get all the blog updates.

December 18, 2013/2 Comments/by Charles

Shop Shots

Shop Shots Volume 60 Insider Pictures of Automotive Service

Happy Friday everyone. This week there is a slight change up in the schedule. I posted that Purolator oil filter review on Wednesday, so that pushed Shop Shots back to Friday. It’s all good really, Friday is a good day to post up some pictures. Let’s do it to this!

When a customer brings their car in, a service advisor will take down notes on their concerns. Most of the time it reads “Customer states check engine light is on” or something like that. It can be really cut and dry. Then you get notes on a repair order that just make you shake your head. The repair order on this car stated “Customer states please check rear wiper blade”.

Generally when you have a concern listed like that it is due to a worn or torn wiper blade. I didn’t see the line on the repair order at first. It was on a second page. When I went back to check it, I could not help but crack up. Not only is the blade missing, there is no arm to attach it to. What made it really funny was when you turned the rear wiper on. It looked like a little boxer tail wagging around.

This is some old school VW stuff here. You are looking at the lighting circuit from the instrument cluster of my Cabby. When I first got her, it had some weird blue LEDs lighting the bottom. When I got the cluster out, I realized why. The printed circuit was torn at both points the bulbs were. Most components of cars do not use this type of “wiring” any more. This really is old technology.

My plan to repair this is to use the repair kit for a rear defrost. That and some double stick tape. If it were in the middle of the circuit, I would just staple the connection back together. If anyone has another idea, please post in the comments. I would love to hear your thoughts on this repair.

This is just hilarious. I pulled in a used car to do an inspection on it. The car looked good from the outside. The inside was dirty, but nothing a detail would not fix. As I raised the car up in the, I noticed that it was leaking some oil. On further inspection, I found this gem of a drain plug repair.

Someone took gobs of sealant and packed it around the drain plug. My guess is the plug was stripped and leaking so this was their “repair”. I see this type of thing from time to time. When I do I think “It’s no wonder that people think mechanics are crooks”. Now, to be fair, I have no idea why this was done. It may have been so the customer could trade the car in. I guess it’s not just mechanics that do shady things. 😉 Either way, I got a good laugh from it. Just remember that everyone sells a car for a reason.

With that I think we have wrapped up this weeks Shop Shots. As always I hope you enjoyed it. Don’t forget you can connect with me on all the other cool media places, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter. All you need to do is click on the icon to the right. It will take you there.

One last thing. I have mentioned before that I get guest post requests all the time. Well I wrote a Guest Post page describing how I feel about them. If you want to check it out, cool. If not no worries. That is cool too.

September 20, 2013/1 Comment/by Charles

Tag Archive for: wiring problems