garage mechanic taking your lotus for joyride

[garyesprit]

has it happened to you? a mate told me when he picked up his car there was a extra 10miles on the clock and the petrol tank was nearly empty, the garage tried to deny it and then they addmitted it saying one of the 'boys' probaby took it out to make sure it was running ok....BULLSH**!!

[GreenV8S]

Personally I'd want to know that the garage did take it for a test drive, and ten miles is barely enough to get it warm let alone excessive. If you can use that much petrol in ten miles, there must be something wrong with it.

[GKP]

10 miles? 5 miles out, 5 miles back. Not a big deal. I'd probably expect more if the car is being road-tested properly, but perhaps I'm not so precious about my cars!

[S Works]

I'd expect a garage to drive my car before and after a service to check all was well. Part of the diagnostic checks before a service I would have thought would be to check it runs up to temp properly, that steering, brakes and drivetrain feel 'ok' and anything untoward or of concern would then be looked at as a part of the checkover.

[pentoman]

Also you'll find a garage will often leave the car idling for some time, especially if doing an MOT or anything, which burns fuel. Not sure why the garage wouldn't "admit" it though? Not exactly the end of the world mind, if he's not happy don't go back there again!!

[tricky 100]

All depends what its in the workshop for , EG noisy wheelbearing then of course it will be roadtested , broken trim clip no it wouldn't get roadtested .

[b-havers]

Not a Lotus, but a guy here in Norway had (...) a Subaru Impreze of some hot sort.
It was at a garage, and was 'tested' to death by one of the mechanics. The car was driven so hard it was nearly destroyed.

Luckily for the owner, he had both a tracking system and a logged GPS onboard, which prooved both the route and the speed.
No way out for the garage but to pay for a total overhaul of the car.


/Bjorn-Anders
Norway

[chris71]

Think theres a fine line here. They shouldn't be going for a joyride, but especially if the problem was non specific (eg "theres a cllonk on the back end" then they should make sure it's behaving ok before returning it. There agin, the same sort of diligence should also make them refill it and clean it up afterwards.

A friend of my dad's had a rare alfa which he cherised. He only took it out very gently on a couple of dry weekends a year and it often ran badly, he used to take it to the garage for servicing and afterwards it would run fantastically for a short while. It turned out the mechanic was just taking it out and blowing the cobwebs out properly!

[cross-eyed-twit]

there are ways of making the engine work without ragging it to within an inch of its life. if the revs arent fully explored the ecu can, I think, learn the laxadasical routine and as such run poorly. take it through the rev range and the oil gets circulated properly and the ecu sees the entire performance envelope to learn.

or somesuch bo11ocks...

[999]

Don't know if you're right C-E-T, but I like your thinking...

[rcs]

For a Dealership technician there is no 'joy' in testdriving a customers car, it's just a chore. Don't forget they work with these cars day in day out so there is no novelty in test driving your 2000th Elise!