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Thread: Can you really trust the experts?

  1. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by loanrangiel View Post
    I have a ZF6HP in my landrover, pain not having a dipstick but not too difficult to check or even flush the fluid using the cooler lines and a garden pressure sprayer.
    Pleaz explane
    There is a fine line between "Hobby" and "Madness"



  • #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by allover View Post
    Pleaz explane
    The flushing bit ?

    With a simple drain and refill you usually only half or less of the old fluid out, flushing replaces all that fluid that sits in the converter and galleries.
    With my car the outlet is a rubber hose onto a barb of the radiator, i attach a 2m length of hose to the outlet and put the end in a clear measured container.
    and the radiator barb has a 1m hose connected to a 2ltr pressure garden sprayer.
    I fill the sprayer with fresh fluid and pressurise it, then start the car and watch the old fluid pump out til you get approx. the same volume as what the pan holds, stop the engine and replace that 4ltrs with fresh fluid. Do that that again til you have reaplaced the full volume of fluid that the trans holds then do another 2-4ltrs.
    Then run up to the correct temp (30c in my case) then open the level plug and check the level and top up if required.

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  • #23
    Senior Member MrRadio's Avatar
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    Well, here it is almost 6 weeks and several thousand kilometers later and the transmission hasn't missed a beat, doing everything as and when it should, my conclusion? NO you can't trust the "experts".

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    I had something like that with the dishwasher when we moved house a few years ago.

    The place had a Fisher & Paykel dishdrawer - the 900mm wide one. It leaked and had obviously done so for quite some time (probably from new), given the mould on chipboard cupboards around it. I called the only local authorised service centre and they told me their DishDrawer expert was away - they said if I delivered it to them, one of the other techs could "have a look". I declined this offer and chose to wait until the expert was back.

    A couple of weeks later, the guy came to take a look at it. He opened it up and said "Oh, is this a new model?" - it was old enough to be out of the two year warranty! He spent a while fooling around with it, but obviously getting nowhere, so I had to show him the source of the leak: the lid that closes on top during a wash cycle was buckled and not sealing properly. He spent a bit more time poking around in there, then says he'll get back to me with a quote.

    A bit later, I get the quote: $480!!! Geez, I can buy a whole new dishwasher for $600. Thanks, but no thanks, I'll just rip the thing out and get a new one.

    Of course the other half wasn't having it: the thing is built in to the kitchen and wider than a single cupboard, so it would mean some major work on the three year old cupboards. I ordered a new lid, plus a couple of clips that I thought I'd probably break (didn't need them in the end). The whole lot cost $92, including freight. 20 minutes work and it was fixed. Five years later, it hasn't missed a beat.

    I guess the $480 was a "I don't have clue what I'm doing, so I'll charge the earth and hope I can fix it for less" type quote.

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    Nah most those quotes are based on i need to travel there to diagnose, then i need to order the parts, then i need to travel back to repair it, i need to get paid, i need to cover the companies overheads, the boss needs to make money from me too and i need to make up for that last guy who took up my time asking for a quote that didnt give me the job.

    So with a business owner hat on, that quotes pretty reasonable and the repair is less than the replacement.

    This is how business economics work, charge the most you can get away with to make money.

    They are not in business to be liked by customers by working for free, they are there to maximize the balance sheets at end of the financial year.

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    An expert is someone who has a broad and deep in terms of , and through practice and education in a particular field. Informally, an expert is someone widely recognized as a source of or whose faculty for judging or deciding rightly, justly, or wisely is accorded authority and status by or the in a specific well-distinguished domain. An expert, more generally, is a person with extensive or based on research, experience, or occupation and in a particular area of study. Experts are called in for advice on their respective subject, but they do not always agree on the particulars of a field of study. An expert can be believed, by virtue of , , , , or , to have special knowledge of a subject beyond that of the average person, sufficient that others may (and ) rely upon the individual's on that topic. Historically, an expert was referred to as a (). The individual was usually a profound distinguished for and sound .
    So... the OP here *didn't* find an expert, twice -- the person wasn't an expert in the car/transmission in question, and nor were they an expert in selling the customer the expensive service cost sales pitch. As I said previously, define 'expert' =)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Godzilla View Post
    So with a business owner hat on, that quotes pretty reasonable and the repair is less than the replacement.
    That said, I have come across lots of things where the prices quoted taking parts into account would have to be billed at $500 an hour to come close to adding up.

    Few months back a guy came in for a CV shaft. Told us he got a couple of Quotes in town and the best $360 to replace it. That works out at $1440 an hour. They are fking grease monkeys not Brain Surgeons and changing a CV shaft on that car is the medical equivalent of trimming toe nails.

    We asked if that was to replace all of them or just one? Just the one he was buying off us. It is literally a 15 Minute job like a pleb like me to do taking my time. Did it for him in under 15 Min as the thing came out easy and charged him $25. He was so happy he insisted on giving me $50.

    There are no shortage of VERY well off tradies running round. Good on them but can't blame people for putting their own families and lifestyle ahead of enhancing others and having no desire to get Butt raped.

    Come across it endlessly in my own game. I can quote half of what others do and that is still well upper middle range and making Plenty of profit and covering overheads. Everyone in the industry uses the same gear, has the same consumable costs so there is no justification of someone charging double what the others are charging other than being greedy.

    What I loose on outright profit I make up in not having to spend fortunes on advertising and promo like I see others doing because I run on WOM and have for years. I hate to think what some competitors are paying in customer acquisition cost but pretty sure the extra they make is more than undermined by that.

  • #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by Godzilla View Post
    This is how business economics work, charge the most you can get away with to make money.
    I worked in IT doing “do and charge” work for 16 years, so I well understand the economics of travel time and that you can’t do an on site quote for free. I know where you are coming from and I did pay for the hour’s labour to get my misdiagnosis and inflated quote. It would have reasonably been a $250 job, but definitely not the ridiculous price I was quoted.

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