What has made you Angry Today???????

[Dan02]

My experience with average workshops and customer service -

Am typically pretty fussy when it comes down to who works on my car and what goes in it, so tend to shop around quite a bit. For the past 10 years or so we have always used the same workshop for all our cars for general servicing and they have been faultless in that respect. Whenever we thought about buying a car we would book it in for an inspection, would say he has definately saved me from a few lemons over the years.

With the Patrol there wasn't an opportunity to inspect it due to distance (down the coast). Anyway it was love at first site and just had to get it and figured once I got it home would book it in asap. So I booked it in for a once over and advised them to sort out the front wobble at the same time please call me if there are any issues. Meantime like most I jumped on the net to see if I could find anything at all on this issue, sure enough found 1000's of hits talking about it which was a little upsetting but same time felt confident they would sort it as it was a common issue it seemed.

Dropped it into my trusted mechanic on the day and awaited the inevitable phone call which I suspected would be something like
"yeah mate we found the problem, yeah we can sort it out no worries but it ain't gonna be cheap blah blah..." to my suprise no phone call, thought great they've sorted it. So go to collect car and $500 later I get my keys back, along with the suggestion it should go back to Nissan as it looks like a design issue, thanks see ya later. "Hang on what about the rest of the car" I says and was directed at a small leak on the diff other than that all good. Great I thought as I jumps in and fire it up. Driving home wtf, not only to find the problem wobble still there and if am not mistaken worse, it seems to be struggling to gain revs. so I pull up and callthe workshop office back suggesting the situation is now worse and bordering on dangerous and maybe someone should have suggested this when i picked it up and what exactly did they do to it and what are they going to do. Apparently it got a full tyre balance and rotate and a service, yes but what about the wobble?.. at which point the conversation started to derail as he was not expected to know every little thing that happened in his workshop and this was a specialised issue.

Anyway after the dust settles it appears I have lost a friendship with what i thought was a decent mech and basically been handed my hat and asked to take it elsewhere for that issue ... like Nissan. Am a bit wary of service centres as have been stung more than once with some really expensive services, but in anger I ring Nissan service anyway at which point am advised it could be anything and can get quite costly. Wow am thinking to myself if this guy thinks its going to be exy than I better start worrying. He says they had one bloke there who was experienced on these issues but he was on holidays though they would still be happy for me to bring it in for a look ($$$).

So now what, back onto the Net and start trawling the forums etc. I drove up the coast, I drove down the coast and spoke to anyone with an opinion. Finally worked my way to my current new mechanic, who has been nothing short of stellar in sorting my wagon out - decent bloke to boot.

[10G]

Out of curiosity, what caused your wobble?

[Dan02]

couldn't point the finger at one thing and say yep that was it, the car is 16 years old and everything under there appeared original /old required a lot of sorting

[10G]

Oh yep. Good it's all fixed now.

[taslucas]

couldn't point the finger at one thing and say yep that was it, the car is 16 years old and everything under there appeared original /old required a lot of sorting

And hence very hard for a mechanic to pinpoint. Unfortunately good mechanic or bad mechanic, the dreaded wobbles seem to have as many cures as causes and sometimes even people in the know will have to simply start replacing parts until it disappears. It's sad that you lost a friend and trusted workshop over it even after you trawled the internet and came up with the very many causes.

Edit: my gq has over 430,000 ks on it and everything is very well flogged out under the front of it yet the wobbles are just barely perceivable occasionally.... where-as a friends GU with small tyres and less than 100,000 on it has the wobbles come and go regularly
>>>tappin from tassie

[threedogs]

These Nissan wobbles are well known, and with the Patrol being 16 years old not
helping, Not good with the old mechanic never good losing friends over trivial things
So your up and running ,,,,wheres the pics lol

[Dan02]

And hence very hard for a mechanic to pinpoint. Unfortunately good mechanic or bad mechanic, the dreaded wobbles seem to have as many cures as causes and sometimes even people in the know will have to simply start replacing parts until it disappears. It's sad that you lost a friend and trusted workshop over it even after you trawled the internet and came up with the very many causes.

Edit: my gq has over 430,000 ks on it and everything is very well flogged out under the front of it yet the wobbles are just barely perceivable occasionally.... where-as a friends GU with small tyres and less than 100,000 on it has the wobbles come and go regularly
>>>tappin from tassie

fair enough but couldn't they offer something... even a " well we're stuffed mate, but we're gonna hang onto it as its not really safe ATM" . The day Mike saw it, he came back with a list of issues and advised me to take it back to the bloke who did the roadworthy to get them to fix the leaking rear bearing seal. I did exactly that. I wouln't have known to do that otherwise. He then gave me a comprehensive list of all the bits needing a look at. Let me say there were some biggies in there that my previous Mech should have spotted a mile away so to speak.

[BigRAWesty]

fair enough but couldn't they offer something... even a " well we're stuffed mate, but we're gonna hang onto it as its not really safe ATM" . The day Mike saw it, he came back with a list of issues and advised me to take it back to the bloke who did the roadworthy to get them to fix the leaking rear bearing seal. I did exactly that. I wouln't have known to do that otherwise. He then gave me a comprehensive list of all the bits needing a look at. Let me say there were some biggies in there that my previous Mech should have spotted a mile away so to speak.

Well it's disappointing what has happened.. and unfortunate.
I hope the new mechanic hangs on..
Unfortunately the wobbles are one of those issue that you can nail first time or spend heaps of time chasing. .
My gq had half a million on it before the wobbles were bad enough to warrenty a fix..
But at half a million I pulled the whole front end and rebuilt the lot..
Bushes bearing seals the lot..
After I didn't need a steering dampener it was that good..
But I fitted one to reduce the force of self steering in things like ruts etc..

I always suggest start with the free stuff.
Try nipping up wheel bearings or removing a shim from the king pin bearings..
Then if do able try greasing the joints. The grease will take up the slop and provide a temp fix, enough to deem it's fixed or not..
The last move onto bushes..
These have to be pressed out so can be costly if you can't do them yourself..

Imo a new dampener is a bandaid fix but plenty offer that as first fix..
It just masks any underlying issues..

Hopefully it's a short fix mate but as said can be one of the last things tried..

[Dan02]

its been bout 8 weeks or so now and its ancient history as far as I am concerned. Never would have mentioned but found this thread so thought would add my 2 cents. Would love to be able to do all my own work but that's just not an option. Am genuinely very happy with On and off, they have been awesome in transforming that wagon, even from the first time I picked it up, Havent been able to stump them yet. I think Mike has a soft spot for the Patrols am pretty sure he owns a couple

[taslucas]

its been bout 8 weeks or so now and its ancient history as far as I am concerned. Never would have mentioned but found this thread so thought would add my 2 cents. Would love to be able to do all my own work but that's just not an option. Am genuinely very happy with On and off, they have been awesome in transforming that wagon, even from the first time I picked it up, Havent been able to stump them yet. I think Mike has a soft spot for the Patrols am pretty sure he owns a couple

That's good to hear. Now you can get out and enjoy it! And as threedogs said "where's the pics!?" lol

>>>tappin from tassie