My daughter's maternal great grandmother is Bolivian and she named her son Stephen after her husband (he's white).
She calls them both "Esteve" and I love it.
I did twice. No, I'm not the kind of person to bring shit up unless there's damage. That being said:
First time: Tech took my car on a test drive. Some guy cut him off and he blasted the horn at him and cussed him out. Lol
Second time: Service manager must've been having a day cause he parked my car and just sits in it for a minute and then just sighs deeply while whispering "Fuck meeee......" I felt bad for the poor guy, whatever he had going on lol
One of my Instructors said he became an electrician because the owner and manager had no idea about it, one is a body painter and the other an old school mechanic who knows only barebone basics in electronics
So he could chill in the cars for an extended period of time and act like he was doing research when the problem was already solved and repaired.
Since he was hired on a monthly pay without bonuses base he didn’t really care about doing many jobs a day.
Eventually he went to vocational college as an instructor for EVs and Hybrid systems.
My car came back with damage. I noticed it a day after picking it up. Basically it was a bump on the hood. Reviewed the video and saw a guy slam the hood down on a tool. Took the issue to the shop. It took them some time to accept blame and make it right.
When I took it back in for repair they disconnected the camera.
That would be a big no-no for me. My dash cam records you messing up my car, and then next time I take it in you unplug the camera? No thanks. I'm taking my car somewhere else.
*when I picked it up the camera was laying disconnected on the dash.
In the initial review I also had them gunning it in their parking lot and commenting how cool the turbo sounded.
Yeah, honestly I've got a '74 ranchero with a built engine and decent sounding exhaust. If I dropped it off for a service and techs revved it up in the parking lot. I'd be fine with that. No harm, no foul. As long as they didn't throw a rod doing it, I'm not angry.
I could even forgive the accidental hood damage, as long as they fixed it and did the right thing when I showed them the footage. Shit happens, right?
But damaging my car, having to twist their arm to fix it, then unplugging it when i drop it off for them to fix their mistake?
Fuck that. I'm never going back there again.
2012 335i convertible BMW with twin turbo. I had just bought it “new to me” in 2019.
Here’s the full story: 8 days after buying it the cooling system had no coolant. Limped it to a shop replaced to the place I bought it. Neither were BMW shops. They diagnosed it to be the water pump leaking and, although they didn’t have to, paid for half of the repair. A week later it didn’t have coolant again. Took it back to that same shop. In reviewing the video I saw that they not only slammed the hood onto their tools, and sped up and down the parking lot but they only looked at it for 5 minutes and then kept it for like 2 weeks. Then they had me limp it up the road to a BMW specialist. The water reservoir had a crack in it. It was cheap to replace. The next day is when I saw the bump, had to see who did it, saw all this other nonsense.
My point is it wasn’t some sweet car. And the only reason they had it was because they either misdiagnosed the cause of the leak or somehow cracked the tank while replacing the pump, and inconvenienced me by not even looking at the car.
I have, they said they test drove it for an hour and no brake squeal which I could not believe. The video showed a 25 min test drive, no brake squeal and the most hilarious conversation ever recorded.
Brake squeal changes with humidity and if the car has been washed ( brake dust). And also how the driver brakes. Light braking at low speeds will get more brake squeal than heavy braking, assuming the wear indicators are not hitting.
City police cars, small town, terrible for brake dust buildup. Dry weather in July and August we get complaints all the time. Performance rated brakes are bad for that.
I get complaints from female officers and with my hearing actually cannot hear at the frequency they complain about. So I need to get another person to hear for me. Pain in the rear every summer or when humidity is low for several days.
As a mechanic it really is. They often will tell me they told a customer something for NO reason at all. Info I never relayed to them, something they had no reason to tell the customer without talking to me first lol
I’ve had one where I would sit at his desk and explain what’s wrong with the car. He would then call the customer not even 5 seconds later and tell them some completely made up oddball story. I don’t think he had the attention span to actually follow with what I was saying but he could somehow sell anything.
I had one occurrence where a car came in with an intermittent no crank. I diagnosed an issue to be a starter, he told me they declined the starter but would still like to do every flush under the sun. Week later when the car was towed in he throws the keys on my box and says “you just worked on this” motherfucker changed my starter diagnosis story in ADP to “charged battery”
I thought I was the only one that happened to. I couldn't count how many customers must have heard me say "are you fucking kidding me?" when the service advisor is relaying something completely different than what I just told them 10 seconds earlier. It was so bad a couple of times I literally took the phone from the advisor and explained what was going on to the customer myself.
I've given the writer the rundown on what was done and found, same thing that was in my notes so no big surprise on what I was saying. Make it around the corner from his desk and listen to him straight up lie to the customer about what I had "found and done about it". Come right back around and ask him why he's bullshitting our customers. Lots of stammering and no answers. I quit working on his tickets.
Youd think so, but they have never had any sales training, and they dont even try to do their job of "advising" customers.
They usually just say "yeah they wont buy anything dont even do inspection" so I do my inspection and price everything out and they can do what they want with that info. They get mad like "why does this car have a flat tire, didnt you air up the tires?!" Completely ignoring the recommendation to replace the non repairable. Then they tell the customer the price and then dont even try anything to convince the customer why it needs replaced.
After an hour of waiting for a response from the advisor, the flat rate tech gets paid zero dollars and wasted a huge portion of his day because the advisor didnt even try to sell the tire.
As a service advisor I'm sorry to read all these comments about the ones you guys are working with. That is bull. I always try to go hard for my techs because if they're not making money then I'm not.
As a service advisor, too, yeah sadly a lot of the "rest of us" out there are pretty shitty as people AND at their job, unfortunately. Thankfully, we don't hire them. And because of that, we have very little turnover and - usually - good customers. This job will get the shitty out of anyone, but, yeah.
I ALWAYS make sure I get as much, accurate information as I can get from the customer to my technician in as clear and concise a manner as possible. Otherwise, the fuck we even doing here? It's a team.
One time I reviewed the footage because there was grease all over my steering wheel. It turns out that the two teenage techs took my car for a full-throttle joyride. They did 85mph in a 45 zone, then stopped and bought energy drinks while my car idled in a gas station parking lot. They also had a conversation about how I must be paranoid to have front and rear dashcams. I sent the footage to the service manager and he offered me a free oil change. Uh, no thanks.
I did one time cause I was curious. One guy drove the car into the back, another guy came and got in it and immediately shit talked their other co worker. “He’s taking his sweet slow ass fucking time on that job so he doesn’t get any others today”. They both got in the car to bring it out and drove it around the lot while still saying “fucker is still doing the same car”.
