greg334
Veteran Expediter
What would you do?
Just to tell you, I wanted to get this done once the first bolt was messed with. I have had to deal with a messed up vehicle before because I got p*ssed off at the mechanics and it took me longer to fix it than to deal with idiots to get is fixed the first time to my satifaction. I had time and patients and really had some fun today but I hurt from this experience.
(this is a long long post)
Today I went to Wal-Mart to get two new batteries for my van. I finally gave up trying to keep them charged enough to get moving with all the ‘stuff’ I have on it and that one was with the truck since it was new and the other one was four years old.
So I went to the one in Warren Michigan, across from the tech center and figure that I will walk across the street and visit with the GM people while I got it done but my father decided to take me out to lunch so there went my plan.
I picked out the batteries, not much to choose from either 700 CCA or 900 CCA and went to the ‘service’ desk. When I was finally helped, I told the girl that I needed two batteries and a blank look came over her face. She could not understand why a van needed two batteries. I explain what I usually explain to people who have no clue and told her the second battery is on the left frame rail and needs to be removed. So as I am watching the girl try to figure out how to add an extra battery on the bill she mentions that it is at least two hours before they will get to it. OK I took my little tag and reminded that the second battery is on the left frame rail – thinking that she will add that to the paper work. To make sure I told my father I will return in an hour and a half because something does not seem right.
After lunch we arrived to see the van pulled partially into the bay and the hood up. I went to the ‘service’ desk and found another girl working at the desk. I told her that I wanted to make sure the mechanic replaced two batteries and the second one was on the left frame rail. She ‘Oh this is why he came in and asked if the order was correctâ€. I ended up going out and talking to the kid who was the “Mechanicâ€, 20 maybe 21 but that is it.
So after a while I see he was gone. I thought openly to my father ‘ok he must be on floor working on the side battery’. About 10 minutes passed and he comes in to explain that he can’t ‘get the bolt thing off’ of the battery. OK I asked him to please explain what he meant which is he could not break the battery cable bolt loose on the battery. He mentioned that he would ‘try’ to use vise grips to get this off but he would have to replace the bolt thing if he has them in stock. I told him to do this “try to remove the negative cable first and if he got it loose, work on the positive. I didn’t want him to try and break the positive cable only to give up on the job and have a positive LIVE cable dangling and touching my frame – oh what a heat source that would make in cold weather.
About 15 minutes later, he comes in again and asks me to look at the problem – what me get on the floor and help this $9/hour ‘mechanic’? Well I did and he was only putting in half the effort to get the bolt out. I saw what attempts he made and grab the vise grips, almost locked them and turn the screw until I had to use all my strength to snap the thing closed and pulled as hard as I needed to loosen the bolt. I screwed up my back and neck, let alone got my clean Wal-Mart $5.95 shirt and arms really dirty and I hope to save the shirt but the arms and hands need to be replaced. Well it never came out but I got it to move enough where the battery could come out. During this time, my Father decided to go get new bolts and came back with them.
He was telling me as I was doing his job that he should have declined the work, I reminded him that after the girl at the counter took the order and my van was sitting here with one dead battery and a second that was dying, he has an obligation to take care of a customer who pays his wages and I would have been bitching at the manger and at corporate about his refusal to do an easy job. After my Murray’s experience yesterday where I almost lost my temper (really hard to do actually) I wasn’t going to have someone who works at Wal-Mart tell me what they are going to do after a commitment was made on their part.
So I told him seeing I can’t get the negative cable off, I will disconnect it from the frame (which he said he is not allowed to do while I know that they replace starter cables) and I will see if the positive side can come loose. I also asked him “did you disconnect the battery under the hood?†his response “No, should I?†Let’s see positive terminal with very tightly locked vice grips on it which is a live terminal I must add, vice grips hit cradle mount which is grounded through the frame and weld itself on to the frame at the same time melting a $350 cable? I think we will pass on that option and make sure he does his job by using the adage ‘Safety First’ – disconnect the battery.
