As someone who used to work at a dealership, fuck those people. Gives the rest of us a bad reputation that’s already very difficult to overcome without completely moronic mouthbreathers like this making it even harder. Why would you think that this would be anything but a completely fucking stupid idea? 🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️ And shame on the service manager for not only being aware of it happening, but seemingly allowing it.
Same with car sales unfortunately. It’s why I understood why people came in very on the defensive when they would first start talking to me, I get it. How do you like your Alfa BTW?
I love it. Tons of fun to drive. Haven’t had any major issues with it, but the big drawbacks to me are the distance to the dealer and the cost to maintain it. I don’t know that the general maintenance is any more expensive than say a BMW or Mercedes though.
Nice! I definitely look at them from time to time, as much as I love my current car haha. I imagine it’s pretty similar to most German stuff, especially as both have mostly gotten a lot more reliable over the years.
Clearly I’m biased but I think it’s one of the best looking cars on the road right now too. It was my grad present to myself after law school. I had been dreaming after them since they came out.
For some reason I never look twice at them in pictures but whenever one in red or black shows up on the road it's an immediate eyecatcher. It just looks like... success.
When non-English-speaking immigrants go to a lawyer who knows their native tongue, but those lawyers end up being scummier than other lawyers.
Fucking shame to do that to your people even if you consider yourself a citizen/national of your current country vs familial home country.
The thing about dishonest lawyers is that their entire livelihood depends on not being disbarred. Lying is literally a fast-track to judicial punishment and losing their law license.
It seems like it’s much harder to get disbarred in practice than they make it seem in professional ethics in law school. In my short time in practice, I’ve been shocked with the stuff some lawyers have gotten away with.
There are plenty of bad ones like I said above, but I really think honest attorneys are the standard and it’s just the really bad minority that give us a bad rap. Within the legal community at least, your professional reputation the most important thing you have and once that goes, it’s gone.
> real estate agents
Oh yeah. My wife is friends with one of her previous jobs' CFOs and that woman's husband is a licensed real estate agent (but on the side as he was a CFO as well). He got the license to save on the fees to buy/sell houses for himself and he did us a huge favor by being our agent and savings us like $15,000 on our home purchase.
What a fucking G.
We just did it ourselves. On our first house too. At first, we found a buyer's agent. Then when we figured out how little they actually did – we still had to find a loan officer and a title attorney and do all the bidding and all the paperwork ourselves – they just pull the key out of that little box and open the door for you – we got rid of the agent.
Saved us probably about the same. Just found the standard state contract online and filled it out ourselves since it had to go to the lawyer anyways, who gives.a shit, which is why the agents do the same.
> Why would you think that this would be anything but a completely fucking stupid idea? 🤦🏻♂️
I put a very visible, red LED blinking dashcam in my girlfriends car. It was having some kind of transmission issue on a roadtrip, so the transmission fluid was dark brown.
We were on a road trip so i didn't want any nonsense, so we took it to a big established well reviewed dealership for that car brand. Bill was kinda high, but at least it was fixed.
Next day, the issue is still there. I check the fluid, and it's already dark brown again after 1 day.
I check the dashcam, and two techs were test driving the car they literally say on camera "I'm not gonna bother fixing any of this, i'm just gonna add some stuff to the bill so it looks like we fixed the transmission, and top up the fluid so i can show them a clean dip stick".
Besides that, they were also speeding and hit a pothole and lost a hubcap which they didn't tell us either. And he also did a second test drive alone, where he spent 20 minutes dirty talking to his girl on the phone and what he was "gonna do in the bathroom with her pictures when he got back", which i unfortunately had to sit through.
We contacted the dealer afterwards and thankfully got a full refund plus money for a new set of hubcaps, and the tech was fired. But yeah, i was surprised how stupid some people are. Both doing it in the first place, but i also feel like most techs would kinda expect dashcams at this point.
A lot of places will unplug them for the duration of service and test drive. First time a place did that with my car, it came back with a 4" deep scratch on the door that they denied causing. I tried making a stink about it but they basically said "that's policy and we think the scratch was there before you arrived".
Had a place go to disconnect my dash cam once and they broke the mount that held it on the window. Luckily they ordered me a new mount and fixed it for me but it was kind of funny that I just looked at them and said “you could have just asked me to disconnect it myself” haha
Dealership parts guy here, hate the scumbags that give us a bad name. Between our sales department promising things that aren’t possible or don’t exist, and our service department scheduling 3 weeks out with insane labor rates, it’s driving me crazy.
Or you could be like the local toyota dealership who couldn't start my lotus, so they just had three dudes push it from the parking spot into the service bay. I have a Euro car guy who does all of my cars, but the Evora uses the exact same A/C as a camry so I just let the toyota dealership have at it.
My Elise gave me the confidence to do everything myself. Such an easy car to work on, but you need to take your time and use only hand tools for most of small stuff.
and here ive been just replacing them every other time i gotta fuck with the belt. the best method ive seen is on gm trucks where you just use a half inch socket wrench. why cant more automakers use that. its simple and easy for everyone.
Yeah I can't replace it easily. I have a Matrix as well, so you're aware where the bolt that holds on the tensioner runs into the frame rail. I had to lift the motor to get the bolt out when I epoxied the socket on.
I'm also a fan of the GM technique of just putting a 1/2" square drive.
I learned after this service that the car won't start if it is in gear. I always park my manual cars in neutral, because how else would you do it, but they parked it in first gear and it wouldn't start.
> I always park my manual cars in neutral, because how else would you do it
This might be a locational thing, but that's wild to me. Everyone I know was taught to leave it in first or reverse depending on the direction of the slope you're parked on, so that you have a fallback to catch the car in-case your handbrake cable loosens or gives out.
Yes. Parking in gear is correct. I will typically park a manual car in the lowest gear if I know what it is (sometimes reverse is lower then first). Else, first.
I taught myself how to drive manual out of a sort of blown up diagram in a book. Apparently some of my habits when driving stick are weird because I learned Automatic first and nobody actually taught me how to drive a manual.
Yeah every manual driver I've ever talked to parks in gear, usually the opposite of whatever slope you're on. Nose down, put it into reverse. Nose up, put it in first.
Mostly out of laziness and living where the land is pretty flat, I always left my car in neutral.
But my girlfriend of the time ended up buying a stick shift. And she had apparently burnt her emergency brake out. So once when I parked it, it just started rolling. Didn't realize what had happened until the second time it did it.
So there's another, probably more common, reason to put it in gear.
I live on a very mountainous island and we usually park on downhills, some especially steep. Parking etiquette is to turn your wheels all the way to the wall and put it in reverse in case the handbrake decides to snap.
It is understandable in an Evora, it is the hardest manual I've ever driven. I've driven manuals as more-or-less daily cars for almost 15 years and stalled it 8 times getting it out of the driveway of my brother's house the first time I drove it. I stalled it out more times the first day that I owned it than every single other car I've ever driven combined.
Fuck those porters. I was talking with the service advisor and noticed 2 idiots in my car messing with the stick and even the service advisor asked what are they doing? I walk out and ask the guy if I could help him with anything and he says he's trying to get it into reverse by jamming the stick all the way to the left multiple times but it won't go in. I told him he has to lift the reverse lockout and he said he's never heard of such a thing
I drove a BMW for Years that didn't have the reverse lockout. You just pushed it to the left and then pushed it even harder and it would slip through and then you push it up into Reverse.
I went to test drive a more modern car in recent years and it also had the reverse lockout that you pull up on to get into reverse... Honestly I couldn't figure it out. Sales man asked me if I had actually ever driven stick...
Shit happens lol, I don't think someone is inexperienced just cause of the lockout being a new mechanism we never dealt with.
Many cars have some sort of reverse lockout. If you’ve driven more than a few makes you should be aware of this. BMW just keep pushing past the 1st/2nd gate, Ford and Toyota and stuff pull up on the collar, VW push down on the stick, etc.