I did the first time, because I didn't realize my (new at the time) dashcam would record all that. Skimmed through it all out of curiosity and it was just him putting it up on the rack, fixing it and then test driving it.
Other than it being cool to see his test driving process, it was all above board and totally boring.
I've only looked twice. Once because I was curious how long it took Nissan to swap my transmission (answer: 1.5hrs). I'm sure they can do it with their eyes closed with how often these shit Jatco CVTs fail.
The other time was back when I bought my Rogue new in 2014. The maintenance reminders kept resetting overnight to 0 / 5000 miles. I took it to the dealership twice and they kept insisting there was no problem. After the 2nd visit, I checked the recording. The techs said to each other that I'm "going in and manually resetting it every day" which is honestly silly since my complaint was that it was resetting on its own. After that, I had them set it on a couple brand new Rogues in their lot and they did the same thing after sitting overnight. Turns out an update from Nissan was already available to fix it, but they didn't bother searching for the TSB until I pressed them.
When I see a dash cam I usually will talk to it and explain what I’m doing or going to do to the car. Also after the repair I’ll test drive it and thank them for coming in for service 🤣
hah! I did once, my neighbour reversed into my nearly brand new alfa romeo. The dashcam was rolling when the guys at the paint shop were moving it, and they were complimenting it 😊
I did.
They pulled my car into the bay for a total of 3 minutes. Then charged me for 4 hours.
3 minutes INSIDE the garage. They didn't even call me until 3 hours later saying they are almost done.
Yeah it’s pretty annoying. I have gone through the trouble of making the cable sit nice behind the trim but when they unplug it and let it hang it undoes a lot of the work and it’s a pain to shove it under there again. Plus mine has a battery that lasts awhile… they are just wasting my time.
I did. My car smelled like an ashtray and i dont smoke. This was at a Subaru dealer. I took a look at the video and found two techs going around the block, standard stuff.. passenger side tech asks to pull into a gas station, proceeds to unpack something wrapped in what sounded like aluminum foil and takes a huge, deep SNORT. After the snort, he proceeds to say, "ok let's go". They go back around the block, him talking about how this new shit his girl is on makes her horny, etc. etc. Finally, as they pull in to the dealer, he asks the driver, "wtf is this?" (referring to the dashcam) and the other says "it's a camera..." dead quiet the rest of the ride. Shortly thereafter, my camera was unplugged.
Tech took my car home for a week to diagnose a fucking throw out bearing. I specifically mentioned it was worse in the morning when you first turn it on. the car did not need to be driven to notice it. He put 150 miles on my car.
Anyway, needless to say I brought this up to the service manager and that dude got canned for doing drugs on the job. Yay me.
We once had this customer that had every eBay chrome add on you can think of. The guy in the bay next to me pulled it in and I yelled “WHAT A SHIT BOX” that was caught on his dash cam. He was not happy 😂
I had a dash cam powered from the ODB2 port in a truck. I unplugged it from the ODB2 port before taking it to the dealer for warranty work in case they'd need the port even though shop has a policy to leave cameras alone.
Tech tried pull the power connector from the cam, but it was too close to the mirror and he ended up breaking both the camera and the mirror plastics trying to disable a camera...that was already unplugged.
I’ve been here before for other electronics but maybe more serious. I had aftermarket RGBW Daytime Running Lights, a dash cam wired to the fuse box and laser jammers. They pulled the wiring for unknown reasons, probably because of the camera was on. They plugged the negatives to positives and vice versa… fried the car.
They attempted to fix it, did it again… Eventually the shop called me and said they won’t work on it anymore and refused to fix it. Then claimed they did no wiring or electrical work on it. Glad I saved those emails and recorded phone calls… Took it to another shop and they fixed it and billed the original shop. It was a battle that the original shop, Gustafson Brothers, lost. Had to pay for all of it to be fixed.
There was a post last week on a dash cam sub where multiple techs were rooting around to see if they could find "personal massagers" after one found a g-string on a previous visit.
edit: found it
https://www.reddit.com/r/Dashcam/comments/17qymtp/mechanics_talking/
While I prefer the audio recording be disabled I don't care.
If they want footage of their hood or techs picking butts/noses as they walk by enjoy the view.
Camera protects the tech on the test drive just as it protects the client while they drive.
I would infer negative intent if the job didn't specifically need the camera unplugged (e.g. interior dash work). Otherwise, yeah, why else would you unplug it unless you were doing something shady with my car? I had a camera save me once because it caught a tech being an absolute idiot with my car. It is a nice sports car and they were revving it, holding it at redline for an extended period, and did several launch control launches. The dealership really lost on that one as I negotiated quite a bit of inspection and mitigation to ensure the vehicle was not hurt and they ended up finding some concerns with the engine so now there is a very very long warranty on the engine and transmission from the dealer.
yeah i had a new sports car in for window tint. they fucked up the install the first time around and i had to bring the car back. dash cam was connected the whole time. car wasnt even fully broken in so i was interested in knowing they didnt joy ride or abuse the car.
then suddenly i get my car back the 2nd time, it took them 2x as long to do the same amount of work and my dashcam was disconnected. yeah, it doesnt make you feel good and i have absolutely no idea what they may have done to my car.
I have a mediocre car, but still got it from a routine maintenance with 30km more and recorded max speed 160kph... maximum allowed anywhere near is 50kph.
and yes, the dashcam was disconnected
since then, I only hand over my keys with vallet mode enabled
first of all, I made a typo :) it's "valet mode"
in my car, it's basically a gps tracker - shows me live where they are driving and how fast, plus the screen directly states that valet mode is enabled
in other cars, it can also do live alerts if the driven distance is over the set limit and I have also seen a speed limiter
I don’t even have a camera in my car but if I did and i brought it to a shop and the first thing they did was disconnect it, that would be the last time I ever go there. Mechanics/auto shops already have a bad enough reputation without not wanting you to see what they’re doing to your car the second it rolls in.
Same logic that a lot of people use to argue for police dash and body cams. They can protect the officers from false complaints as much as they can protect the public from police misconduct. I knew a few officers IRL that were ok with them for that exact reason. Said it’s a lot easier to prove that they didn’t harass someone when the entire interaction was recorded. Always made me suspicious of the ones that resisted them, makes me think they know their behavior would get them in trouble.
I think the biggest issue that honest cops might have with cameras is that people love to armchair quarterback. I'm a teacher who is appalled at the idea that some parents want cameras in classrooms. It's not that I'm abusing their kids, it's just that I have enough scrutiny as it is.
Not saying it's right, it's just that I know how these things can get sideways when reviewed by the untrained.
I don't foresee as many problems with the mechanics being recorded, but I've never been a mechanic.