He watched me as I pulled on the vice grips and boom, it came loose without any problems. I decided to loosen the cradle bolts, which surprisingly came loose easy. I then told him that he will need a jack to support the battery (at this point I figured out that he may be able to read and write at a six grade level but he is no mechanic) and his response was “they don’t allow us to use jacks here†to that I responded by saying “ok well get on you back and hope it don’t break your nose because that battery is coming out and a jack would make it a lot easier. Amazing that a jack appeared out of no where and he had it supporting the battery cradle.
Out came the battery, than he was trying to figure out how to get the bracket loose. Simple 1/2†bolt, but for some reason I stopped him after I saw the bolt move but the threads on the other side not move. I told him wait a minute and get a wire brush. I took liquid wrench out of the truck and gave the threads a good dosing, and wire brush the threads. He went off again to help the other ‘mechanic’ do an oil change and while he was gone, I took the bracket off.
When he returned I made him take the battery out and put the new one in but ahhh… the new one didn’t fit. Ok he didn’t put the thing in right, it was wedged in the cradle and I had to take it out and show him how to put it in. once that was done, I instructed him what to do next – take the negative cable off the old battery and try to get the bolt out of it and went to clean up.
So far I spent almost 45 minutes around or under the truck doing his job or directing him how to do his job. (I condensed my description a lot.)
When I returned he had some problems with the negative cable and he broke the cable off, no biggy, I got a lot of terminals in the truck from my Father’s adventure and told him I would take care of it. My Father on the other hand decided to have him replace the ends when I went to change my shirt and this left the ‘mechanic’ going into the store to find a cable instead of replacing the end. When he came back with a 4 ga cable to replace a 0 ga cable I asked him if he can see that there a slight difference in size? He said ‘I guess so’. I asked him where is his cable cutters? He has a pair of wire cutters at that point I told him I would take care of is when I get home. I didn’t want someone to try to cut a thick cable with a pair of wire cutters and had to deal with father because he got mad I didn’t want the ‘mechanic’ to do a thing. I did have him hook up the positive cable on the battery on the frame. He was puzzled and then said that he will finish up the work by replacing the front battery, FINALLY!
Well let’s say he could mess up a … never mind.
He hooked up the new battery and told me he was going to start the truck up. as he was doing this, he had difficulty to get the bolt started – so I assumed something would not work. At the same time, two Wal-Mart employees walked in and it looked like managers but than I would have expected one of them come over and ask why am I in the work area? But they didn’t. He tried to start the van and click – just one click, not two click, but one lonely click. He came out of the cab dumb founded with the same dumb look as the girl had while she wrote me up.
He said that he hooked up the battery, the cables are bad!? No the cables are not bad!
He came up with ‘well because the battery [on the frame] is not hooked up, the system needs the connection to be made in order for the van to start?†Nope, wrong again.
I told him to disconnect the negative cable and let me hook it up. While I was starting to hook up the cable, I told him to turn on the headlights so I know I will make a good connection. I told him after I tightened the bolt, start the van – no click, no two click but start.
At that point I spent 90 minutes in the bay teaching him how to do his job or doing it for him. And the manager types that came in didn’t ask a thing but one was the manager for the department and the other was the store ‘co-manager’.
After all of this he offered to move my van all greased up and ready for an oil change – at that point I said no I will move it.
So after all of this, I still have to repair the cable and clean my shirt. I am also writing a long letter to Wal-Mart about the liability of having customers do work on their vehicles because they;
1- Don’t hire experienced people that know about safety or how to properly work on a vehicle,
2 – Hire improper management, who can’t recognize a liability in front of them,
3 – don’t know that if something happened to me, like a the vice grips snap off the bolt and hit me in the head, what Wal-Mart would be paying me for a long time that would buy me the new house, new RV and a bunch of other things I always wanted like an iPod,
This is not mentioning that I also would like to be compensated for the time I spent doing the work. At a reasonable rate with my experience should be worth something like a gift certificate or something but I don’t expect anything with them.
In by 1PM out by 4:45PM - not a bad way to spend a day.
Oh by the way this should have not taken more than an hour to do all the work according to my R&R guide for the truck.
