I had so many problems with garages not doing a proper job that I started doing all the work myself. Over the years ive gained enough tools to kit out a proper garage nearly, and do all my car/motorbike servicing & work myself. Anything from clutches, brakes, suspension to welding to cambelts. This is the only way I know exactly what has been fitted and that its been done properly.
All my friends & family also bring their cars to me for their servicing/brakes/suspension or whatever and im more than happy to help them out.
Fortunately ive not really had any major DIY problems. Although one particular incident does leap out at me.
One of my mates bought his car over for a service. It was a diesel. Now ive serviced this particular car many times without any problems. It was due just an oil & filter, but he had bought the full kit so I did the air filter, fuel filter & pollen filter too. All in all 17 minutes to do the entire job and he saved himself the £240 the main dealer wanted. However he didnt bring enough oil. The car needed 6 litres and he only had 3. It wasnt even showing on the dip stick. I offered to take him to halfrauds to buy some more but he said he had a new 5 litre bottle at home and didnt want to waste his money. He`d just top up when he got home(!)
So then it comes time to start the car, and to our surprise it wouldnt start to save its life. God knows why as last time I serviced it, it fired up immediately. After a lot of cranking with no luck my mate helpfully tells me that he had ran out of diesel the other week and the AA man squirted easy start into the inlet of the carb and that fired it up. Ive never used this stuff before but my mate was adamant that is what we had to do.
So, I havent got any easystart but google suggests brake cleaner is the same stuff and ive got gallons of that. So, my mate starts cranking the engine over and encourages me to squirt this stuff into his engine. Nothing happens. Squirt more... nothing... more.. nothing.. bit more... (remember folks this car as hardly any oil in it) nothing... then.... BANG, my god, the engine fired up and went from zero to banging off the rev limiter in a millisecond. Ive never heard anything like it. I was expecting conrods to come flying out of the side of the engine. Clouds of black smoke came out of the back of the car, so much so you couldnt see accross the road. Then the engine started making the most distressing rattling noise ive ever heard an engine make. If there was ever a death rattle, this was it. Then it died. No amount of turning over got it going again, it just rattled like a bag of spanners in a washing machine and wouldnt start.
My mate by this point is in tears, ive never seen a man look so worried. He needs the car to get to the airport the next day. Im not helping by looking on ebay to see how much new engines cost. So not only do we not know if the car will ever start again, we dont know if this death rattle has killed the engine.
He calls the AA and, after an agonising 2hour wait with my mate sitting there with his head in his hands, they come out & cant get it going either. Its not looking good and my mates looking as pale as a ghost.
In the end they tow it to his local garage and they had a look at it the next day. What had happened is that the fuel pump was on its way out. It was so weak that it couldnt suck the fuel through after changing the fuel filter as there was a little air lock in it. Even cracking the injectors open didnt do it, they had to suck it all through or something using some machine. Thankfully, once the oil had been topped up, the death rattle went and the car actually drove fine which was a bit of a relief.
The experience, put me off servicing anyone elses cars ever again tho.