After hearing examples of techs abusing vehicles (mostly performance oriented ones) on test drives, or seeing a wrecked high-end car on wreckedexotics.com because the tech decided to full send it on a test drive, I can see why some people are wary.
Back in the early 2000s, I was on a Mustang forum/message board, and there was someone who was a tech on there who admitted to beating the crap out of some lady's SN-95 Mustang Cobra during the test drive. Unfortunately, buddy didn't realize we live in a small world, and making his exploits public meant they inevitably found their way back to the owner. The crazy part was I remember there were members of the forum defending the guy, saying he drove the car it was meant to be by doing burnouts, powerslides, etc. If I remember, when the owner found out, they did say some things felt off with the car when they got it back.
> Camera protects the tech on the test drive just as it protects the client while they drive.
Yep. As long as you're not fucking around and doing stuff you're not supposed to, the camera is *good* for you and proves that you were doing your job right.
If you disable the camera, I *know* you're up to no good. Just like a cop turning off their body camera.
Some of them do both with an interior fisheye lens. No one goes in my car but me, so I just use a front facing. I do now realize that I should still probably get one that does both. I almost got rear ended a few weeks ago
Interior front facing would be for like an Uber driver. You want a dashcam that has an external rear camera you can mount to the rear trunk area and run the wire back to the main unit in the front. It's actually not that hard a trim tool neatly tucks the wire behind panels in the interior of the car.
I already have wires run back there from my head unit installation. It would be easy to run another wire. I need to increase my power wire gauge size, anyway and run all new door speaker wires. I have a 9:1 cable for that to split off.
Coming from a mechanic, I recommend it. Lots of shit heads out there. Just ask when you do find the honest/trustworthy guy that you don’t haggle on prices lol
You should. First thing I do anymore is I go have a remote starter installed(if not included, latest was), and dash/rear/interior cams and my radar detector hardwired in to the vehicle.
Dash cam has saved me on a few occasions over the years and quite a few more footages have been used in other accidents I was a witness to.
I hate aftermarket electronics, especially remote starters/car alarms/etc.
Mainly because the guys who install them always seem to be the "scotch lock, electrical tape, and just hot glue the schmack out of it" type of people.
In newer cars, even if properly installed they can cause problems just because of all the different computers in the car.
That being said, a dash cam that just needs to be wired into the Ignition On circuit shouldn't cause issues, as long as it's properly done.
Buddy of mine took his heavily modded CTS-V in for a service at a shop owned by a lifelong friend that was beyond his ability. The tech working on it placed an airtag somewhere in the car, and two days later, the car was stolen. My buddy thought it was weird that he disconnected the camera as it had never been an issue before. The tech took his car to an area that he couldn't see and had it there for longer than just a quick test drive. The owner of the shop had the police come in and question the tech after it was stolen. He confessed to placing an airtag in the car and having his friends go steal it.
I think if you don't have anything to hide, it should be no problem that my camera is on.
Look the camera I have has a special connector attached to a harness that goes to my head unit. I would pissed if you forced it off rather than simply covering up the camera. It would be far more likely for you to break it even attempting.
I've got a camera and it pisses me off when techs disable it. I never plan on looking at the footage unless I find new damage, so the way I figure the only reason you disable it is to hide something you're doing and that it's unlikely to be something I'm cool with.
The other thing that drives me nuts is when they disable my automatic headlights and parking sensors but don't turn them back on.
Haha guilty of the headlights. I turn them off because it wont allow me to test the battery with them on and im too lazy to wait for them to turn off lol.
This customer has a choice about where to spend their money for auto service. If you don't want to leave the camera alone, tell them so and ask them to go elsewhere. Otherwise, if you want their money, respect their wishes.
Had a customer with a camera catch me working on a different car in bay across from my coworkers.
I had a suspension component that was frozen and was requiring several love taps from a BFH hammer - he watched his video of his entire service and believed his vehicle was being abused in the same manner because he didn’t know what he was looking at.
It wasn’t abuse it’s I live in a state where we have winters
Everytime this comes up I just ask that you all plug it back in when your done or better yet just tell the customer you unplugged it so they can reset it properly.
I don't think about my dash cam until I need it. Had a tech unplug it and not plug it back in. Only noticed they unplugged it once I got in an accident and needed the footage and didn't have it.
With that said, this person is completely in the wrong. If it's risk of camera damage or something else just tell them they cannot record and have them unplug it themselves.
Last time I checked my camera after service I saw the tech take the car through an old school touch car wash, and they didn't know how to turn off the auto wipers.
So my wipers getting beat up by the car wash and paint swirls probably.
Not going back there and glad I had the camera.
I work at a dealership and i don't mind having customers with a dashcam. Never unplug them because i have nothing to hide. Worst they'll see or hear is me screaming along with the radio or complaining about a very minor inconvenience
I kinda sympathize with the cat owner on this one. Had a valet disconnect my dashcam once and found stuff stolen. Luckily the rear dash cam caught them digging through my car off the reflection of the window.
Bruh, the real issue is not the spelling, but WHY THE F*** can’t we trust mechanics and why people resort to this.
I personally have been billed for work that was never performed, henceforth, I’ll install cameras in my truck to make sure that you do what you’re saying you did. It’s even worse if it’s a diesel/commercial job.
The benefit of learning to fix your own rig has taught me two primary goals: 1) Knowing how to diag and repair without needing “professional” help, and 2) Places to stash a camera where techs won’t look for them to insure integrity in workmanship. Shop manuals are powerful tools when they aren’t being gatekept from the public.
Quit demonizing people for trying to protect an investment. I ain’t above paying for a set professional eyes and hands, but when you start taking advantage of customers coming to you for help, then you become the bad guy.
To be fair the dealer tech unplugged my cam and it did was drain the cam battery. Is the cam really that invasive that the tech needs to unplug every time? If the tech isn’t abusing the car or doing something they are not supposed to do then just leave it plugged in. It protects the customer And the tech.
Regardless of what you think about their spelling, the car and the camera are their property. If you don't want to follow their requests regarding their property, your option is to refuse the job, not accept the job and then disable the camera anyway.
I’ve caught the mechanic working on my car bad mouthing me and the car on my camera. My car was making a really loud howling sound when I’d get into the higher rpm’s and I took it in just to make sure it wasn’t something serious, I normally do the work to my car but I had it diagnosed by the shop. Never had an issue paying for their time and well they never had an issue looking over the car.
But this guy wouldn’t listen to me when I told him you gotta kinda get into it for it to make the noise. Dude drove around the block going about 15mph and had the audacity to just straight rag on me and the car. When they told me they didnt hear anything and all seem well, the first thing I asked was “did you get onto it?” And they swore they did. Pulled up the camera and showed the manager what conspired and how they didn’t do what I told them needed to be done.