Just to tell you, I wanted to get this done once the first bolt was messed with. I have had to deal with a messed up vehicle before because I got p*ssed off at the mechanics and it took me longer to fix it than to deal with idiots to get is fixed the first time to my satifaction. I had time and patients and really had some fun today but I hurt from this experience.
(this is a long long post)
Today I went to Wal-Mart to get two new batteries for my van. I finally gave up trying to keep them charged enough to get moving with all the ‘stuff’ I have on it and that one was with the truck since it was new and the other one was four years old.
So I went to the one in Warren Michigan, across from the tech center and figure that I will walk across the street and visit with the GM people while I got it done but my father decided to take me out to lunch so there went my plan.
I picked out the batteries, not much to choose from either 700 CCA or 900 CCA and went to the ‘service’ desk. When I was finally helped, I told the girl that I needed two batteries and a blank look came over her face. She could not understand why a van needed two batteries. I explain what I usually explain to people who have no clue and told her the second battery is on the left frame rail and needs to be removed. So as I am watching the girl try to figure out how to add an extra battery on the bill she mentions that it is at least two hours before they will get to it. OK I took my little tag and reminded that the second battery is on the left frame rail – thinking that she will add that to the paper work. To make sure I told my father I will return in an hour and a half because something does not seem right.
After lunch we arrived to see the van pulled partially into the bay and the hood up. I went to the ‘service’ desk and found another girl working at the desk. I told her that I wanted to make sure the mechanic replaced two batteries and the second one was on the left frame rail. She ‘Oh this is why he came in and asked if the order was correctâ€. I ended up going out and talking to the kid who was the “Mechanicâ€, 20 maybe 21 but that is it.
So after a while I see he was gone. I thought openly to my father ‘ok he must be on floor working on the side battery’. About 10 minutes passed and he comes in to explain that he can’t ‘get the bolt thing off’ of the battery. OK I asked him to please explain what he meant which is he could not break the battery cable bolt loose on the battery. He mentioned that he would ‘try’ to use vise grips to get this off but he would have to replace the bolt thing if he has them in stock. I told him to do this “try to remove the negative cable first and if he got it loose, work on the positive. I didn’t want him to try and break the positive cable only to give up on the job and have a positive LIVE cable dangling and touching my frame – oh what a heat source that would make in cold weather.
About 15 minutes later, he comes in again and asks me to look at the problem – what me get on the floor and help this $9/hour ‘mechanic’? Well I did and he was only putting in half the effort to get the bolt out. I saw what attempts he made and grab the vise grips, almost locked them and turn the screw until I had to use all my strength to snap the thing closed and pulled as hard as I needed to loosen the bolt. I screwed up my back and neck, let alone got my clean Wal-Mart $5.95 shirt and arms really dirty and I hope to save the shirt but the arms and hands need to be replaced. Well it never came out but I got it to move enough where the battery could come out. During this time, my Father decided to go get new bolts and came back with them.
He was telling me as I was doing his job that he should have declined the work, I reminded him that after the girl at the counter took the order and my van was sitting here with one dead battery and a second that was dying, he has an obligation to take care of a customer who pays his wages and I would have been bitching at the manger and at corporate about his refusal to do an easy job. After my Murray’s experience yesterday where I almost lost my temper (really hard to do actually) I wasn’t going to have someone who works at Wal-Mart tell me what they are going to do after a commitment was made on their part.
So I told him seeing I can’t get the negative cable off, I will disconnect it from the frame (which he said he is not allowed to do while I know that they replace starter cables) and I will see if the positive side can come loose. I also asked him “did you disconnect the battery under the hood?†his response “No, should I?†Let’s see positive terminal with very tightly locked vice grips on it which is a live terminal I must add, vice grips hit cradle mount which is grounded through the frame and weld itself on to the frame at the same time melting a $350 cable? I think we will pass on that option and make sure he does his job by using the adage ‘Safety First’ – disconnect the battery.