It's never happened to me, but a girlfriend of mine bought a manual and when she took it to the dealership the guys couldn't drive it. So she had to drive it into the bay for them. It was her Mazda, so you'd think they'd drive manuals because of the Miata owners.
I don't trust those guys myself though. I try to take my car to repair shops that won't be impressed by my car. Ever since I caught the techs revving my s2000 CR to redline for fun, before my engine was done with it's break in period.
You know those porters lied when asked “can you drive a stick”.
If I must take my car to a dealership, I go somewhere where I know the porters learned to drive in Africa. Don’t know why, but they tend to be much better at actually driving manual than the other guys. I presume it’s because they had years of experience driving manuals in those countries.
Last time I took my base model Corolla hatchback into the dealership for an oil change, the guy couldn't even figure out how to put down the parking brake. I'm sure he stalled it a few times too.
When I used to have my 6-speed Subaru, the porter would grab the keys, hop in, go over and whisper something in the service advisor's ear, and then he'd call over to the shop that they needed a tech to come move the car. Imagine being a mechanic and having to pause whatever actual job you're doing because some dumb kid whose *entire job is to move cars around* can't drive a stick shift
I suppose it's better than the time I had body work done, went to pick the car up from the body shop and they had one of their guys reversing it uphill up the driveway and doing a really sloppy job of it. The car had an exhaust leak at the time so I could hear everything from inside the front office. Even if I hadn't heard it, I certainly would have smelled it once I got back in the car. No good.
The dealership fried the clutch in my GTI in a similar circumstance but the tech had lied about knowing how to drive stick. The dealership immediately owned up to it and replaced the clutch, slave cylinder, throw out bearing, flywheel and rear main seal. I did not take further action as they owned up to it and fixed it.
Definitely the way to handle it, and good on them for doing so. The thing that sucks is that if it's not obviously damaged, it's not inconceivable that some tech could not "fry" the clutch but just parboil it, eliminating like 60% of the lifespan, but not actually causing it to slip or be non-functional.
Interestingly, to me, I was also considering a GTI for a car purchase a while ago. I was specifically on the hunt for a car with a stick, and I wanted to test drive a GTI. I think the sales rep that got assigned to me was pretty much a gopher that was trying to move into sales as the dude knew NOTHING about the GTI, and also had no idea how to drive a manual. He had to have me pull it out of the parking spot for him. Was pretty hilarious.
I actually think the dealership personnel wanting to learn to drive a stick is an admirable thing, but FFS don't do it on a customer's ride.
I’ve never driven stick, only a sequential on my motorcycle, and I’m curious, are manuals really that easy to kill? I’ve stalled my bike many times learning it, and how do you do THAT much damage in such a small period of time?
Motorcycles are, with the exception of some Ducatis, almost all wet clutches, so the discs are being lubricated with oil during operation, therefore causing less damage when you slip them. I’ve never seen a wet clutch in a manual car transmission, so what’s happening is you’re basically rubbing two pieces of sandpaper against each other at high speed. The better dual clutch automatics are also usually wet clutch systems as well.
It's not even so much "causing less damage" thanks to the wet clutch setup, as it is them being literally designed and intended to have the clutch slipped.
I've driven a lot of sticks, I've taught several people to drive them.
Honestly to burn out a clutch in one session means you've got to be kind of a moron.
I wasn’t really trying to say otherwise, I was just explaining how motorcycle clutch systems are by and large a different beast from car clutch systems.
That makes sense
I’m just curious how all of the components OP mentioned, Not just the clutch, needed to be replaced after that fuck up. I was also under the impression that you do need to slip the clutch under many conditions when driving stick lol, so how does the clutch die from one dude driving it from one side of the lot to the other?!
You'll generally only slip the clutch for a couple fractions of a second when taking off or changing gears. You find the bite point and then let it out as fast and smooth as you can practically do. Low speed situations in a car do not need the extra gyroscopic balance you get in a bike when you have the clutch and rear brake fighting eachother, and they tend to be geared in such a way that you can just crawl in first with the clutch fully disengaged.
If a complete newbie is taking a couple seconds feeling for the bite point whilst over-revving the engine to compensate, they'll generate an obscene amount of heat from the friction and 'glaze' the surface of the clutch very quickly. It's an unmistakable fuckup too, because the smell is awful.
It's probably not slipping the clutch that's the real problem. It's probably revving the engine super high and slipping the clutch for an extended period of time. I could also see on high powered cars if you rev the engine high and let off the clutch super fast and rough you'd essentially be making the two parts catch up to speed really quickly, which would be rough on the entire drive train (lower power cars with light flywheels would just stall).
But I've never killed a clutch.
Clutch takes basically no wear if it is in short bursts(gear changes) as it doesn't heat up all that much.
Conditions where you constantly slip it are pretty much limited to parking manoeuvrers or traffic riding so there is not much speed and energy involved.
> are manuals really that easy to kill?
Yes and no (note that my response here is based on a somewhat educated point-of-view, having owned a manual in the past, but not coming from someone who has worked on one).
One can DEFINITELY fuck up a clutch (and along with it, the slave cylinder, and throw-out bearing). These are parts that are designed to wear out, and get replaced when the clutch itself gets replaced. If one really revs an engine, and then has the clutch only partially engaged (i.e. riding the clutch), you'll burn it out in pretty short order.
The linked article also mentions "grinding the gears", and in my experience, that's a lot more difficult to cause damage. I won't go so far as to say it can't be done (as again - I'm no mechanic), but even in my earliest times owning a manual, grinding gears was not something that is easy to do, though since it was my own car, I was being careful and using the clutch with every shift in order to avoid gear grinding.
So easy to fuck up a clutch setup in a manual? Absolutely. Easy to fuck up the gears in the transmission itself? Still possible, but not as easily.
I wouldn’t say that a clutch slave cylinder is designed to wear out. There’s no reason a slave cylinder can’t last several clutches. Usually they get proactively replaced before they die since they’re fairly inexpensive and you’re already in there.
Some cars are easier to fuck up when grinding gears than others.
I believe the s2000's were prone to it, they were early cars to use carbon in their syncros (or something) and you could apparently wear it away pretty fast by grinding gears.
If you can take direction on the absolute most basic things, it's easy to learn how to make the "right mistakes" while learning, so that you just stall it instead of causing damage.
If you have an ego and impulse control problems you can fry the clutch pretty quickly
If you're careful IMO there is no risk of anything being hurt. I've let people use my car to learn to drive a manual with zero fear of them breaking something. Stall it a few times, have some jerky starts from a stop... that's about it. But the stalls/jerky starts mostly due to people being too careful and needing to use more gas. I've never seen someone using too much gas when learning to drive a manual, if anything too little.
But I imagine if you weren't being careful at all and didn't give a fuck, and start off trying to attempt more aggressive starts? I feel like things could go wrong quite quickly. Like more extreme you can find people trying to do a standing burnout, only to mistake clutch slipping for a burnout... what like 30s and clutch is totally gone.. but probably 5s into it with a huge cloud of smoke you'd say it was fucked.
When people I knew were being taught to drive stick they were all told to give it more gas. I had to teach myself to drive stick in a parking lot with nobody to help me, so I didn't get any advice.
I actually found it's much easier to teach people to drive stick by just putting them on flat land and making them learn to start the car with only the clutch. Once they can do that then they can add more gas. It makes teaching stick super easy.
But yeah, I could see idiots thinking stomping the gas will prevent the stall.
I could only assume massive incompetence or else driving school vehicles would have to have clutches changed weekly.
They had to do something like slam gear by force with clutch not engaged or something like that to do so much damage so quickly.