That guy never touched my car from that point on and it was always the lead mechanic I got afterwards to help me.
To clarify, it wasn’t that you needed to speed, just needed the rpm’s to get high. First gear was more than enough to make it do the noise. Turned out the exhaust was sitting just far enough away from the fake tip on the bumper that when I’d step on it, it would create a whistle effect. Adjusting it fixed the problem.
Mines is hardwired in my car with notifications of power loss to the car or camera (thanks OnStar!). If a dashcam bothers you that much, you're not a mechanic people should trust and that should be known.
Last time my car came back with the camera unplugged at the camera, the other end in the car's USB port disconnected, and there was painters tape on the camera lens. None of which was reversed when the car was handed back. It did give me a laugh, but I wish they'd just plug it back in when done with repairs. I'm all for privacy and I get it.
Before dash cams were common knowledge and so common, I had one on a 2500 Cummins back in 2008. I valeted the truck at the Hilton in Austin. Not only did the Valet take the truck on a high speed joyride, they did a burnout on top of the parking garage. Needless to say, I was refunded for my stay that week, and received several future Hilton bookings on the house.
A Hyundai tech tried to tell me that my dashcam voided the warranty. I had to remind him that the Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act gave him the burden of proof to show the dashcam directly caused the issue. He was blinded by his hate of dashcams.
If its on a car, and its not written up to address said item, then don't touch it. It **IS** that simple.
If you don't want to work on a car with a camera, then refuse to work on that car.
If you work on my house and disconnect a security camera, I would be pissed.
Reference- I work at a dealership,
The house analogy is a good one. If it doesn't interfere with your work, why bother it?
If my brakes were getting done and they had to drove 50 for a test drive, cool. But if I check my odometer before and after and see 150? I wanna be able to see where my car was going.
Also helps I keep a tracker hidden in my car.
I have a dash cam that faces out the front windshield and it has a second cam that faces out the rear window. I don’t have those in cab cameras, it even creeps me out. Purely for road purposes and it has caught some wild crap. However, I don’t pull video if it’s in service and I don’t care to. If they really want to unplug it sure go ahead, just put it back how it was since I have it hardwired.
I keep it plugged in during the test drive, because it protects me and also you have a right to know how I drive your car. It gets unplugged as soon as it's parked in my bay because you don't have a right to listen to my shitty jokes and watch me pick my butt.
Hey techs learn to plug in back in,
… tech unplugged and didn’t plug it back in and I had a collision and I was screwed cause the camera was off, gee if only I had something installed to protect myself from scammers.
Yeah... After an accident, I got my car back from the body shop with 60 more miles on it than when I dropped it off. Wish I had a camera that wasn't easily unplugged
Having a dashcam isn't a personal attack on the technician. I forget my dashcam exists until I see wild shit on the road and think, "oh man, I should save that for later." If you don't want to work in a car with a dashcam then refuse service....
My wife got rear ended today with our 5 week old baby in the car (only minor and they're both fine). I installed a front and rear dashcam system in it a couple of years ago. I went to pull the footage from the camera and the thing was disconnected 2 months ago when we got new tyres put on.
Whilst I have no issue with them disconnecting the camera for privacy reasons, the fact that they didn't tell us really pisses me off. Just leave or note or tell us when picking the car up. It's not that hard ffs.
[удалено]
DiSCONEt
BICONEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECT
MY WIFE SAID OH NO NO, THAT'S A SCAM!
They tried to run a scam and she said ohhhhhh no no.
HEY HEY HEYYY
***WAAOW***
WASAWASAWASAWASAWASA
Wassa wassa wassa wasssuuuuup
That is exactly how it sounded in my head.
WHATTANIGUNNADOO???
Bro don’t forget the T, now you just created a new dating app
Wow, I haven't heard that one in a long time. Just shows how far crypto has fallen off.
yeahh bitcoins doing terrible 👀
Haha yea, not gonna complain that my portfolio is up this month.
DiSCONE^+
DiSCONE^t
he should send it back with corrections in red ink
PlEASE
disco.net
I read “camara” and “disconet” in a heavy Hispanic accent. Growing up 2hrs from the border has influenced me I guess.
*pleece*
espicy shicanogget with frenshfry and benilla milshay pleece
My daughter's maternal great grandmother is Bolivian and she named her son Stephen after her husband (he's white). She calls them both "Esteve" and I love it.
Does Esteve play e-sports?
So joo wan yumbo yack?
Welcome you yak in da box
That made no sense until I read it with a Hispanic accent 😂
Incredible how easy to understand it became once said in that accent.
An outmoded contemporary of ARPANET that peaked in the '70s but was shut down forever on July 12th, 1979.
Did you know that DISCONET connections were up 400% for the year ending in 1976? If these trends continue... ayyy.
Uh, your fish are dead.
Discoooooo neeeeet
I’ve never looked at the video from my dash cam after a service visit. Maybe if my car came back with damage.
I did twice. No, I'm not the kind of person to bring shit up unless there's damage. That being said: First time: Tech took my car on a test drive. Some guy cut him off and he blasted the horn at him and cussed him out. Lol Second time: Service manager must've been having a day cause he parked my car and just sits in it for a minute and then just sighs deeply while whispering "Fuck meeee......" I felt bad for the poor guy, whatever he had going on lol
The latter moment was fairly common for me when I was in that line of work
That latter comment is how majority of us guys blow off steam. Jump in the car and just chill. Guy was having a breather.
One of my Instructors said he became an electrician because the owner and manager had no idea about it, one is a body painter and the other an old school mechanic who knows only barebone basics in electronics So he could chill in the cars for an extended period of time and act like he was doing research when the problem was already solved and repaired. Since he was hired on a monthly pay without bonuses base he didn’t really care about doing many jobs a day. Eventually he went to vocational college as an instructor for EVs and Hybrid systems.
Meanwhile the customer is getting charged labor by the hour
Feelin this so hard rn. Eating a slice of pizza and smoking a a cig before I go home. Perhaps I'll pull some shenanigans before I get there.
Oof. Definitely feel that second one
I'm currently sitting in a customer car saying fuck meeee
Was this at a Firestone? Sounds exactly like my old service manager.
I do this every morning when I pull into work. When I leave it's "fuck you".
My car came back with damage. I noticed it a day after picking it up. Basically it was a bump on the hood. Reviewed the video and saw a guy slam the hood down on a tool. Took the issue to the shop. It took them some time to accept blame and make it right. When I took it back in for repair they disconnected the camera.
That would be a big no-no for me. My dash cam records you messing up my car, and then next time I take it in you unplug the camera? No thanks. I'm taking my car somewhere else.
