Don't like the adverts?  Click here to remove them

Bloody cars

Gary820

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2013
Messages
3,166
Garage
Country Flag
great_britain
Sometimes they just get on your nerves and jobs aren't easy anymore.

Nice simple airbag warning light on on an i3.... nah why make life easy lol.
Needed to replace a section of wiring loom, back end all stripped down and the elf and safety barriers/high voltage signs up as have to remove parts of electric drive system. Means my workbay is a no go area unless allowed in by me.

Any removed earth connections then have to be double checked by someone else qualified (there's 2 of us) and logged on the job card, plus all the other paperwork to go with a warranty job and paperwork to get authority to do the repair from technical dept!!

Looking forward to doing some work on the 80 this weekend


20160817_100837.jpg
 
Sorry Gary, but that would drive me nuts every day. Talk about a challenge for challenge sake.

If these things are likely to go wrong on a relatively new vehicle, then why don't they make stuff more easily accessible/ repairable?

The dealer / workshop already has its customers by the scrote so why not make it easier to fix for the benefit of the workshop?

Beats me all this complexity...
 
Tell me about it mate. That was about 2.5 hours work to get to that point! Plus all the paperwork first!! A lot of protocol with electric vehicles too. And only 2 of us allowed to work on them.
They're more and more complex and harder to work on, no one thinks about the repair end when design it lol.

Any warranty job is still loads of paperwork. Clockings must be done correctly and match the time the computer says you were doing something, it must be written up in a certain way etc etc.

I'm lucky in a way as I'm allowed to ignore the diagnosis if I feel it's not right but others can't unless I sign off to say ignore it.
 
Tell me about it mate. That was about 2.5 hours work to get to that point! Plus all the paperwork first!! A lot of protocol with electric vehicles too. And only 2 of us allowed to work on them.
They're more and more complex and harder to work on, no one thinks about the repair end when design it lol.

Any warranty job is still loads of paperwork. Clockings must be done correctly and match the time the computer says you were doing something, it must be written up in a certain way etc etc.

I'm lucky in a way as I'm allowed to ignore the diagnosis if I feel it's not right but others can't unless I sign off to say ignore it.
Garry,I used to do the majority of my r&m nowadays most contractors have a
service contract because like you tell us things are too complex.
 
Digitally enhanced profiteering that light is not supposed to show until shortly after the warranty expires and only a main dealer will tackle it so it adds maybe a couple of grand to the new purchase price .
 
3 years on the Smart car and although it now runs (well it did) it shows gearbox fault and won't proceed from there. I've given up now. I know that without the Star system it is impossible to know what exactly is wrong and fix it. :angry-screaming::angry-screaming::angry-screaming:
 
Don't like the adverts?  Click here to remove them
Trust me Shayne they go wrong in warranty mate, sometimes very wrong lol. We do a lot of good will claims for cars out of warranty too tbh. If we can get a repair paid for we will, keeps customers happy and we still get paid.
Loads of paperwork for us on shop floor though.

Tbh the trade has changed so much and there's a lot of people leaving to do other things. We've lost 2 lads to the trains in the last 3 months, can't find anyone to replace them. Another lad is in final interview stages for trains, lad at mini will be gone within a couple of months too.
I've turned an off spanners job down as it'd mean moving to Scotland!

The actual enjoyment of the job fades and I think a lot of that is due to the ridiculous paperwork etc we have to do daily, something not written or clocked correctly we don't get paid but not given enough time to do it all. We joke we spend more time writing about it then fixing stuff!!!
Should see the paperwork before and after a high voltage repair lol, more so if need to open a battery up.

Spending Saturday doing maintenance on the 80 made a lovely change as no protocol etc to follow.
 
Oh plus a lot of things have to photographed for warranty claims.
Forget the pic or poor quality, not the right thing shown etc etc we don't get paid either!!!
My phone is full of warranty pics lol.
 
I can well imagine Gary its the way of the world now 7 people sat behind desks with nothing to do but invent paperwork for the one guy that actually does something so at least they have something to shuffle about when the boss walks in .
 
This sounds so familiar Gary. I'm in the process of liaising with the electricity board to provide a new substation for one of my customers. The existing one has to be moved but in doing so cannot be reused. The site meeting on Thursday was full of reasons why something couldn't be done, barriers round holes, access, proximity to gas services and so on. Plus I have to provide another main switch in the building, the existing £2500 circuit breaker is not suitable ("what if it caught fire"), then there's the substation size, 3m x 3m for a board provided one, but twice that if I supply the transformer as a private one with metering at 11Kv. Then they only hold certain sizes of transformer and types of switchgear. A 'Ring Main Unit' has to be supplied even though it is not on a ring. 3 switches and bus bar chamber at 11Kv where only one switch is needed. Why? Because they are standardising equipment because they have to keep it in stock to replace within 12 hours. It's like going into the BMW showroom to buy a mini and being told you have to have the X5 because they prefer to only keep the spares for that one.