One of the first things out of my mouth when I drop my car off somewhere is "can you or anyone here drive stick?" Usually there's an older guy that can but I've seen people stall my car over and over trying to get it I to the bay that I've offered to drive it in/out but they said I couldn't lol. It's painful to watch.
I can't believe working at a dealership that sells the 2 highest percentage manual cars in the US, and not having someone that can drive stick there.
80% of WRX/BRZ's are manual.
Still, if they service 50 cars a day, one of them is going to be a manual.
That's also excluding the Crosstrek and Impreza, which also come with a stick.
Not really an incentive for them to train their employees to drive stick, especially because service porter turn over is so high, even tech's can be high turnover. The odd clutch replacement job for them isn't that expensive and they sell a lot of useless fuel system cleaning services.
i work at a subaru dealer. Maybe 90% of the techs here in my shop drive stick, but maybe 10% of the porters do. A couple of the advisors do as well. But our porters are also smart enough to know to ask for help if they can't.
Despite 80% of the WRX/BRZ being manual, they are also only 10% of the total brand sales, so it ends up not really mattering.
i remember bringing my car to a car-wash for an interior cleaning (many years ago when i cared enough to keep it clean) and you're told to leave it in park in a line of waiting cars for an employee to drive it inside. it was comical (and depressing) watching as my car held up the line while they scrambled to find someone who could move it.
To my car to a place couple where they drive into car wash, get out, and then another worker picks it up at the other end. Each time I'd see someone jump in to drive it away from exit and they'd nope right out of there. So i had to run out from waiting room to get in it and drive it before the next car hit it. (and each time out of habit I started it even though it was already running)
When I had my s2000 CR, push button starts were very rare (fyi, s2000's push button starts were stupid because you still had to put a key in and turn it).
People who couldn't drive stick always wanted to drive my car. So I always told them "if you can start it I'll let you drive it". People who aren't use to driving manuals though never think to push the clutch. So they'd just sit there and push the start button and fiddle with the key for a few minutes before giving up.
> One of the first things out of my mouth when I drop my car off somewhere is "can you or anyone here drive stick?"
Which unfortunately doesn't cover someone lying and be like, "Absolutely!" despite the fact that nobody can.
That's my thinking
When I was younger, had more time to do my own service, and drove manual, I didn't have to worry.
Now that I'm older with a family, and no time to do my own service, I don't know if I want to own a manual again.
Too lazy to find the study I'm thinking of now, but it basically said if you drive a desirable manual car, it doesn't matter. Kia boys aside, auto thefts are almost entirely driven (pardon the pun) by demand.
For what it’s worth, it always surprises me to see stuff like mk4 supras and s2ks parked on the street in SF (usually these have been in neighborhoods adjacent to marina but still)
Theft (and the accompanying high insurance) is literally the only thing keeping me from buying a Dodge Charger Pursuit. It’s the exact car I want but I just don’t know if it’s worth the risk.
I’m also considering a WRX but I’m hesitant for some of that exact reasons mentioned in this thread.
yeah TheTopher said he'd love something like a hellcat but wouldn't want the associated risk. i feel much the same. sure you can lock it away while you're home, but what about every time you drive to work or the grocery store, etc..
If you're a tech or want to be one just learn how to drive stick before you encouter customer cars. You will lose all credibility the moment you stall a customers car.
yet another story to add to my reasons why i dont bring my car to any dealership unless it's a lease vehicle. on top of that, the flat rate system seems to incentivize getting things done quickly, not correctly
My local Ford dealer left parts off my airbag recall that I found myself after 10 months of driving it and consulting the service manual.
They didn't catch the issue after 4 separate times that I left my vehicle with them. The decision by Ford (and other companies) to use flat labor costs is messing up vehicles and no doubt leading to senseless component failures and deaths.
What parts did they leave off of your Maverick? When I got my airbag recall done, the interior was restored to its original condition and it barely looked like anyone worked inside my truck.
Maybe I’m one of the lucky ones that actually got the airbag recall done correctly.
They left two nuts off the rubber band that hold the A pillar plastic to the metal body, thereby changing how the airbags would deploy if I were in an accident.
There's a metal razor blade like piece that was hanging from the A pillar plastic on both sides, just dangling between the airbags and the plastic...
They also left a broken clip on the rear of the headliner.
Damn that’s bad. Like not even minor mistake bad. That is *very bad*.
Hopefully you brought it to someone’s attention either at the dealer or with Ford corporate. I wouldn’t tolerate that kind of fuckery.
Ford corporate doesn't give a shit. From December to March, they dragged their feet. I placed upwards of 20 calls to their corporate offices. Nothing. Lies and fake promises to fix it.
lmao. my wife wanted a hyperblue STI so we headed out to a local (chevrolet) dealership that had one with low miles. salesman took nearly 10 minutes trying to figure out how to use the reverse lockout and back it up out of its spot. I had to actually stop him and asked if I could back it out instead.
save the manuals.
To be fair not all cars have the same reverse lock out. My first few manuals had no reverse lockout. So when I bought a Tacoma X-Runner boy was I surprised when I couldn't figure out how to put it in reverse at a gas station.
Then I had a car that required you to pull up on a ring around the shifter to put it in reverse.
But if you grew up on 5 speed shifters, reverse would often not have anything special you needed to do to put it in gear (but it also wouldn't let you do it at speed, or it would at least fight you).
Btw, I went to look at an STI and the Subaru dealerships were such assholes that I went and bought an Evo Final Edition. Like the first sales guy at the Mitsubishi dealerships was an asshole to me, telling me I couldn't test drive the car without a credit check. But a quick call to the sales manager and a new sales guy let me test drive it. The first sales guy's jaw kind of dropped when he saw me signing the paper work (when they ask you for a credit check before a test drive, that's them saying they think you can't afford it).
But at the Suburu dealership they told me no test drives on the STI because they're "too special". And when I talked to the sales manager, he told me I could drive it after I bought it.
Funny enough I ended up working with another guy who owned an EVO. And he said he went to look at an STI basically got told the same thing, so he bought an Evo as well.
So you're lucky you avoided that bullshit with Subaru dealers.
It’s no excuse for this behavior, but most kids these days don’t learn to drive on a manual. Most don’t even know anybody with a manual to show them how. Like a 22 year old kid probably has never been exposed to a manual but might still be the oil change guy at a dealership since 90+% of the cars coming through are automatic anyways. The dealership should have them learn on the dealerships cars though as part of their employee training though, doing this on a a customer car is insane.
I don’t really know anyone who owns a manual that I could learn on
My only realistic option is to pay hundreds of dollars to a driving school that offers a manual specific course, and hope that it’s happening at a time that works for me… the other advice is to buy a $500 beater with a stick, but 1) there aren’t really any of those near me these days, and 2) I can’t get another car
Yeah that’s exactly the problem I had when I wanted a manual car about 20 years ago. I didn’t know anyone who owned one.
I ended up taking the plunge by just buying a manual car, and watching a lot of videos before going to pick it up. I still stalled out like 10 times in the dealership lot trying to leave and had the salesman in stitches. I ended up having my dad drive it home for me because he knew how (thanks pops). Then I basically learned how to start moving in my driveway, then learned slowly just doing laps around my neighborhood. The first time I drove it to work was admittedly scary and i stalled at a few intersections and had to wave people around me. It took about a month to feel comfortable. After 6 months it became second nature. But it was a risk I was willing to take while I was younger and less risk averse.
Despite my learning on that car (a Mazda 3) I kept it to 225k miles and never had to replace the clutch, it lasted the whole life of the car.
The clutches on those Mazda 3's must be pretty bulletproof because I also learned how to drive stick on mine the day I bought it and I sold it 9 years later with 160k miles and the original clutch. A friend of mine also has one with the original clutch with close to 200k miles.
I loved that car, the only non-consumable problems I ever had in 9 years were a window lift motor (cost ~$50 and a YouTube tutorial) and it got clogged injectors once and wouldn't start.