He watched me as I pulled on the vice grips and boom, it came loose without any problems. I decided to loosen the cradle bolts, which surprisingly came loose easy. I then told him that he will need a jack to support the battery (at this point I figured out that he may be able to read and write at a six grade level but he is no mechanic) and his response was “they don’t allow us to use jacks here†to that I responded by saying “ok well get on you back and hope it don’t break your nose because that battery is coming out and a jack would make it a lot easier. Amazing that a jack appeared out of no where and he had it supporting the battery cradle.
Out came the battery, than he was trying to figure out how to get the bracket loose. Simple 1/2†bolt, but for some reason I stopped him after I saw the bolt move but the threads on the other side not move. I told him wait a minute and get a wire brush. I took liquid wrench out of the truck and gave the threads a good dosing, and wire brush the threads. He went off again to help the other ‘mechanic’ do an oil change and while he was gone, I took the bracket off.
When he returned I made him take the battery out and put the new one in but ahhh… the new one didn’t fit. Ok he didn’t put the thing in right, it was wedged in the cradle and I had to take it out and show him how to put it in. once that was done, I instructed him what to do next – take the negative cable off the old battery and try to get the bolt out of it and went to clean up.
So far I spent almost 45 minutes around or under the truck doing his job or directing him how to do his job. (I condensed my description a lot.)
When I returned he had some problems with the negative cable and he broke the cable off, no biggy, I got a lot of terminals in the truck from my Father’s adventure and told him I would take care of it. My Father on the other hand decided to have him replace the ends when I went to change my shirt and this left the ‘mechanic’ going into the store to find a cable instead of replacing the end. When he came back with a 4 ga cable to replace a 0 ga cable I asked him if he can see that there a slight difference in size? He said ‘I guess so’. I asked him where is his cable cutters? He has a pair of wire cutters at that point I told him I would take care of is when I get home. I didn’t want someone to try to cut a thick cable with a pair of wire cutters and had to deal with father because he got mad I didn’t want the ‘mechanic’ to do a thing. I did have him hook up the positive cable on the battery on the frame. He was puzzled and then said that he will finish up the work by replacing the front battery, FINALLY!
Well let’s say he could mess up a … never mind.
He hooked up the new battery and told me he was going to start the truck up. as he was doing this, he had difficulty to get the bolt started – so I assumed something would not work. At the same time, two Wal-Mart employees walked in and it looked like managers but than I would have expected one of them come over and ask why am I in the work area? But they didn’t. He tried to start the van and click – just one click, not two click, but one lonely click. He came out of the cab dumb founded with the same dumb look as the girl had while she wrote me up.
He said that he hooked up the battery, the cables are bad!? No the cables are not bad!
He came up with ‘well because the battery [on the frame] is not hooked up, the system needs the connection to be made in order for the van to start?†Nope, wrong again.
I told him to disconnect the negative cable and let me hook it up. While I was starting to hook up the cable, I told him to turn on the headlights so I know I will make a good connection. I told him after I tightened the bolt, start the van – no click, no two click but start.
At that point I spent 90 minutes in the bay teaching him how to do his job or doing it for him. And the manager types that came in didn’t ask a thing but one was the manager for the department and the other was the store ‘co-manager’.
After all of this he offered to move my van all greased up and ready for an oil change – at that point I said no I will move it.
So after all of this, I still have to repair the cable and clean my shirt. I am also writing a long letter to Wal-Mart about the liability of having customers do work on their vehicles because they;
1- Don’t hire experienced people that know about safety or how to properly work on a vehicle,
2 – Hire improper management, who can’t recognize a liability in front of them,
3 – don’t know that if something happened to me, like a the vice grips snap off the bolt and hit me in the head, what Wal-Mart would be paying me for a long time that would buy me the new house, new RV and a bunch of other things I always wanted like an iPod,
This is not mentioning that I also would like to be compensated for the time I spent doing the work. At a reasonable rate with my experience should be worth something like a gift certificate or something but I don’t expect anything with them.
In by 1PM out by 4:45PM - not a bad way to spend a day.
Oh by the way this should have not taken more than an hour to do all the work according to my R&R guide for the truck.
on the west side called Petes Ham Center. Awsome food at a rate you cant beat. I use to eat there about once a week, now anytime i'm home i eat there. Maybe sometime we can meet up there and have some food/coffee.