I despair of this country sometimes.

Long live the 80.
 
Last edited:
That reminds me of a funny event years ago Rich when a bunch of suits had me sat in a digger twiddling my thumbs for an hour while they discussed a mystery pipe that uncovered and wasn't in their paper plans . I got fed up so got out to take a closer look , a 5 year old could tell it was clay so i walked of in the direction the pipes position suggested found the old manhole unsurprisingly unused and dry went back waited for a gap to appear between the experts and smashed the pipe with the digger bucket . It got there attention and finally they decided to ask the local fella that hadn't flown in from London on company expenses what it was , they went away chuffed that they had solved the problem . I thought to myself that wasted hour probably cost someone 10 grand and muggins here got paid about 9 quid an hour at the time :icon-rolleyes:
 
I hear ya guys. Simplicity is the key hence why I love the 80. It meets all my needs & more. Don't want to change my car every 5 years due complicity repairs & problems hence why we don't see cars older than 10 years on the roads now.

Long live the 80 :thumbup:
 
Oh plus a lot of things have to photographed for warranty claims.
Forget the pic or poor quality, not the right thing shown etc etc we don't get paid either!!!
My phone is full of warranty pics lol.
Reminds me of telling you guys about the "perfect" technical documentation camera. It's the Olumpus Tough TG4. I got it after doing som serious camera-market-research, and have since bought a second one. Really perfect for techies of all kinds - focuses down to virtually zero, does focus stacking so that even a curve or an angled object comes out in focus over the entire area, water proof (diving), shock proof, good quality pics, very pocketable. Get it in a bright colour so that you can find it in the tool box. Btw, the TG3 is just as good. Set it to serial photo, so that even with a bit of camera shake or low light will give you a good shot. Has lots of cool features as well. Waaayy better pics than any phone camera.
This one
 
Nice bit of kit. I use my phone and not had a rejection yet. Nice and easy to e mail to warranty too.

Don't get bad shots generally.
20160823_190335.jpg


That shot would be plus one showing the general area, reg number and chassis number
 
Last edited:
Oh what a nice pulled/ cut or poorly crimped wire exposing the conductor to road salt and moisture.
 
@Gary820 what's the voltage of those packs?

Seems you need to be more sparky than mech to fix the new electric cars...

With all those electrics that low down I bet it does not like to wade too much :lol:
 
As the thread title is " Bloody cars " this is very apt for me, since the 80 went i have been running around in an Audi quottro 3.0 tdi, very nice car BUT since February it's had to have a set of glow plugs, turbo, a set of injectors, new timing chains & tensioners, clutch,, then it started getting hard to start, so new glow plug relay, no better, new crankshaft sensor, no better, been on the VCDS vagcom diagnostics & no faults logged, now it's got an oil leak that requires the engine out again & a new upper sump which is ally & cracked, a whole load of work, so far this has cost in excess of 5500k, now it won't start at all, a couple of electrical wizards have looked & failed to get it going.
HAD ENOUGH.
It's going on ebay spares or repares & I'm having to get lifts everywhere.
 
@Gary820 what's the voltage of those packs?

Seems you need to be more sparky than mech to fix the new electric cars...

With all those electrics that low down I bet it does not like to wade too much :lol:

It's a 400v battery (will never be at 400v though even 'fully charged')
The battery is basically the size of the floor on the i3, it's a big heavy bugger and a fairly involved job to strip to replace components inside.
Everything in the back is the motor, control electronics and on that picture a 2 cylinder range extender petrol engine. It doesn't drive the vehicle just maintains charge when it's low. The bright orange cables etc are the high voltage ones. Soon as have to start removing them or working next to them it's barriers up.

Is more sparky work then mech work at times, there's myself and 1 other lad qualified to work on the i cars (i3, i8) and qualified to strip high voltage batteries.

Others are qualified to work on the plug in hybrids to maintain the vehicle but not the hv side.
 
It's funny, in my game 400v is low voltage. In fact almost anything up to 1000v is. I can see how it is considered 'high' on cars being used to 12v. I am told that 400v is the lower end of the spectrum for EVs and that they can be up to 600v. Official info given out is if you come across an EV that's been involved in a crash- don't touch it, at all!
 
400V - that'll make your eyes go big (and then dim...)

Pretty involved looking gubbins back there.

So the engine is just for a gennie which then drives the motor / tries to charge the battery. Nifty.
 
Back
Top