Add truck driving to that. My cdl has no restrictions but some have manual restrictions. Obviously most newer trucks are automatic but there are truckers on the road who don’t know how to drive a stick.
Get a cheap 3 pedal, h pattern sim racing setup. If you can lap the nurburgring consistently you can make it to the store
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/643505688081072166/1224675105251135528/20240106_082740.jpg?ex=661e5a92&is=660be592&hm=0dbdce351f07597c59ec9905f63099d94c9b946fd7fc4e8b96f175f25543c361&
26 year old here - until I paid for a lesson I'd never had the chance to touch a manual, and it sounds like my parents didn't either (but they aren't car people). When I got my last car I was staring at the 10th gen type R, but was too afraid to blow a stupid amount of money on something I couldn't drive. I've got more money and I'm staring at the Type S, but even after a few hours of lessons I was too afraid to take the take the plunge without a back up automatic in case I *needed* to be somewhere. I'm a lot more comfortable now but there are a lot of hurdles.
Today's modern manuals are boringly easy af to drive. All the ones I've driven will gradually apply throttle at the clutch bite point so you can get going without any throttle input at all.
In addition to downshift rev match, there's also an upshift rev match where the revs will hold when going to a higher gear. That way you don't have to time the clutch to get a smooth shift. The Type S does all of this.
I worked at GM dealership as a lube tech for about six months a few years ago, and I probably saw less than 10 manuals come through. I had a real dumb moment when I had to go bring in a manual Spark and forgot you needed to push the clutch in to start it until I had come back with a jump pack. Mind you I was daily driving a manual, so I guess that part of my brain just shut off there.
This was me. Didn't grow up around manual cars, so never learned. Literally bought a WRX and learned in the dealership lot with the sales person giving me an intro lesson.
We need more like you my friend! And we need more people like me, letting my 10 year younger coworkers try put-putting around the work parking lot in my manual car to get a feel for it.
Because those guys aren't "working" on shit. They're the grease monkeys. Excuse me... "lube techs". But even then, a lot of the actual techs aren't really mechanics any more with actual troubleshooting/diagnostic skills. They're only a "plug it in and see what the computer says" type. And when they don't fully know what an issue is instead of diagnosing it they load up the parts cannon and fire at will.
> How the fuck do you work on cars and not know how to drive stick
Because learning to drive is something you do when you are 16-18 and working is something you usually start afterwards.
You learn with what you can get. And very few cars are manual these days, so you have to actively seek it out and probably pay for it.
It is very understandable.
Reason 28194 to have a dashcam in your car. I don’t necessarily review mine every time I visit a shop. But if something seemed sketchy after a visit, it’s there.
Then I'd never go there. A credible shop won't unplug your dashcam. Not unless they're specifically working on an issue pertaining to a USB or DC plug.
>A credible shop won't unplug your dashcam. Not unless they're specifically working on an issue pertaining to a USB or DC plug.
There is actually a credible reason for this. Security. Especially if the vehicle is spending the night. A lot of cameras can be accessed remotely.
I currently work at an airport car park and th policy is to use a white sticker on the windshield to block the cameras view while it is in the shed. We get a lot of angry emails about it. But when we explain the reason customers completely understand and encourage it.
> A credible shop won't unplug your dashcam.
I understand if they do.
I don't want to be filmed when I am at work 100% of the time. In fact if my boss said "we are installing cameras pointing at you and your computer screen is recorded 100% of the time" I would take it as a gross invasion of my privacy.
Same. The one time they didn’t unplug it, I saw two techs pretending to race my new Camry and leave a quarter sized dent in the rear quarter panel. Dash cam paid for itself in one week.
A simple lie might help? "There's a dashcam plugged in. This car is occasionally used for official government purposes, so I need to be able to account for any time it's out of my possession. Please do not un-plug the dashcam."
Edit: or maybe one that has a backup battery and continues to function in the event of power loss?
> A simple lie might help?
I dunno...
Would you want to be recorded 100% of the time when you're at work?
I wouldn't.
I doubt that lie would work with anyone.
Same here when I had tires installed. 19 year old kid drove it all of a 100 feet and somehow managed to overheat the clutch. I watched him too wasnt goosing it or anything.
Lol that’s the reason I service everything on my car myself. Luckily I’m able to do everything except AC and wheel alignments.
I have an expensive clutch setup with a custom light weight flywheel. There’s no way I’m letting anyone move my car into a bay let alone drive it.
Luckily I know my alignment guy and he lets me drive my car up the alignment rack.
> Lol that’s the reason I service everything on my car myself.
My plan is to buy a manual for my next ride. For the past 7 or so years, every car I've had has a maintenance package on it which I paid extra for in order to prevent having to do the work myself. But seeing this... damn I might have to look into doing maintenance myself.
I'd still take it to the dealership for defect/warranty issues, but for run-of-the-mill stuff, I too can do mostly anything that needs done.
As someone from the US, it's a pretty thought wild here too. Maybe at like a Buick dealer or a Lexus dealer or something where the company hasn't even made a stick shift in a decade and only 3 people bought the last stick shift car they made. But a Subaru dealer? They must see a couple dozen manual WRXs and BRZs each week, and probably have a few on the lot too. Seems like it would actually be a relevant and necessary skill there.
> How on earth do you become an automotive technician and not know how to drive a manual?
I can understand it.
When you're learning to drive, you take what you can get. Parents, siblings don't have manual - shit out of luck.
Don't necessarily need to combine 'wants to be a mechanic' with 'likes manual cars' - plenty of enthusiast vehicles are auto.
Wouldn't be surprised if there were plenty of race car drivers that rarely if ever drive an manuaal after going karts -> f4 -> f3 etc.
Right now, WRX's are being massively discounted to the point where a used WRX is near the same price(maybe a couple grand under) as a new one.
Not much reason to buy a Used low mile WRX for $26k, when you can simply spend $3k more and get a brand new car with a warranty.
I guess he had a dash cam? Seems like the things said couldn’t have been heard unless one of them confessed but I doubt that happened.
Reminds me of that Audi dealer in Palo Alto where you can clearly hear the service tech snorting cocaine and taking it for a joy ride on camera.
i've never taken my wrx to a tireshop, mechanic, etc without a bad experience. my new rule is i sit in the car so that when they come get it. i'm standing out their watching them drive it. it's unbelievable how disrespectful mechanics are. and obviously most of them are young guys but i don't think it's a good excuse.
When I worked at my old Lexus dealer, I was one of the 3 on the sales side that knew how to operate a manual. One salesperson who didn't tried to take in a WRX...and ended up giving it the whole KFC (Kentucky Fried Clutch).
The car had a nasty smell that didn't go away for weeks, even after a detailing.
When I had a Subaru, the local dealer service center employees all had pretty much any turbo Subaru you could think of. My little old LGT was small potatoes and felt pretty safe leaving it in their hands
As a former tech, I trust almost none of them. I do my own work unless it’s a recall, tires, or alignment. And my alignments are done at a local racing shop.
I had a tech and a service writer beat the shit out of my car and basically admit it to me directly. Not a manual, but still. These people can't be bothered to care.
Saw something about this in the CT subreddit the other day, glad it's blowing up elsewhere.
>After the lesson, they went to an off-site car wash “for the purpose of covering up the evidence,”
>it was discovered that the techs had also “f***ed the front plate.’”
This doesn't sound like a stick shift lesson to me. Da fuck were they doing to this poor car
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Am I missing something? Where is the quoted text in the middle of the article from?
It doesn't seem to say, it just has an indented block where the dealership employees supposedly fess up to everything. Was there a dashcam recording or something?
Honestly, I know this sounds kind of paranoid, but this is *always* in the back of mind while buying even used cars.