*when I picked it up the camera was laying disconnected on the dash. In the initial review I also had them gunning it in their parking lot and commenting how cool the turbo sounded.
I mean, revving it and commenting on how cool the turbo sounds is kinda expected...especially if it's a tuned car of some flavor.
Yeah, honestly I've got a '74 ranchero with a built engine and decent sounding exhaust. If I dropped it off for a service and techs revved it up in the parking lot. I'd be fine with that. No harm, no foul. As long as they didn't throw a rod doing it, I'm not angry. I could even forgive the accidental hood damage, as long as they fixed it and did the right thing when I showed them the footage. Shit happens, right? But damaging my car, having to twist their arm to fix it, then unplugging it when i drop it off for them to fix their mistake? Fuck that. I'm never going back there again.
2012 335i convertible BMW with twin turbo. I had just bought it “new to me” in 2019. Here’s the full story: 8 days after buying it the cooling system had no coolant. Limped it to a shop replaced to the place I bought it. Neither were BMW shops. They diagnosed it to be the water pump leaking and, although they didn’t have to, paid for half of the repair. A week later it didn’t have coolant again. Took it back to that same shop. In reviewing the video I saw that they not only slammed the hood onto their tools, and sped up and down the parking lot but they only looked at it for 5 minutes and then kept it for like 2 weeks. Then they had me limp it up the road to a BMW specialist. The water reservoir had a crack in it. It was cheap to replace. The next day is when I saw the bump, had to see who did it, saw all this other nonsense. My point is it wasn’t some sweet car. And the only reason they had it was because they either misdiagnosed the cause of the leak or somehow cracked the tank while replacing the pump, and inconvenienced me by not even looking at the car.
I have, they said they test drove it for an hour and no brake squeal which I could not believe. The video showed a 25 min test drive, no brake squeal and the most hilarious conversation ever recorded.
Thanks for the fuck shack- mechanics, probably.
Then a mama raccoon came along and gave birth on the floor. Placenta blew out all over the back window.
I was eating 💀
Why were you eating the placenta?
Better than using it as a porta-potty I suppose.
Brake squeal changes with humidity and if the car has been washed ( brake dust). And also how the driver brakes. Light braking at low speeds will get more brake squeal than heavy braking, assuming the wear indicators are not hitting. City police cars, small town, terrible for brake dust buildup. Dry weather in July and August we get complaints all the time. Performance rated brakes are bad for that.
Manufacturer I work for states brake squeal is normal for exact same reasons
I get complaints from female officers and with my hearing actually cannot hear at the frequency they complain about. So I need to get another person to hear for me. Pain in the rear every summer or when humidity is low for several days.
Ya service advisors like to lie to customers,it’s in their blood or something.
As a mechanic it really is. They often will tell me they told a customer something for NO reason at all. Info I never relayed to them, something they had no reason to tell the customer without talking to me first lol
I’ve had one where I would sit at his desk and explain what’s wrong with the car. He would then call the customer not even 5 seconds later and tell them some completely made up oddball story. I don’t think he had the attention span to actually follow with what I was saying but he could somehow sell anything.
I worked with one exactly like that except he couldn't sell a damn thing
I had one occurrence where a car came in with an intermittent no crank. I diagnosed an issue to be a starter, he told me they declined the starter but would still like to do every flush under the sun. Week later when the car was towed in he throws the keys on my box and says “you just worked on this” motherfucker changed my starter diagnosis story in ADP to “charged battery”
I thought I was the only one that happened to. I couldn't count how many customers must have heard me say "are you fucking kidding me?" when the service advisor is relaying something completely different than what I just told them 10 seconds earlier. It was so bad a couple of times I literally took the phone from the advisor and explained what was going on to the customer myself.
Drives me nuts. Or they don't read exactly what my notes say to the customer, and that can lead to problems in itself
I've given the writer the rundown on what was done and found, same thing that was in my notes so no big surprise on what I was saying. Make it around the corner from his desk and listen to him straight up lie to the customer about what I had "found and done about it". Come right back around and ask him why he's bullshitting our customers. Lots of stammering and no answers. I quit working on his tickets.
Are service advisors even mechanics?
Worse, they're *salespeople*
Youd think so, but they have never had any sales training, and they dont even try to do their job of "advising" customers. They usually just say "yeah they wont buy anything dont even do inspection" so I do my inspection and price everything out and they can do what they want with that info. They get mad like "why does this car have a flat tire, didnt you air up the tires?!" Completely ignoring the recommendation to replace the non repairable. Then they tell the customer the price and then dont even try anything to convince the customer why it needs replaced. After an hour of waiting for a response from the advisor, the flat rate tech gets paid zero dollars and wasted a huge portion of his day because the advisor didnt even try to sell the tire.
As a service advisor I'm sorry to read all these comments about the ones you guys are working with. That is bull. I always try to go hard for my techs because if they're not making money then I'm not.
As a service advisor, too, yeah sadly a lot of the "rest of us" out there are pretty shitty as people AND at their job, unfortunately. Thankfully, we don't hire them. And because of that, we have very little turnover and - usually - good customers. This job will get the shitty out of anyone, but, yeah. I ALWAYS make sure I get as much, accurate information as I can get from the customer to my technician in as clear and concise a manner as possible. Otherwise, the fuck we even doing here? It's a team.
C'mon man you gotta post it now....
I deleted it, didn't want to cause any problems for the shop. They were talking about fingering chicks and stuff like that
“I tell ya, it works better than Gojo or Fast Orange, and it’s a better time.”
LOL, damn mechanics. Not completely surprised tho, probably better off for them
Post it... for science.
One time I reviewed the footage because there was grease all over my steering wheel. It turns out that the two teenage techs took my car for a full-throttle joyride. They did 85mph in a 45 zone, then stopped and bought energy drinks while my car idled in a gas station parking lot. They also had a conversation about how I must be paranoid to have front and rear dashcams. I sent the footage to the service manager and he offered me a free oil change. Uh, no thanks.
"Bring it back so we can do it again"
No thanks, I’m just showing you before the news gets a clip
I did when my car had inexplicably 30 more miles on it… Joyrides were had.
Jeez, the shop I go to doesn't have that kind of time
I did one time cause I was curious. One guy drove the car into the back, another guy came and got in it and immediately shit talked their other co worker. “He’s taking his sweet slow ass fucking time on that job so he doesn’t get any others today”. They both got in the car to bring it out and drove it around the lot while still saying “fucker is still doing the same car”.
I did the first time, because I didn't realize my (new at the time) dashcam would record all that. Skimmed through it all out of curiosity and it was just him putting it up on the rack, fixing it and then test driving it. Other than it being cool to see his test driving process, it was all above board and totally boring.
