Tuesday, May 27, 2003
Kam’s Column - 27/05/03
Hello Again!
I know that certain places in the world have different seasons for violent natural events. You’ve got typhoon season (not Typhoo…), monsoon season, even bush fire season. But is there an earthquake season? And if there is, it surely must be worldwide. There’s a whole lot of shaking going on globally - Japan has just been hit, Turkey shook not so long back – I wonder where the next event will be? The pictures on the news are truly horrible and my heart goes out to all of those involved. I hope that lessons in safe building can be properly learnt, so that the next time this happens, the casualty toll won’t be so high.
Talking of shaking, rattling and things rolling about, there is something that I feel that I must tell you regular reader. I may have alluded to it once or twice in the years of writing this column, but I don’t believe that I have ever said it outright. Of course, half of the problem is the Internet and the ease of accessing information. It’s just to easy to buy things, learn things and find out more stuff about one of the greatest musicians who ever lived. As I feel that I’ve known you forever, I think it is only right that I square up – I am the world’s biggest Elvis fan. Ever. I could challenge anyone to find a fact that I don’t know about the King, or a song I haven’t heard. There, I’ve said it; I don’t have to worry about it no more.
As usual, we were working right over the Bank Holiday weekend, albeit with a skeleton staff. And we’ve been absolutely swamped with jobs, ranging from fitting new sets of tyres (I think we must be the busiest Stunner sellers in the country, judging by how many are flying off the shelves each day!) to the usual round of tricky problems. The good news is that it looks like we’re coming to the end of our timing belt run, I’ve only got eight on the books so far this week…
Our first awkward car arrived bright and early Tuesday morning. We’d recently seen Mr Frank Young (a real name for a change this week!) when he brought his daughter’s car into the workshop for its annual service, but this time he had come in with his pride and joy, an Alfa 156 Twin Spark in a lovely shade that I can only describe as a little bit of green.
“I’ve got a problem with the brakes, Kev”, he said, leaning on the reception counter. “I replaced the front discs and pads last week, and did it really carefully, but it just isn’t right. I’ve checked everything twice over and can’t find the problem. Can you get it sorted?”
“No worries, Mr Young,” I replied. “I’ll give you a call as soon as we’ve identified what has gone wrong.”
A brief roadtest confirmed that the front brakes weren’t, well, braking. I returned to the workshop a minute later but a year older, thankful that I’d only gone down the road at 10mph. What’s more, the whole car was dragging to the left every time I touched the brake pedal. Definitely t-r-o-u-b-l-e.
Up on the ramps, I whipped the alloys off and had a good look at the system. Everything seemed in order, the callipers were in good condition, the pistons moved freely and the alignment of the discs was spot on. Not anything glaringly obvious then.
Naturally, the next thing I had to do was check the specifications on our superb computer system, to ensure that Mr Young had used the correct parts. And herein lay the problem. I had noted that the discs weren’t of the same high quality that we would have installed had we done the job, but I hadn’t spotted something else. Our computer system gave me the correct widths of the discs – and when I got the measuring gear out, it all became obvious. The front left disc was three millimetres wider than the right – just a little bit but enough to cause the disc to catch on the pad and tug at the wheel when it got warm.
After a bit of shoppin’ around, I located some high quality replacement parts, which I installed after checking with Mr Young. A lengthy roadtest later and a session on the brake rollers back in the workshop confirmed that the brakes were now in tip-top condition. It’s easy when you know how…
When Mr Young picked the Alfa up, he took the chance to book in his wife’s car for a full service and (free) MoT – and while he did, one of his neighbours came in as well! Far from being a small world, this sort of thing is pretty common as most of our work comes either from recommendation or customers’ family connections. So it’s not unusual for the reception area to look more like a family reunion than the entrance to a workshop!
I’ll be back next week regular readers, so until then, I got a lot o’ working to do!
