Safety systems, bandaids and lawsuits

Post by **Matty Moo** » 07 Jun 2023, 20:16

Those of you that have been on the wrong end of a liability lawsuit will know exactly what I'm talking about. You can go about your day and not read this. Those who haven't might want to take a minute to take in some light reading.

For the love of God or whatever deity you go for, DO NOT ever apply any sort of band-aid fix, bypass, work around, rig or whatever on any of the various safety systems on any vehicle you own. Resistors for SRS lights, golf tees in ABS modules, zip ties on a sensor wire, hardware store bolt on a brake caliper...the choices are endless. Don't. And I really mean DO NOT do it. We've all done it at some point in life. My first few cars were a mess of poor mechanical decisions

One minor or major accident and your car gets looked over. They find what you did and no matter how good your intentions were your ass is in the hotseat for a very long time. Is your insurance company going to back you up? Probably not at that point, once you enter that world they aren't too friendly if you did something wrong, and they'll try their hardest to pin liability on you.

Just a friendly PSA from me.

Post by **scot850** » 07 Jun 2023, 21:03

I don't recommend the band aid treatments. It is purely to ID the issue so it can get fixed.
The fact a buddy did it for maybe 2 years, is not a recommendation!!

I was asked to disconnect a parking brake today as the cable is sticking. I said no. I don't want the responsibility, especially when the repairs are being done for free!

Neil.

Post by **MrAl** » 08 Jun 2023, 08:53

Hi,

I got my brakes fixed at a garage once on my 1998v70.
I was lucky enough to go to an obscure bakery for the first time in my life that happened to have the parking lot on a hill so i had to use the parking brake. The parking brake did not work. I know it worked before i took it to the garage, but shouldnt they have checked it before given the car back to me and charging for the work.

If i did not go to that bakery i would have not known it did not work. If the brakes failed for some reason, i would have had no backup.
All they had to do was adjust the dang thing to get it to work.

AND, this is AFTER i asked them specifically if it was safe to drive to Pennsylvania the next week with that car after the brakes repair.

So you can see the kind of garbage mechanics we have in this area.

There's also the issue of the replaced front passenger side parking light, from amber to clear, and no garage EVER mentioned that to me after any repair.

These are places that should be sued.

SOURDOUGHJIM · Post by **SOURDOUGHJIM** » 08 Jun 2023, 12:15

Rat rods. I give them a wide berth.

Post by **abscate** » 08 Jun 2023, 14:08

Control arm fix, won’t rust in winter!

WhatAmIDoing · Post by **WhatAmIDoing** » 08 Jun 2023, 21:31

NTB aligned my car 3 times before getting it right. The first time they said the steering box was messed up so the wheel was a little off. I told them I needed to drive 800 miles that weekend. They said it was safe. What I quickly came to discover was the wheel was at 3 o'clock driving "straight" and the right front toe was still out nearly 6 degrees... And I almost didn't make my trip for a totally unrelated reason.

The tech also clearly couldn't drive stick. That clutch had maybe 20k miles on it when I bought it. Grabbed really low on the pedal. Now it just starts to grab at the top and slips when backing up hill. They were quick to make me talk to their corporate attorneys, so I got one to talk back.

If you're not going to fix cars right the first or even the second time, then do everyone else a favor and close up shop. I'm perfectly capable of doing questionable repairs on my own time. I don't need to pay someone else to do it worse. Do the job right and you won't end up on the bad side of a lawsuit.

Post by **scot850** » 08 Jun 2023, 22:50

My pet peeve is working on cars that others have done badly over many years. Un-picking all the bodges is tiresome and expensive. Having some form of annual inspection makes sense like the TUV in Germany or MoT in the UK. At least if the inspector is half competent, your car is at least fairly safe one day a year! It also means many of the repairs I have found (or not found?) on cars since I came to Canada sometimes just makes me shake my head!

Neil.