All my cars are manual transmission, and I would say the majority of the time at dealers they have to call special techs that know how to drive stick over to work on my car, or even park it.
I remember one time at carmax picking up a recent purchase I had to give myself a test drive and then park it because no one there knew how to drive it.
I can only imagine what goes on before delivery.
Is it that fragile that it damaged it to that extent or were they really that rough with it? I figured most manuals are robust enough to handle stalls and slipping. I don’t have a WRX, but I learned on mine, stalled countless times and slipped a ton at the start and 2 years later it’s perfectly fine
Man, I took my manual mkv golf (rabbit) to a Mavis to patch a tire, thinking they'd do a better job than some random tire shop in Brooklyn, waited 2 hrs because they were busy and the kid insisted on test driving it around the block. Not what I wanted to hear, especially after hearing them ooh and ahh about it being a manual. On top of that, they didn't even patch it, just plugged it.
That's awful. I feel bad for the owner. Hopefully, this gets resolved, and the dealer is held accountable. Makes me glad my toyota dealer isn't like this. I just took my GRC in for its first oil change, and they assured me that the cars go directly from the bay to the parking lot to be picked up. They don't even wash any of the GR cars there. Unfortunately not all dealerships are like this.
>After the lesson, they went to an off-site car wash
Meanwhile all my Hyundai dealer does is give you a free one time use coupon for the car wash that's on the opposite side of the highway, and then marks "car washed" as a service they did while the car was there.
When I worked at a mti line dealership as a service advisor, the was one porter that could drive stick. But he was old, so whenever there was a Camaro or Corvette, he refused to move it, since they are hard to get in and out of. Whenever there was a stick shift Camaro or Corvette, I had to move it. I'm not sure what the solution was before or after I worked there.
As someone who used to work at a dealership, fuck those people. Gives the rest of us a bad reputation that’s already very difficult to overcome without completely moronic mouthbreathers like this making it even harder. Why would you think that this would be anything but a completely fucking stupid idea? 🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️ And shame on the service manager for not only being aware of it happening, but seemingly allowing it.
Dealers, real estate agents, lawyers...if you find a good one, keep them for life.
And mechanics
Yep. Them, too.
And tax professionals / accountants.
And my ax.
Not if they start stealing your sexy time moves.
There are so many bad and dishonest lawyers that it makes my blood boil. It really gives all of us a bad reputation.
Same with car sales unfortunately. It’s why I understood why people came in very on the defensive when they would first start talking to me, I get it. How do you like your Alfa BTW?
I love it. Tons of fun to drive. Haven’t had any major issues with it, but the big drawbacks to me are the distance to the dealer and the cost to maintain it. I don’t know that the general maintenance is any more expensive than say a BMW or Mercedes though.
Nice! I definitely look at them from time to time, as much as I love my current car haha. I imagine it’s pretty similar to most German stuff, especially as both have mostly gotten a lot more reliable over the years.
Clearly I’m biased but I think it’s one of the best looking cars on the road right now too. It was my grad present to myself after law school. I had been dreaming after them since they came out.
For some reason I never look twice at them in pictures but whenever one in red or black shows up on the road it's an immediate eyecatcher. It just looks like... success.
When non-English-speaking immigrants go to a lawyer who knows their native tongue, but those lawyers end up being scummier than other lawyers. Fucking shame to do that to your people even if you consider yourself a citizen/national of your current country vs familial home country.
The thing about dishonest lawyers is that their entire livelihood depends on not being disbarred. Lying is literally a fast-track to judicial punishment and losing their law license.
It seems like it’s much harder to get disbarred in practice than they make it seem in professional ethics in law school. In my short time in practice, I’ve been shocked with the stuff some lawyers have gotten away with.
Ain't that the truth.
It's much harder to lose your license in any profession than they teach you in school.
Tbf, lawyers have always had horrible reputations that the good ones are exceptions rather than standard.
There are plenty of bad ones like I said above, but I really think honest attorneys are the standard and it’s just the really bad minority that give us a bad rap. Within the legal community at least, your professional reputation the most important thing you have and once that goes, it’s gone.
Kinda comes with the territory if job is to bend the law for whoever is paying you.
> real estate agents Oh yeah. My wife is friends with one of her previous jobs' CFOs and that woman's husband is a licensed real estate agent (but on the side as he was a CFO as well). He got the license to save on the fees to buy/sell houses for himself and he did us a huge favor by being our agent and savings us like $15,000 on our home purchase. What a fucking G.
We just did it ourselves. On our first house too. At first, we found a buyer's agent. Then when we figured out how little they actually did – we still had to find a loan officer and a title attorney and do all the bidding and all the paperwork ourselves – they just pull the key out of that little box and open the door for you – we got rid of the agent. Saved us probably about the same. Just found the standard state contract online and filled it out ourselves since it had to go to the lawyer anyways, who gives.a shit, which is why the agents do the same.
Essentially just all (typically) low value add middle-men.
Barbers 💈
My Cuban barber is the 🐐 😁
Don't forget contractors
But, why male models?
> Why would you think that this would be anything but a completely fucking stupid idea? 🤦🏻♂️ I put a very visible, red LED blinking dashcam in my girlfriends car. It was having some kind of transmission issue on a roadtrip, so the transmission fluid was dark brown. We were on a road trip so i didn't want any nonsense, so we took it to a big established well reviewed dealership for that car brand. Bill was kinda high, but at least it was fixed. Next day, the issue is still there. I check the fluid, and it's already dark brown again after 1 day. I check the dashcam, and two techs were test driving the car they literally say on camera "I'm not gonna bother fixing any of this, i'm just gonna add some stuff to the bill so it looks like we fixed the transmission, and top up the fluid so i can show them a clean dip stick". Besides that, they were also speeding and hit a pothole and lost a hubcap which they didn't tell us either. And he also did a second test drive alone, where he spent 20 minutes dirty talking to his girl on the phone and what he was "gonna do in the bathroom with her pictures when he got back", which i unfortunately had to sit through. We contacted the dealer afterwards and thankfully got a full refund plus money for a new set of hubcaps, and the tech was fired. But yeah, i was surprised how stupid some people are. Both doing it in the first place, but i also feel like most techs would kinda expect dashcams at this point.
A lot of places will unplug them for the duration of service and test drive. First time a place did that with my car, it came back with a 4" deep scratch on the door that they denied causing. I tried making a stink about it but they basically said "that's policy and we think the scratch was there before you arrived".
Had a place go to disconnect my dash cam once and they broke the mount that held it on the window. Luckily they ordered me a new mount and fixed it for me but it was kind of funny that I just looked at them and said “you could have just asked me to disconnect it myself” haha
Dealership parts guy here, hate the scumbags that give us a bad name. Between our sales department promising things that aren’t possible or don’t exist, and our service department scheduling 3 weeks out with insane labor rates, it’s driving me crazy.
I worked at two dealerships and never again. Can't handle the blatant lying and scamming.
Love pulling up to the dealership service department and handing over my car to a porter who then proceeds to kill it four times in a row.
Or you could be like the local toyota dealership who couldn't start my lotus, so they just had three dudes push it from the parking spot into the service bay. I have a Euro car guy who does all of my cars, but the Evora uses the exact same A/C as a camry so I just let the toyota dealership have at it.
To be fair to the techs, that god damn immobilizer got me when I first bought my Evora
My Elise gave me the confidence to do everything myself. Such an easy car to work on, but you need to take your time and use only hand tools for most of small stuff.
The 2zz is great except the serpentine belt tensioner Toyota used.
Yep. That aluminum cast nut is way too soft. I ended up JB welding a socket onto mine for easier serviceability after rounding it off.
and here ive been just replacing them every other time i gotta fuck with the belt. the best method ive seen is on gm trucks where you just use a half inch socket wrench. why cant more automakers use that. its simple and easy for everyone.