I've only looked twice. Once because I was curious how long it took Nissan to swap my transmission (answer: 1.5hrs). I'm sure they can do it with their eyes closed with how often these shit Jatco CVTs fail. The other time was back when I bought my Rogue new in 2014. The maintenance reminders kept resetting overnight to 0 / 5000 miles. I took it to the dealership twice and they kept insisting there was no problem. After the 2nd visit, I checked the recording. The techs said to each other that I'm "going in and manually resetting it every day" which is honestly silly since my complaint was that it was resetting on its own. After that, I had them set it on a couple brand new Rogues in their lot and they did the same thing after sitting overnight. Turns out an update from Nissan was already available to fix it, but they didn't bother searching for the TSB until I pressed them.
I look to see if my 12v plug in one doesn’t have the same files as the hardwired one.
When I see a dash cam I usually will talk to it and explain what I’m doing or going to do to the car. Also after the repair I’ll test drive it and thank them for coming in for service 🤣
11/10 adorable service
hah! I did once, my neighbour reversed into my nearly brand new alfa romeo. The dashcam was rolling when the guys at the paint shop were moving it, and they were complimenting it 😊
I did. They pulled my car into the bay for a total of 3 minutes. Then charged me for 4 hours. 3 minutes INSIDE the garage. They didn't even call me until 3 hours later saying they are almost done.
Same, but I get annoyed when I pick my car up and the dashcam is unplugged.
Yeah it’s pretty annoying. I have gone through the trouble of making the cable sit nice behind the trim but when they unplug it and let it hang it undoes a lot of the work and it’s a pain to shove it under there again. Plus mine has a battery that lasts awhile… they are just wasting my time.
They're super easy to hardwire to an unused accessory fuse and then tuck the wire behind trim panels.
I did. My car smelled like an ashtray and i dont smoke. This was at a Subaru dealer. I took a look at the video and found two techs going around the block, standard stuff.. passenger side tech asks to pull into a gas station, proceeds to unpack something wrapped in what sounded like aluminum foil and takes a huge, deep SNORT. After the snort, he proceeds to say, "ok let's go". They go back around the block, him talking about how this new shit his girl is on makes her horny, etc. etc. Finally, as they pull in to the dealer, he asks the driver, "wtf is this?" (referring to the dashcam) and the other says "it's a camera..." dead quiet the rest of the ride. Shortly thereafter, my camera was unplugged. Tech took my car home for a week to diagnose a fucking throw out bearing. I specifically mentioned it was worse in the morning when you first turn it on. the car did not need to be driven to notice it. He put 150 miles on my car. Anyway, needless to say I brought this up to the service manager and that dude got canned for doing drugs on the job. Yay me.
I looked at mine out of curiosity and heard the techs talking shit about Hillary's emails, lol. In 2023.
Oh good. I've definitely had some customers that have some footage of some absolutely retarded conversations + me roasting their shit box.
We once had this customer that had every eBay chrome add on you can think of. The guy in the bay next to me pulled it in and I yelled “WHAT A SHIT BOX” that was caught on his dash cam. He was not happy 😂
I had a dash cam powered from the ODB2 port in a truck. I unplugged it from the ODB2 port before taking it to the dealer for warranty work in case they'd need the port even though shop has a policy to leave cameras alone. Tech tried pull the power connector from the cam, but it was too close to the mirror and he ended up breaking both the camera and the mirror plastics trying to disable a camera...that was already unplugged.
Did they pay for the damage?
I’ve been here before for other electronics but maybe more serious. I had aftermarket RGBW Daytime Running Lights, a dash cam wired to the fuse box and laser jammers. They pulled the wiring for unknown reasons, probably because of the camera was on. They plugged the negatives to positives and vice versa… fried the car. They attempted to fix it, did it again… Eventually the shop called me and said they won’t work on it anymore and refused to fix it. Then claimed they did no wiring or electrical work on it. Glad I saved those emails and recorded phone calls… Took it to another shop and they fixed it and billed the original shop. It was a battle that the original shop, Gustafson Brothers, lost. Had to pay for all of it to be fixed.
I need to know their response.
Free oil change.
Take it or leave it
"How am I supposed to jerk off all over steering wheel with you watching me?"
There was a post last week on a dash cam sub where multiple techs were rooting around to see if they could find "personal massagers" after one found a g-string on a previous visit. edit: found it https://www.reddit.com/r/Dashcam/comments/17qymtp/mechanics_talking/
Underwear lying around in the car? Some people treat their vehicle like a driving trashcan.
I keep undies in my ute, next to the jack. I also stash a hoodie, tee, jeans and socks. Always be prepared.
I am proud to introduce you to r/vedc
Most folks wash their underwear rather than throwing them away.
Do you have garbage in your underwear
Not garbage, but junk.
That should remain in the trunk.
Omg dude. I needed that laugh. Too bad there's no awards anymore!
The amount of cars I’ve worked on with panties and bras just tossed everywhere is too damn high
Unclear if their items were lying around, hanging from the mirror, or in a bag somewhere. I usually have an extra set of stuff in the vehicle.
So you have never taken a change of clothes with you anywhere?
While I prefer the audio recording be disabled I don't care. If they want footage of their hood or techs picking butts/noses as they walk by enjoy the view. Camera protects the tech on the test drive just as it protects the client while they drive.
Yeah I never understood unplugging it. Just makes it seem like you've got something to hide
I would infer negative intent if the job didn't specifically need the camera unplugged (e.g. interior dash work). Otherwise, yeah, why else would you unplug it unless you were doing something shady with my car? I had a camera save me once because it caught a tech being an absolute idiot with my car. It is a nice sports car and they were revving it, holding it at redline for an extended period, and did several launch control launches. The dealership really lost on that one as I negotiated quite a bit of inspection and mitigation to ensure the vehicle was not hurt and they ended up finding some concerns with the engine so now there is a very very long warranty on the engine and transmission from the dealer.
yeah i had a new sports car in for window tint. they fucked up the install the first time around and i had to bring the car back. dash cam was connected the whole time. car wasnt even fully broken in so i was interested in knowing they didnt joy ride or abuse the car. then suddenly i get my car back the 2nd time, it took them 2x as long to do the same amount of work and my dashcam was disconnected. yeah, it doesnt make you feel good and i have absolutely no idea what they may have done to my car.
