Costing repairs
Page 43
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NHEN YOU are forced by .;ircumstance to call in the services of your repair agent, it s a 50/50 chance that when he job is done, and the bill .endered, you will pay up with m almost disbelieving and ;haking hand, or you will put he bill into dispute and refuse )ayment.
The former might mean that ,ou are an "Honest Joe" who varrants great respect,frorn the epairer. Alternatively it could nean that you do not take ufficient care when booking our vehicle in, making sure hat you issue absolute instrucIons as to what has to be done nd pay up regardless of value.
The latter outcome — putmg the bill into dispute — light mean that (a) you are a hark who commands no aspect from the repairer or (b) ou did not take the trouble to link about the job and what it wolved.
However the cookie crumles, such inattention to detail an only nibble away more of our ginger-bread gilt and leave ou the poorer. Whatever else au can afford to skimp — and at is little enough in this usiness — you must be extra ireful when commissioning rorkshop activities at around 6 per hour. And, moreover, on't allow a job to get out of and.
It is often the case that in Dur efforts to secure a quick
1m-round you say things that, hen the time comes for ,ckoning, you bitterly regret.
I came down from the North ie day with an obviously sick earbox. It moaned and loaned on every gradient and ng before I reached the itskirts of London, started mping out of fourth and fifth rS..
At the first signs of sickness I id checked the oil level and und it to be OK. But, with )mething approaching 1.0,000 miles on the clock I ight have been in for a aring replacement or some her fault in the shaft alignent.
I had neither the time nor clination to stop off en route, !ling myself that I could ccessfully nurse it home to sex. But, when she started tnping out of gear I gritted my ath and called myself for a DI
When I eventually got into ( repair shop, already we
uld detect oil running out of a clutch housing, so putting o and three together I iessed, along with the forem fitter there, that I had trouble with a front-end bearing.
Having agreed the diagnosis I left very specific instructions as to what I wanted done. They went like this: • "Drop the box out and make sure we have not cracked the casing anywhere." I was worried about the oil leaking, you see. "You should be able to see by taking off the lid where the trouble lies and" — here was where I made my big mistake — "do what must be done to put it right and remember I'm in a hurry."
I should have asked for a report by 'phone before saying go ahead; after all it was only 7pm and the night shift would have had it out and stripped by lOpm. Well, I didn't, and when I arrived on the scene at eight the next morning the old girl stood outside ready to trundle off on another job.
It was my own box and I congratulated myself on catching the trouble in time.
As I ran down to Tilbury to load, I assessed the job and played with the various ratios to satisfy myself that all was well. Somewhere, though, something did not feel quite right and I loaded for Whiteheaven with some trepidation.
I knew I had boobed by the time I had reached Keele services. The moans and groans were back and gear selection was far from positive. I 'phoned my repair shop and warned them of the problem. I then doodled on very gently to Warrington and asked for another opinion.
"Mainshaft's away" was the immediate Lancastrian response to a short trip.
Now you can't lift the deck trap on a loaded vehicle and the removal of a box from an eight legger is no easy task from underneath. Well, in the end, the job cost me two lots of time, two sets of bearings, a main shaft and a casing.
Of course the mainshaft was already too far gone when the box was first stripped and so was the casing but the fitter in Essex thought he was doing me — a one-man band so to speak — a great favour by spending as little as possible to get the vehicle back on the road.
He thought only in terms of time and material for the actual job in hand, and gave no thought at all to the long-term plan of things.
But it was not his fault; it was mine entirely for not having that late night report. It turned out to be a very expensive -free evening.