Earlier in my workshop, reading some old parts catalogue* I came across some info which vindicated me for an issue when I was an apprentice Datsun mechanic.
I was doing a first service on a new model of a small Datsun van. It was fitted with a totally new 1.5 litre diesel. So I fit the oil filter given to me. Factory fit oil filter was a plain blue metal can with no printing at all on the body.
So it has a 3/4" thread on the engine. The stores gave me an M21 filter. It seemed to screw on just fine. No leaks. The customer collected the van and on the motorway, the oil light came on.
The van came back to us on a breakdown truck.
The foreman mechanic said I'd left the filter loose. The service manager gave me an enormous telling off. I nearly lost my job. I was 16 when this happened. Only left school three months earlier.
So 45 years later, I find out the true cause of the loss of oil from the parts catalogue.
The van was fine btw.
I wonder if anyone else has a story where they were blamed for someone else's error?
As an apprentice with virtually no experience, I believe I couldn't be held responsible. The filter was in a very tight space. It felt completely normal to my inexperienced hands. If I was qualified, fair enough, but up to the incident, I'd only really made tea, swept up and fit about a thousand number plates
* I am mildly autistic. I will read absolutely anything. In fact I read my entire waking hours if I am not working. I have done so quite literally continuously since I was three.
I was doing a first service on a new model of a small Datsun van. It was fitted with a totally new 1.5 litre diesel. So I fit the oil filter given to me. Factory fit oil filter was a plain blue metal can with no printing at all on the body.
So it has a 3/4" thread on the engine. The stores gave me an M21 filter. It seemed to screw on just fine. No leaks. The customer collected the van and on the motorway, the oil light came on.
The van came back to us on a breakdown truck.
The foreman mechanic said I'd left the filter loose. The service manager gave me an enormous telling off. I nearly lost my job. I was 16 when this happened. Only left school three months earlier.
So 45 years later, I find out the true cause of the loss of oil from the parts catalogue.
The van was fine btw.
I wonder if anyone else has a story where they were blamed for someone else's error?
As an apprentice with virtually no experience, I believe I couldn't be held responsible. The filter was in a very tight space. It felt completely normal to my inexperienced hands. If I was qualified, fair enough, but up to the incident, I'd only really made tea, swept up and fit about a thousand number plates
* I am mildly autistic. I will read absolutely anything. In fact I read my entire waking hours if I am not working. I have done so quite literally continuously since I was three.