Originally Posted By: eljefino
Was at Advance Auto today, trying to get some -30'F windshield fluid. Ok, they're out of that. The other customers were all there for batteries and the shelves are about half empty. They turned someone away, being out of their size.
Meanwhile a customer sat in her car honking the horn every 30 seconds. Counter guy said she was waiting for a free battery install. It seems they were blowing her off for the walk-in customers, and, I presume, for her continuing attitude.
-16 this morning. Getting hairy up here.
Its people like that lady that will really be in trouble if there is ever a true catastrophe in this country where people need to fend for themselves for weeks or even months. There are so many people in this country that have such an extreme sense of entitlement and are accustomed to instant gratification. My guess is she came in with a nasty attitude and the staff treated her accordingly.
When I was an auto technician I remember how many customers would be downright nasty because they expect to never have to outlay any money for maintenance or repair on a vehicle and act as if it your fault that their car needed attention.
I remember there was a lady with a 98 or 99 grand am, it would eat thru brakes, We are talking 9k miles to 15k miles. i even seem to remember one set that only made it to 7500 miles. This vehicle had maybe 60k on it IIRC. Now the driver of the vehicle was nice but man her mom was a real nasty thing. It was our fault for the issues with the car and we were just stupid grease monkeys and were incapable of fixing the daughters car correctly. Now I admit we all make mistakes but.....
We scratched our heads on why this particular car ate brake pads. N bodys almost always got 25 to 30k minimum on brakes in our area. Nothing was hanging up, I think we might have ended up putting calipers on at some point but I dont remember. There was no reson for this vehicle to be eating front pads. Well finally I went for a ride with her and I knew the answer to the problem. She was downright abusive to the brakes and drove like a maniac. In addition to the wasteful and aggressive braking there was also another issue.
Those Grand-am Gts have more than enough power to spin the tires on dry pavement so in the rain or the snow the traction control often kicked in when driven in a aggressive fashion.
Now when the traction control would engage on that particular car it would apply the brake to the drive wheel that had the slippage or both if they decided to both spin.
Well between her hard driving and the frequent interjection of traction control it was no wonder why she ate thru brakes.
We tried to gently educate her on the workings of that vehicles braking system to try to help her get better life from the pads.
I remember her asking me "am I really that hard on the brakes?" I said um.... well...um....Ive ridden with a lot of different people and it seems you are a bit more aggressive with braking than most.
In reality She was the hardest driver on brakes I have ever seen. I dont think I could have been more wasteful with the brakes if I tried.
I moved on to another shop not long after that and I often wonder if she adjusted her driving style or shes still in the brake job of the month club.