Had a customer at the shop who taught me a lesson about listening the first time

This guy rolls in with a 2012 Ford Focus last month, complaining about a weird vibration at highway speed. I did my usual thing - checked the wheel balance, looked at the tires, even pulled the driveshaft on a hunch. Wasted about 90 minutes before I decided to actually take him for a ride and have him point out exactly what he meant. Turns out it was just a loose heat shield rattling against the exhaust pipe, something he mentioned in passing while writing up the ticket. I felt like an idiot honestly, because I could have fixed it in 5 minutes if I'd just paid attention. Anyone else ever dig yourself into a hole by not listening to the customer's full story upfront?

3 comments

3 Comments

jennifer_jones173d ago

Oh man, that's such a classic mechanic trap. A buddy of mine at a different shop had almost the exact same thing happen with a customer's SUV. The guy kept saying "it's a weird hum" and my friend spent two hours chasing transmission noises, replacing fluids, all that. Finally the customer casually mentions "oh yeah it started after I hit a big pothole and the plastic under-tray came loose." Yeah, that was the whole problem. He still gets teased about it during their shop meetings. It's amazing how you can overthink something when the answer is right there in the first sentence.

emma4553d ago

Isn't it crazy how we just assume it's gonna be something complicated when half the time it's the simplest thing they mentioned first? I swear my brain hops straight to the hardest possible fix and ignores the easy stuff they literally tell me.

wren2303d ago

Wait they actually had a shop meeting and teased the guy about it? That's brutal but hilarious. I can just picture the service manager standing up there going "Alright team, today's lesson: if the customer says it started after hitting a pothole, maybe don't drain the transmission fluid first." The fact that your buddy swapped out fluids and everything before the guy mentioned the stupid plastic tray is killing me. How do you go two hours deep on a transmission noise and not even ask "hey when did this start" at the beginning? That's the kind of mistake that haunts you at 3 AM.