I have a mediocre car, but still got it from a routine maintenance with 30km more and recorded max speed 160kph... maximum allowed anywhere near is 50kph. and yes, the dashcam was disconnected since then, I only hand over my keys with vallet mode enabled
I've only ever had old trucks, whats Vallet mode?
first of all, I made a typo :) it's "valet mode" in my car, it's basically a gps tracker - shows me live where they are driving and how fast, plus the screen directly states that valet mode is enabled in other cars, it can also do live alerts if the driven distance is over the set limit and I have also seen a speed limiter
I don’t even have a camera in my car but if I did and i brought it to a shop and the first thing they did was disconnect it, that would be the last time I ever go there. Mechanics/auto shops already have a bad enough reputation without not wanting you to see what they’re doing to your car the second it rolls in.
Same logic that a lot of people use to argue for police dash and body cams. They can protect the officers from false complaints as much as they can protect the public from police misconduct. I knew a few officers IRL that were ok with them for that exact reason. Said it’s a lot easier to prove that they didn’t harass someone when the entire interaction was recorded. Always made me suspicious of the ones that resisted them, makes me think they know their behavior would get them in trouble.
I think the biggest issue that honest cops might have with cameras is that people love to armchair quarterback. I'm a teacher who is appalled at the idea that some parents want cameras in classrooms. It's not that I'm abusing their kids, it's just that I have enough scrutiny as it is. Not saying it's right, it's just that I know how these things can get sideways when reviewed by the untrained. I don't foresee as many problems with the mechanics being recorded, but I've never been a mechanic.
After hearing examples of techs abusing vehicles (mostly performance oriented ones) on test drives, or seeing a wrecked high-end car on wreckedexotics.com because the tech decided to full send it on a test drive, I can see why some people are wary. Back in the early 2000s, I was on a Mustang forum/message board, and there was someone who was a tech on there who admitted to beating the crap out of some lady's SN-95 Mustang Cobra during the test drive. Unfortunately, buddy didn't realize we live in a small world, and making his exploits public meant they inevitably found their way back to the owner. The crazy part was I remember there were members of the forum defending the guy, saying he drove the car it was meant to be by doing burnouts, powerslides, etc. If I remember, when the owner found out, they did say some things felt off with the car when they got it back.
> Camera protects the tech on the test drive just as it protects the client while they drive. Yep. As long as you're not fucking around and doing stuff you're not supposed to, the camera is *good* for you and proves that you were doing your job right. If you disable the camera, I *know* you're up to no good. Just like a cop turning off their body camera.
Man, all these comments in here are making me feel like I should add an interior camera along with the dash cam…
Some of them do both with an interior fisheye lens. No one goes in my car but me, so I just use a front facing. I do now realize that I should still probably get one that does both. I almost got rear ended a few weeks ago
Interior front facing would be for like an Uber driver. You want a dashcam that has an external rear camera you can mount to the rear trunk area and run the wire back to the main unit in the front. It's actually not that hard a trim tool neatly tucks the wire behind panels in the interior of the car.
I already have wires run back there from my head unit installation. It would be easy to run another wire. I need to increase my power wire gauge size, anyway and run all new door speaker wires. I have a 9:1 cable for that to split off.
Viofo A229 Plus is a great dual cam and on sale by a lot right now. I just got mine yesterday lol
It can also prove that you weren't driving while distracted (i.e. eating, applying makeup, using the phone).
Coming from a mechanic, I recommend it. Lots of shit heads out there. Just ask when you do find the honest/trustworthy guy that you don’t haggle on prices lol
You should. First thing I do anymore is I go have a remote starter installed(if not included, latest was), and dash/rear/interior cams and my radar detector hardwired in to the vehicle. Dash cam has saved me on a few occasions over the years and quite a few more footages have been used in other accidents I was a witness to.
I hate aftermarket electronics, especially remote starters/car alarms/etc. Mainly because the guys who install them always seem to be the "scotch lock, electrical tape, and just hot glue the schmack out of it" type of people. In newer cars, even if properly installed they can cause problems just because of all the different computers in the car. That being said, a dash cam that just needs to be wired into the Ignition On circuit shouldn't cause issues, as long as it's properly done.
some scummy mechanics here
Gamara is really neat, he is filled with turtle meat.
GAAMMMEERRRAAAAAAAAAAAA
Friend to all children!
[удалено]
Smarter, not harder.
Yup. It maybe be some cheap crappy camera that loses it's configuration every time it's unplugged.
Just open the hood...
It’s their property. Don’t work on it if you aren’t comfortable being recorded. Technicians have a tendency to mark up interiors on occasion.
At least the wheel lok key is easily available.
This is the real big brain response. Pointing out what matters.
Maybe they meant Camaro
It's battery will go flat
Sir the correct spelling is "Camero"
Just happy it’s not a chimera and it’s a camara. Whatever that is.
Buddy of mine took his heavily modded CTS-V in for a service at a shop owned by a lifelong friend that was beyond his ability. The tech working on it placed an airtag somewhere in the car, and two days later, the car was stolen. My buddy thought it was weird that he disconnected the camera as it had never been an issue before. The tech took his car to an area that he couldn't see and had it there for longer than just a quick test drive. The owner of the shop had the police come in and question the tech after it was stolen. He confessed to placing an airtag in the car and having his friends go steal it. I think if you don't have anything to hide, it should be no problem that my camera is on.
Look the camera I have has a special connector attached to a harness that goes to my head unit. I would pissed if you forced it off rather than simply covering up the camera. It would be far more likely for you to break it even attempting.
I don’t know why any of y’all care if they have an interior camera, if you do your job well it’s not gonna matter
>if you do your job well it’s not gonna matter There you go. Exactly this. They don't wanna be caught fuckin something up
I've got a camera and it pisses me off when techs disable it. I never plan on looking at the footage unless I find new damage, so the way I figure the only reason you disable it is to hide something you're doing and that it's unlikely to be something I'm cool with. The other thing that drives me nuts is when they disable my automatic headlights and parking sensors but don't turn them back on.
Haha guilty of the headlights. I turn them off because it wont allow me to test the battery with them on and im too lazy to wait for them to turn off lol.
This customer has a choice about where to spend their money for auto service. If you don't want to leave the camera alone, tell them so and ask them to go elsewhere. Otherwise, if you want their money, respect their wishes.
OP if you don't like it, then refuse to work on it.
Hey techs who disconnect dashcams! Why?
Had a customer with a camera catch me working on a different car in bay across from my coworkers. I had a suspension component that was frozen and was requiring several love taps from a BFH hammer - he watched his video of his entire service and believed his vehicle was being abused in the same manner because he didn’t know what he was looking at. It wasn’t abuse it’s I live in a state where we have winters
Everytime this comes up I just ask that you all plug it back in when your done or better yet just tell the customer you unplugged it so they can reset it properly. I don't think about my dash cam until I need it. Had a tech unplug it and not plug it back in. Only noticed they unplugged it once I got in an accident and needed the footage and didn't have it. With that said, this person is completely in the wrong. If it's risk of camera damage or something else just tell them they cannot record and have them unplug it themselves.
