Botched maintenance job: What are my legal options for compensation?

There ya go, blame it on the driver. Its always the drivers fault right. He should have know to go become an ASE certified mechanic on his days off.

 

Even the village idiot can look at an air bag and see if it is hyper extended! Here's a tip Kansas 'cause you may lack the skil/knowledgel also....look at the shock absorbers and if you see fresh paint on the lower part of the shock that could be an indication that it's extended more than normal.

Typical comment though...no one wants to accept ANY responsability

 

A good mechanic is worth his weight iin gold. We try to go out of our yard at 100%

Things happen otr that are outside of our control. We try to hit the major shops, freightliner, kenworth, pete, cummins, wwdetroit, then t/a etc. We avoid small shops likee the plague.

Big shops do have some sort of warranty across the nation.

Even tire work is done at Loves or bona fide dealer. Small shops whale on impact wrench stripping bolts or come out with wrong parts etc. Nah.

Some small shops are excellent, but they are far and few in between.

 

I've always found the opposite to be true. The screwups and headscratching moments for me, where I had just gotten messed over by a repair shop, at the hands of allegedly professional big time shops, dealer, truck stop etc. For the repairs someone can't handle on their own it is imperative imo to find a small time shop that wANts the business and will earn loyalty. Never seen that behavior at a dealer. Most TA and Petro"techs" are paid on commission and will do all sorts of creative repairs on simple fixes to inflate the bill on a job. Saw that many times first hand when I was a company driver. The only thing they are useful for imo is emergency tire repair and only if there is no other quick viable option and btw quick has no meaning in their worldview.

 

Any driver worth his salt could have troubleshooted and fixed an air suspension problem.
Pilot valve, height control valve, dump valve, air leaks...

Even if you never worked on them before it's simple enough when you crawl under and look at it.

 

Messed over by a repair shop....


Here's one for ya:

I had an alignment done at a shop I had never been to before on the word of a firend's boss. I dropped the truck at my friend's shop (for a PM and annual DOT) and they took it to the other shop for the alignment.

My steer tires each had 14/32 of tread. I got a call a few days later saying my truck would not pass DOT until I replaced my right steer tire. When I picked up the truck, the steer tire on the right side was BALD. Wouldn't even pass as a trailer tire! Can I prove the alignment shop swapped tires on me? Nope. Can't even prove my tire was stolen. The original shop that put those steer tires on didn't note the DOT number off the tires on the invoice.

You might wonder why they didn't take both tires. The left steer tire had a little wear mark on the outside edge from the alignment having been out. They didn't want that one. But they can sell my other one, in good shape, for $200.

You can't just replace a single steer tire when the difference in tread depth is that much. I had to replace both tires.


I will not name the shop because there is no way I can prove this. I just know what I know. And my tires did not wear that unevenly that there would be 3/8 inch difference in tread depth.

 

Especially on a flipping trailer.

 

Are these the same guys who insist a driver should be paid for every extra duty a driver is "supposed" to perform including sweeping out the trailer?

I, for one, do not fool around with air lines. Lights and electric are not going to kill someone. But mess up an air line and it jacks the brakes. There is too much at stake for me to want that kind of liability. It's my job to locate the problem. It's the mechanic's job to fix it.