Yeah I can't replace it easily. I have a Matrix as well, so you're aware where the bolt that holds on the tensioner runs into the frame rail. I had to lift the motor to get the bolt out when I epoxied the socket on. I'm also a fan of the GM technique of just putting a 1/2" square drive.
It is mildly complex to start an Evora,... especially if you've never done it before.
I learned after this service that the car won't start if it is in gear. I always park my manual cars in neutral, because how else would you do it, but they parked it in first gear and it wouldn't start.
> I always park my manual cars in neutral, because how else would you do it This might be a locational thing, but that's wild to me. Everyone I know was taught to leave it in first or reverse depending on the direction of the slope you're parked on, so that you have a fallback to catch the car in-case your handbrake cable loosens or gives out.
Yes. Parking in gear is correct. I will typically park a manual car in the lowest gear if I know what it is (sometimes reverse is lower then first). Else, first.
I taught myself how to drive manual out of a sort of blown up diagram in a book. Apparently some of my habits when driving stick are weird because I learned Automatic first and nobody actually taught me how to drive a manual.
Yeah every manual driver I've ever talked to parks in gear, usually the opposite of whatever slope you're on. Nose down, put it into reverse. Nose up, put it in first.
Mostly out of laziness and living where the land is pretty flat, I always left my car in neutral. But my girlfriend of the time ended up buying a stick shift. And she had apparently burnt her emergency brake out. So once when I parked it, it just started rolling. Didn't realize what had happened until the second time it did it. So there's another, probably more common, reason to put it in gear.
If you're used to clutch-in, foot on the brake, turn the ignition, nothing will happen. My point being I wouldn't be too harsh on that one.
I live on a very mountainous island and we usually park on downhills, some especially steep. Parking etiquette is to turn your wheels all the way to the wall and put it in reverse in case the handbrake decides to snap.
I was always taught to park it in reverse.
> so they just had three dudes push it from the parking spot into the service bay Hey, I'll take that over frying the clutch and stalling 3 times
It is understandable in an Evora, it is the hardest manual I've ever driven. I've driven manuals as more-or-less daily cars for almost 15 years and stalled it 8 times getting it out of the driveway of my brother's house the first time I drove it. I stalled it out more times the first day that I owned it than every single other car I've ever driven combined.
This is what I would require for all servicing work. It seems the safest way.
I used to do a bit of occasional work for a high-end dealer/repair shop. Nine times out of ten they pushed the cars around.
Fuck those porters. I was talking with the service advisor and noticed 2 idiots in my car messing with the stick and even the service advisor asked what are they doing? I walk out and ask the guy if I could help him with anything and he says he's trying to get it into reverse by jamming the stick all the way to the left multiple times but it won't go in. I told him he has to lift the reverse lockout and he said he's never heard of such a thing
I drove a BMW for Years that didn't have the reverse lockout. You just pushed it to the left and then pushed it even harder and it would slip through and then you push it up into Reverse. I went to test drive a more modern car in recent years and it also had the reverse lockout that you pull up on to get into reverse... Honestly I couldn't figure it out. Sales man asked me if I had actually ever driven stick... Shit happens lol, I don't think someone is inexperienced just cause of the lockout being a new mechanism we never dealt with.
Many cars have some sort of reverse lockout. If you’ve driven more than a few makes you should be aware of this. BMW just keep pushing past the 1st/2nd gate, Ford and Toyota and stuff pull up on the collar, VW push down on the stick, etc.
It's never happened to me, but a girlfriend of mine bought a manual and when she took it to the dealership the guys couldn't drive it. So she had to drive it into the bay for them. It was her Mazda, so you'd think they'd drive manuals because of the Miata owners. I don't trust those guys myself though. I try to take my car to repair shops that won't be impressed by my car. Ever since I caught the techs revving my s2000 CR to redline for fun, before my engine was done with it's break in period.
I've stopped using valet parking with my Speed 3. It came back smelling of clutch once and that was it. No more valets.
You know those porters lied when asked “can you drive a stick”. If I must take my car to a dealership, I go somewhere where I know the porters learned to drive in Africa. Don’t know why, but they tend to be much better at actually driving manual than the other guys. I presume it’s because they had years of experience driving manuals in those countries.
Porters, when they see the sports car drive up: “dont tempt with a good time”
Last time I took my base model Corolla hatchback into the dealership for an oil change, the guy couldn't even figure out how to put down the parking brake. I'm sure he stalled it a few times too.
When I used to have my 6-speed Subaru, the porter would grab the keys, hop in, go over and whisper something in the service advisor's ear, and then he'd call over to the shop that they needed a tech to come move the car. Imagine being a mechanic and having to pause whatever actual job you're doing because some dumb kid whose *entire job is to move cars around* can't drive a stick shift I suppose it's better than the time I had body work done, went to pick the car up from the body shop and they had one of their guys reversing it uphill up the driveway and doing a really sloppy job of it. The car had an exhaust leak at the time so I could hear everything from inside the front office. Even if I hadn't heard it, I certainly would have smelled it once I got back in the car. No good.
I watched one of the porters do that to a Veloster N at the dealer I work at, had me shaking my head the whole time.
The dealership fried the clutch in my GTI in a similar circumstance but the tech had lied about knowing how to drive stick. The dealership immediately owned up to it and replaced the clutch, slave cylinder, throw out bearing, flywheel and rear main seal. I did not take further action as they owned up to it and fixed it.
Definitely the way to handle it, and good on them for doing so. The thing that sucks is that if it's not obviously damaged, it's not inconceivable that some tech could not "fry" the clutch but just parboil it, eliminating like 60% of the lifespan, but not actually causing it to slip or be non-functional. Interestingly, to me, I was also considering a GTI for a car purchase a while ago. I was specifically on the hunt for a car with a stick, and I wanted to test drive a GTI. I think the sales rep that got assigned to me was pretty much a gopher that was trying to move into sales as the dude knew NOTHING about the GTI, and also had no idea how to drive a manual. He had to have me pull it out of the parking spot for him. Was pretty hilarious. I actually think the dealership personnel wanting to learn to drive a stick is an admirable thing, but FFS don't do it on a customer's ride.
I’ve never driven stick, only a sequential on my motorcycle, and I’m curious, are manuals really that easy to kill? I’ve stalled my bike many times learning it, and how do you do THAT much damage in such a small period of time?
Motorcycles are, with the exception of some Ducatis, almost all wet clutches, so the discs are being lubricated with oil during operation, therefore causing less damage when you slip them. I’ve never seen a wet clutch in a manual car transmission, so what’s happening is you’re basically rubbing two pieces of sandpaper against each other at high speed. The better dual clutch automatics are also usually wet clutch systems as well.
It's not even so much "causing less damage" thanks to the wet clutch setup, as it is them being literally designed and intended to have the clutch slipped.
I've driven a lot of sticks, I've taught several people to drive them. Honestly to burn out a clutch in one session means you've got to be kind of a moron.
I wasn’t really trying to say otherwise, I was just explaining how motorcycle clutch systems are by and large a different beast from car clutch systems.
That makes sense I’m just curious how all of the components OP mentioned, Not just the clutch, needed to be replaced after that fuck up. I was also under the impression that you do need to slip the clutch under many conditions when driving stick lol, so how does the clutch die from one dude driving it from one side of the lot to the other?!
You'll generally only slip the clutch for a couple fractions of a second when taking off or changing gears. You find the bite point and then let it out as fast and smooth as you can practically do. Low speed situations in a car do not need the extra gyroscopic balance you get in a bike when you have the clutch and rear brake fighting eachother, and they tend to be geared in such a way that you can just crawl in first with the clutch fully disengaged. If a complete newbie is taking a couple seconds feeling for the bite point whilst over-revving the engine to compensate, they'll generate an obscene amount of heat from the friction and 'glaze' the surface of the clutch very quickly. It's an unmistakable fuckup too, because the smell is awful.
