Trade secrets

Motor,  Jun 2002  by Cerullo, Bob

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Bob slows down an obnoxious customer with an always-on-the-go lifestyle just long enough to teach her the importance of routine vehicle maintenance.

Chalk on a blackboard is torture for most people. Strangely enough, that never bothered me, but when I hear someone who's clueless try to start an already running engine, I cringe. Maybe it's more than a cringe. It might be better described as a sudden flash of abject horror.

Yeah, I just don't like to see people abuse machinery. I don't like to see someone use pliers to remove a hex nut. I get grouchy when someone repeatedly races an engine with the transmission in Neutral in some misguided effort to make it start easier the next time. I hate it when I see a technician use a hammer on a beautiful chronic-- plated socket. Bang my car door with yours in a parking lot and you and I are gonna get it on. And don't even get me started on burning rubber on the road. That can bring me to the brink.

Because I just don't like it when someone abuses a car, I was never fond of a customer I'll call "Ima Ditz." Ima is, I suppose, what some people might call a very nice lady. She drives a Lexus ES 300 and is always well-dressed and well-groomed, and loaded with -what looks like expensive jewelry.

Ima always seems to be in a big hurry. She particularly thrills me when, in the middle of one of our always rushed conversations, she answers her cell phone and leaves me standing there while she chats with a fellow member of the Obnoxious Ladies Society. I think Ina might have been absent from school the day they taught basic courtesy. She somehow always makes me feel as if I need a bath.. even on a NN"ednesday after I've taken one on Saturday. Maybe it's the way she turns up her nose at the rest of the world.

Ima more often than not will zip in on a Friday afternoon about ten minutes before closing. And, of course, she'll be in a desperate hurry for any one of a number of reasons that she'll breathlessly describe in excruciating detail. As if I might find the details of her day fascinating.

It boils down to her wanting us to finish in about ten minutes all the work her husband told her she must have done on her car. He leases it but she drives it. She pulls out all the stops in an effort to put on the pressure: "Ve give you all our work." "My husband will be very disappointed." "I'll have to find someone who has more time to fix my car." The list goes on and on.

As I've done many times, I explain to Ima Ditz that no one can do in ten minutes the kind of work her car needs, and the chances of getting it done just before closing are practically nil. So we generally agree that she'll bring the car back the following morning because, it goes without saying, Ima can't be without her car for a day, for an evening, for an hour or even for 15 minutes.

Knowing what I've just told you about Ima, you can imagine my surprise when she called and asked if she could make an appointment to drop off her car. She was so sweet and cooperative, I thought I had mistaken who it was on the phone. Hallelujah! Ima had been reborn and was going to actually have a spring checkup and give us plenty of time to do whatever we found needed to be done.

The following morning, Ima arrived trailing light blue smoke from her Lexus, which she somehow didn't seem to notice. In her usual hurry she said she knew it was time to bring in the car because the guy in the gas station said it needed work. When I asked what he had noticed, she was very vague and too rushed to tell me. But I was persistent.

She finally told me that she was riding along and the engine oil pressure warning light went on. She knew, I'm surprised to say, that that meant something important. The guy in the gas station said it probably needed oil. So apparently, without checking the dipstick, he removed the oil filler cap and tried to add oil. He showed Ima that the cap had a kind of hard, tarlike stalactite hanging from it. Ima said the guy tried to add oil but it wouldn't go in, and he told her she had better have the engine checked.

And that's how it came about that she was in my shop this day. As I wrote up the repair order, I asked, as I always do, if she knew when the oil and filter had last been changed. Ima looked at me like the cat that swallowed the canary. She had no idea, she said, but thought they might have been changed "last year." The only oil change sticker I could find was from the dealer. at 3000 miles! Ima's Lexus had nearly 26,000 miles on it-most of it since its first (and only) oil change. Not surprisingly, the air filter was clogged, too.

I assigned a tech to find out why the oil filler hole was blocked. It quickly became obvious that the valve cover needed to be removed. By then, Ima had left without a word of protest. In fact, she had been incredibly cooperative.

In a short while, the tech called me over to see the thick accumulation of a black, tarlike substance clinging to the inside of the valve cover and the top of the head. He said it looked as if she hadn't changed the oil in several months, to which I said, "Try two years and 23,000 miles!" He was shocked.