Just a little moan about garages

[oxocube]

Hello everyone and happy Friday.

Booked my van into a van garage (van hire but they service and fix many others) with a sound I’d asked them to look into. When I’m in 5th on a motorway or A road I can hear a different engine noise. High pitched sound. I’m thinking it’s a turbo thing, it stops when I stop accelerating or in another gear. It’s deffo from under the bonnet.

Anyway they call me up and say vans fine and they can’t hear any issue with it.
When I go to collect it they tell me in a patronising way some men tell women “you have a roof rack and sometimes they make a whistle sound when you’re over a certain speed as the wind travels over” and “you have large tyres, these too make much more noise as you’re travelling”.

I smiled and took the keys.
What the actual F.
I give up.

Thanks for letting me vent.

 

[DaveD]

Hello everyone and happy Friday.

Booked my van into a van garage (van hire but they service and fix many others) with a sound I’d asked them to look into. When I’m in 5th on a motorway or A road I can hear a different engine noise. High pitched sound. I’m thinking it’s a turbo thing, it stops when I stop accelerating or in another gear. It’s deffo from under the bonnet.

Anyway they call me up and say vans fine and they can’t hear any issue with it.
When I go to collect it they tell me in a patronising way some men tell women “you have a roof rack and sometimes they make a whistle sound when you’re over a certain speed as the wind travels over” and “you have large tyres, these too make much more noise as you’re travelling”.

I smiled and took the keys.
What the actual F. I’ve taken my previous t4 to them and they know I’ve kitted out this one and turned it into a camper myself so why the F would I not know what a roof rack can sometimes sound like.

I give up.

Thanks for letting me vent.

About 90% of the people I know know zero about cars or vans so they can easily be fobbed off by any garage.
Most garage staff just want to read a fault code on a OBD11 scanner, if there's not a fault code they're stuffed.
There are still a few excellent mechanics out there - you've just got to find one.

 

[DieselJames]

I hate it when garages treat customers like we're stupid or in some cases they make out we're lying - I feel your pain!

I had a similar gearbox noise issue and by the 3rd main stealer I'd had enough of them saying they couldn't find anything and there was no issue- so I plucked up the courage to argue back and demanded they let me take a tech out for a drive- within 100 yards the tech agreed he could hear the same noise and in the end I had a new DSG box fitted under warranty.

Not sure why its so hard to get them to listen to us!

 

[DXX]

Not sure why its so hard to get them to listen to us!

Because like any business if people keep parting with their money they must be doing something right.
I know a few people who get seen off by the same garage but still keep going back because they are ‘nice people’ or ‘changed a tail light bulb for free’.

 

[JOG]

Because like any business if people keep parting with their money they must be doing something right.
I know a few people who get seen off by the same garage but still keep going back because they are ‘nice people’ or ‘changed a tail light bulb for free’.

This just sums it up and is so true

 

[Mooncat]

To be fair to the garage, they are being helpful. It sounds like they have tested the vehicle, couldn't hear an issue and have then gone on to see anything on the van that could lead to a noise when driving. You're best off getting a recording of the noise so they have something more definitive to work with and describe exactly the driving conditions (5th gear, accelerating from 1700 - 1900 rpm, full throttle etc).

 

[T6_FunBus]

Noises are annoying. When I picked our van up from VW commercial garage after new water pump, cambelt and assblue pump, it sounded like there was a demented bugger under the bonnet.

It squealed around 1500-2k rpm on acceleration and I thought the turbo was on its way out! I went all around the engine bay checking things, pipes. moo valve, and so on. Eventually i took the dash apart as there was also some rattles from it. Turned out to be a lose bolt clamping the dash to the metal bar across the bulkhead that was making a weird high pitched vibrating at certain rpm. I put a new one in nice and tight - no more budgee sound lol.

I guess I am saying, do not assume the worst and good luck finding it!