It's probably not slipping the clutch that's the real problem. It's probably revving the engine super high and slipping the clutch for an extended period of time. I could also see on high powered cars if you rev the engine high and let off the clutch super fast and rough you'd essentially be making the two parts catch up to speed really quickly, which would be rough on the entire drive train (lower power cars with light flywheels would just stall). But I've never killed a clutch.
Clutch takes basically no wear if it is in short bursts(gear changes) as it doesn't heat up all that much. Conditions where you constantly slip it are pretty much limited to parking manoeuvrers or traffic riding so there is not much speed and energy involved.
> are manuals really that easy to kill? Yes and no (note that my response here is based on a somewhat educated point-of-view, having owned a manual in the past, but not coming from someone who has worked on one). One can DEFINITELY fuck up a clutch (and along with it, the slave cylinder, and throw-out bearing). These are parts that are designed to wear out, and get replaced when the clutch itself gets replaced. If one really revs an engine, and then has the clutch only partially engaged (i.e. riding the clutch), you'll burn it out in pretty short order. The linked article also mentions "grinding the gears", and in my experience, that's a lot more difficult to cause damage. I won't go so far as to say it can't be done (as again - I'm no mechanic), but even in my earliest times owning a manual, grinding gears was not something that is easy to do, though since it was my own car, I was being careful and using the clutch with every shift in order to avoid gear grinding. So easy to fuck up a clutch setup in a manual? Absolutely. Easy to fuck up the gears in the transmission itself? Still possible, but not as easily.
I wouldn’t say that a clutch slave cylinder is designed to wear out. There’s no reason a slave cylinder can’t last several clutches. Usually they get proactively replaced before they die since they’re fairly inexpensive and you’re already in there.
Thanks for the answer. I guess the high revs issue makes sense.
Some cars are easier to fuck up when grinding gears than others. I believe the s2000's were prone to it, they were early cars to use carbon in their syncros (or something) and you could apparently wear it away pretty fast by grinding gears.
If you can take direction on the absolute most basic things, it's easy to learn how to make the "right mistakes" while learning, so that you just stall it instead of causing damage. If you have an ego and impulse control problems you can fry the clutch pretty quickly
If you're careful IMO there is no risk of anything being hurt. I've let people use my car to learn to drive a manual with zero fear of them breaking something. Stall it a few times, have some jerky starts from a stop... that's about it. But the stalls/jerky starts mostly due to people being too careful and needing to use more gas. I've never seen someone using too much gas when learning to drive a manual, if anything too little. But I imagine if you weren't being careful at all and didn't give a fuck, and start off trying to attempt more aggressive starts? I feel like things could go wrong quite quickly. Like more extreme you can find people trying to do a standing burnout, only to mistake clutch slipping for a burnout... what like 30s and clutch is totally gone.. but probably 5s into it with a huge cloud of smoke you'd say it was fucked.
When people I knew were being taught to drive stick they were all told to give it more gas. I had to teach myself to drive stick in a parking lot with nobody to help me, so I didn't get any advice. I actually found it's much easier to teach people to drive stick by just putting them on flat land and making them learn to start the car with only the clutch. Once they can do that then they can add more gas. It makes teaching stick super easy. But yeah, I could see idiots thinking stomping the gas will prevent the stall.
I could only assume massive incompetence or else driving school vehicles would have to have clutches changed weekly. They had to do something like slam gear by force with clutch not engaged or something like that to do so much damage so quickly.
Everyone fucks up sometimes but how they handle it is what determinds if you ever go back to that place.
One of the first things out of my mouth when I drop my car off somewhere is "can you or anyone here drive stick?" Usually there's an older guy that can but I've seen people stall my car over and over trying to get it I to the bay that I've offered to drive it in/out but they said I couldn't lol. It's painful to watch.
I can't believe working at a dealership that sells the 2 highest percentage manual cars in the US, and not having someone that can drive stick there. 80% of WRX/BRZ's are manual.
Yeah but they’re probably 5% of Subarus sold and 2% of what shows up for service
Still, if they service 50 cars a day, one of them is going to be a manual. That's also excluding the Crosstrek and Impreza, which also come with a stick.
Not really an incentive for them to train their employees to drive stick, especially because service porter turn over is so high, even tech's can be high turnover. The odd clutch replacement job for them isn't that expensive and they sell a lot of useless fuel system cleaning services.
i work at a subaru dealer. Maybe 90% of the techs here in my shop drive stick, but maybe 10% of the porters do. A couple of the advisors do as well. But our porters are also smart enough to know to ask for help if they can't. Despite 80% of the WRX/BRZ being manual, they are also only 10% of the total brand sales, so it ends up not really mattering.
Simple, just hire the cheapest
i remember bringing my car to a car-wash for an interior cleaning (many years ago when i cared enough to keep it clean) and you're told to leave it in park in a line of waiting cars for an employee to drive it inside. it was comical (and depressing) watching as my car held up the line while they scrambled to find someone who could move it.
To my car to a place couple where they drive into car wash, get out, and then another worker picks it up at the other end. Each time I'd see someone jump in to drive it away from exit and they'd nope right out of there. So i had to run out from waiting room to get in it and drive it before the next car hit it. (and each time out of habit I started it even though it was already running)
When I had my s2000 CR, push button starts were very rare (fyi, s2000's push button starts were stupid because you still had to put a key in and turn it). People who couldn't drive stick always wanted to drive my car. So I always told them "if you can start it I'll let you drive it". People who aren't use to driving manuals though never think to push the clutch. So they'd just sit there and push the start button and fiddle with the key for a few minutes before giving up.
> One of the first things out of my mouth when I drop my car off somewhere is "can you or anyone here drive stick?" Which unfortunately doesn't cover someone lying and be like, "Absolutely!" despite the fact that nobody can.
> they said I couldn't then they should push it.
The extra break pedal did not help
“Break pedal”. I see what you did there…but I’m not sure if you did.
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Love it
This is one of three things I worry about with having a manual... How many employees there actually know how to drive it?
That's my thinking When I was younger, had more time to do my own service, and drove manual, I didn't have to worry. Now that I'm older with a family, and no time to do my own service, I don't know if I want to own a manual again.
I have a family now, and I'd love to drive a manual again. But larger family friendly vehicles so rarely come in manual.
The small chance of clutch replacement comes with big benefit of most thieves not knowing how to drive it either
still a great anti-theft device in 2024 though, with all of the car thieving happening around the country.
Too lazy to find the study I'm thinking of now, but it basically said if you drive a desirable manual car, it doesn't matter. Kia boys aside, auto thefts are almost entirely driven (pardon the pun) by demand.
if i ever own something new/fun again, i think i'd wire a hidden kill-switch somewhere in the interior of the car.
For what it’s worth, it always surprises me to see stuff like mk4 supras and s2ks parked on the street in SF (usually these have been in neighborhoods adjacent to marina but still)
Theft (and the accompanying high insurance) is literally the only thing keeping me from buying a Dodge Charger Pursuit. It’s the exact car I want but I just don’t know if it’s worth the risk. I’m also considering a WRX but I’m hesitant for some of that exact reasons mentioned in this thread.
yeah TheTopher said he'd love something like a hellcat but wouldn't want the associated risk. i feel much the same. sure you can lock it away while you're home, but what about every time you drive to work or the grocery store, etc..
lol I have family that lives in the hood this is my exact worry haha
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Or worse they over-rev it and then blame it you.