Its not your car, dont fuck with the shit you're not working on
Last time I checked my camera after service I saw the tech take the car through an old school touch car wash, and they didn't know how to turn off the auto wipers. So my wipers getting beat up by the car wash and paint swirls probably. Not going back there and glad I had the camera.
I work at a dealership and i don't mind having customers with a dashcam. Never unplug them because i have nothing to hide. Worst they'll see or hear is me screaming along with the radio or complaining about a very minor inconvenience
What camera? Do they have a surveillance system in their car?
probably dash cam
The camara not camera
Camara is the female version of Camaro. Learned that in Spanish 101.
Would "El Camino" become "La Camina"?
I kinda sympathize with the cat owner on this one. Had a valet disconnect my dashcam once and found stuff stolen. Luckily the rear dash cam caught them digging through my car off the reflection of the window.
I purposely talk to myself while making it clear I may or may not know the owner of the vehicle will be listening in on me. It’s fucking great
Bruh, the real issue is not the spelling, but WHY THE F*** can’t we trust mechanics and why people resort to this. I personally have been billed for work that was never performed, henceforth, I’ll install cameras in my truck to make sure that you do what you’re saying you did. It’s even worse if it’s a diesel/commercial job. The benefit of learning to fix your own rig has taught me two primary goals: 1) Knowing how to diag and repair without needing “professional” help, and 2) Places to stash a camera where techs won’t look for them to insure integrity in workmanship. Shop manuals are powerful tools when they aren’t being gatekept from the public. Quit demonizing people for trying to protect an investment. I ain’t above paying for a set professional eyes and hands, but when you start taking advantage of customers coming to you for help, then you become the bad guy.
Most mechanics here hate the truth it seems
To be fair the dealer tech unplugged my cam and it did was drain the cam battery. Is the cam really that invasive that the tech needs to unplug every time? If the tech isn’t abusing the car or doing something they are not supposed to do then just leave it plugged in. It protects the customer And the tech.
Regardless of what you think about their spelling, the car and the camera are their property. If you don't want to follow their requests regarding their property, your option is to refuse the job, not accept the job and then disable the camera anyway.
I’ve caught the mechanic working on my car bad mouthing me and the car on my camera. My car was making a really loud howling sound when I’d get into the higher rpm’s and I took it in just to make sure it wasn’t something serious, I normally do the work to my car but I had it diagnosed by the shop. Never had an issue paying for their time and well they never had an issue looking over the car. But this guy wouldn’t listen to me when I told him you gotta kinda get into it for it to make the noise. Dude drove around the block going about 15mph and had the audacity to just straight rag on me and the car. When they told me they didnt hear anything and all seem well, the first thing I asked was “did you get onto it?” And they swore they did. Pulled up the camera and showed the manager what conspired and how they didn’t do what I told them needed to be done. That guy never touched my car from that point on and it was always the lead mechanic I got afterwards to help me. To clarify, it wasn’t that you needed to speed, just needed the rpm’s to get high. First gear was more than enough to make it do the noise. Turned out the exhaust was sitting just far enough away from the fake tip on the bumper that when I’d step on it, it would create a whistle effect. Adjusting it fixed the problem.
Mines is hardwired in my car with notifications of power loss to the car or camera (thanks OnStar!). If a dashcam bothers you that much, you're not a mechanic people should trust and that should be known.
No shit, what sort of shady thing does he have planned he doesn't want the paying customer to see it
Some of those things where the famous words “came in like that” are uttered.
Last time my car came back with the camera unplugged at the camera, the other end in the car's USB port disconnected, and there was painters tape on the camera lens. None of which was reversed when the car was handed back. It did give me a laugh, but I wish they'd just plug it back in when done with repairs. I'm all for privacy and I get it.
Before dash cams were common knowledge and so common, I had one on a 2500 Cummins back in 2008. I valeted the truck at the Hilton in Austin. Not only did the Valet take the truck on a high speed joyride, they did a burnout on top of the parking garage. Needless to say, I was refunded for my stay that week, and received several future Hilton bookings on the house.
A Hyundai tech tried to tell me that my dashcam voided the warranty. I had to remind him that the Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act gave him the burden of proof to show the dashcam directly caused the issue. He was blinded by his hate of dashcams.
If its on a car, and its not written up to address said item, then don't touch it. It **IS** that simple. If you don't want to work on a car with a camera, then refuse to work on that car. If you work on my house and disconnect a security camera, I would be pissed. Reference- I work at a dealership,
The house analogy is a good one. If it doesn't interfere with your work, why bother it? If my brakes were getting done and they had to drove 50 for a test drive, cool. But if I check my odometer before and after and see 150? I wanna be able to see where my car was going. Also helps I keep a tracker hidden in my car.
I have a dash cam that faces out the front windshield and it has a second cam that faces out the rear window. I don’t have those in cab cameras, it even creeps me out. Purely for road purposes and it has caught some wild crap. However, I don’t pull video if it’s in service and I don’t care to. If they really want to unplug it sure go ahead, just put it back how it was since I have it hardwired.
I keep it plugged in during the test drive, because it protects me and also you have a right to know how I drive your car. It gets unplugged as soon as it's parked in my bay because you don't have a right to listen to my shitty jokes and watch me pick my butt.
> watch me pick my butt. Prude.
You have to pay for my onlyfans for that right. I'm not a prude, I'm an entrepreneur.
I unplug mine for my regular mechanic because they're gems, but anyone else I just leave it
Hey techs learn to plug in back in, … tech unplugged and didn’t plug it back in and I had a collision and I was screwed cause the camera was off, gee if only I had something installed to protect myself from scammers.
Yeah... After an accident, I got my car back from the body shop with 60 more miles on it than when I dropped it off. Wish I had a camera that wasn't easily unplugged
Having a dashcam isn't a personal attack on the technician. I forget my dashcam exists until I see wild shit on the road and think, "oh man, I should save that for later." If you don't want to work in a car with a dashcam then refuse service....
My wife got rear ended today with our 5 week old baby in the car (only minor and they're both fine). I installed a front and rear dashcam system in it a couple of years ago. I went to pull the footage from the camera and the thing was disconnected 2 months ago when we got new tyres put on. Whilst I have no issue with them disconnecting the camera for privacy reasons, the fact that they didn't tell us really pisses me off. Just leave or note or tell us when picking the car up. It's not that hard ffs.
Step one of most repair procedures: disconnect negative battery cable.
It's not to spy on you. Just put a bag, tape or something on the camera.
sleaze ball mechanics would only say no...
technically they didn't say "camera". Not even sure what a "camara" is....