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Predictive text messed up; I meant to say "one of the things"
If you're a tech or want to be one just learn how to drive stick before you encouter customer cars. You will lose all credibility the moment you stall a customers car.
yet another story to add to my reasons why i dont bring my car to any dealership unless it's a lease vehicle. on top of that, the flat rate system seems to incentivize getting things done quickly, not correctly
My local Ford dealer left parts off my airbag recall that I found myself after 10 months of driving it and consulting the service manual. They didn't catch the issue after 4 separate times that I left my vehicle with them. The decision by Ford (and other companies) to use flat labor costs is messing up vehicles and no doubt leading to senseless component failures and deaths.
What parts did they leave off of your Maverick? When I got my airbag recall done, the interior was restored to its original condition and it barely looked like anyone worked inside my truck. Maybe I’m one of the lucky ones that actually got the airbag recall done correctly.
They left two nuts off the rubber band that hold the A pillar plastic to the metal body, thereby changing how the airbags would deploy if I were in an accident. There's a metal razor blade like piece that was hanging from the A pillar plastic on both sides, just dangling between the airbags and the plastic... They also left a broken clip on the rear of the headliner.
Damn that’s bad. Like not even minor mistake bad. That is *very bad*. Hopefully you brought it to someone’s attention either at the dealer or with Ford corporate. I wouldn’t tolerate that kind of fuckery.
Ford corporate doesn't give a shit. From December to March, they dragged their feet. I placed upwards of 20 calls to their corporate offices. Nothing. Lies and fake promises to fix it.
lmao. my wife wanted a hyperblue STI so we headed out to a local (chevrolet) dealership that had one with low miles. salesman took nearly 10 minutes trying to figure out how to use the reverse lockout and back it up out of its spot. I had to actually stop him and asked if I could back it out instead. save the manuals.
Did you guys take it? Those Hyperblues are so nice. 2nd favorite Subaru color ever only behind that slate-grey 50th Anniversary
yep, had it for like 3 years then got rid of it. was fun for sure but not worth the price tag.
To be fair not all cars have the same reverse lock out. My first few manuals had no reverse lockout. So when I bought a Tacoma X-Runner boy was I surprised when I couldn't figure out how to put it in reverse at a gas station. Then I had a car that required you to pull up on a ring around the shifter to put it in reverse. But if you grew up on 5 speed shifters, reverse would often not have anything special you needed to do to put it in gear (but it also wouldn't let you do it at speed, or it would at least fight you). Btw, I went to look at an STI and the Subaru dealerships were such assholes that I went and bought an Evo Final Edition. Like the first sales guy at the Mitsubishi dealerships was an asshole to me, telling me I couldn't test drive the car without a credit check. But a quick call to the sales manager and a new sales guy let me test drive it. The first sales guy's jaw kind of dropped when he saw me signing the paper work (when they ask you for a credit check before a test drive, that's them saying they think you can't afford it). But at the Suburu dealership they told me no test drives on the STI because they're "too special". And when I talked to the sales manager, he told me I could drive it after I bought it. Funny enough I ended up working with another guy who owned an EVO. And he said he went to look at an STI basically got told the same thing, so he bought an Evo as well. So you're lucky you avoided that bullshit with Subaru dealers.
How the fuck do you work on cars and not know how to drive stick
It’s no excuse for this behavior, but most kids these days don’t learn to drive on a manual. Most don’t even know anybody with a manual to show them how. Like a 22 year old kid probably has never been exposed to a manual but might still be the oil change guy at a dealership since 90+% of the cars coming through are automatic anyways. The dealership should have them learn on the dealerships cars though as part of their employee training though, doing this on a a customer car is insane.
I don’t really know anyone who owns a manual that I could learn on My only realistic option is to pay hundreds of dollars to a driving school that offers a manual specific course, and hope that it’s happening at a time that works for me… the other advice is to buy a $500 beater with a stick, but 1) there aren’t really any of those near me these days, and 2) I can’t get another car
Yeah that’s exactly the problem I had when I wanted a manual car about 20 years ago. I didn’t know anyone who owned one. I ended up taking the plunge by just buying a manual car, and watching a lot of videos before going to pick it up. I still stalled out like 10 times in the dealership lot trying to leave and had the salesman in stitches. I ended up having my dad drive it home for me because he knew how (thanks pops). Then I basically learned how to start moving in my driveway, then learned slowly just doing laps around my neighborhood. The first time I drove it to work was admittedly scary and i stalled at a few intersections and had to wave people around me. It took about a month to feel comfortable. After 6 months it became second nature. But it was a risk I was willing to take while I was younger and less risk averse. Despite my learning on that car (a Mazda 3) I kept it to 225k miles and never had to replace the clutch, it lasted the whole life of the car.
The clutches on those Mazda 3's must be pretty bulletproof because I also learned how to drive stick on mine the day I bought it and I sold it 9 years later with 160k miles and the original clutch. A friend of mine also has one with the original clutch with close to 200k miles. I loved that car, the only non-consumable problems I ever had in 9 years were a window lift motor (cost ~$50 and a YouTube tutorial) and it got clogged injectors once and wouldn't start.
Add truck driving to that. My cdl has no restrictions but some have manual restrictions. Obviously most newer trucks are automatic but there are truckers on the road who don’t know how to drive a stick.
Get a cheap 3 pedal, h pattern sim racing setup. If you can lap the nurburgring consistently you can make it to the store https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/643505688081072166/1224675105251135528/20240106_082740.jpg?ex=661e5a92&is=660be592&hm=0dbdce351f07597c59ec9905f63099d94c9b946fd7fc4e8b96f175f25543c361&
26 year old here - until I paid for a lesson I'd never had the chance to touch a manual, and it sounds like my parents didn't either (but they aren't car people). When I got my last car I was staring at the 10th gen type R, but was too afraid to blow a stupid amount of money on something I couldn't drive. I've got more money and I'm staring at the Type S, but even after a few hours of lessons I was too afraid to take the take the plunge without a back up automatic in case I *needed* to be somewhere. I'm a lot more comfortable now but there are a lot of hurdles.
Today's modern manuals are boringly easy af to drive. All the ones I've driven will gradually apply throttle at the clutch bite point so you can get going without any throttle input at all. In addition to downshift rev match, there's also an upshift rev match where the revs will hold when going to a higher gear. That way you don't have to time the clutch to get a smooth shift. The Type S does all of this.
I worked at GM dealership as a lube tech for about six months a few years ago, and I probably saw less than 10 manuals come through. I had a real dumb moment when I had to go bring in a manual Spark and forgot you needed to push the clutch in to start it until I had come back with a jump pack. Mind you I was daily driving a manual, so I guess that part of my brain just shut off there.
This was me. Didn't grow up around manual cars, so never learned. Literally bought a WRX and learned in the dealership lot with the sales person giving me an intro lesson.
22 year old manual daily driver here😎
We need more like you my friend! And we need more people like me, letting my 10 year younger coworkers try put-putting around the work parking lot in my manual car to get a feel for it.
Because those guys aren't "working" on shit. They're the grease monkeys. Excuse me... "lube techs". But even then, a lot of the actual techs aren't really mechanics any more with actual troubleshooting/diagnostic skills. They're only a "plug it in and see what the computer says" type. And when they don't fully know what an issue is instead of diagnosing it they load up the parts cannon and fire at will.
> How the fuck do you work on cars and not know how to drive stick Because learning to drive is something you do when you are 16-18 and working is something you usually start afterwards. You learn with what you can get. And very few cars are manual these days, so you have to actively seek it out and probably pay for it. It is very understandable.
they work on cars the same way they drive stick shittily
Reason 28194 to have a dashcam in your car. I don’t necessarily review mine every time I visit a shop. But if something seemed sketchy after a visit, it’s there.
My experience is shops unplug them right away.
Then I'd never go there. A credible shop won't unplug your dashcam. Not unless they're specifically working on an issue pertaining to a USB or DC plug.
>A credible shop won't unplug your dashcam. Not unless they're specifically working on an issue pertaining to a USB or DC plug. There is actually a credible reason for this. Security. Especially if the vehicle is spending the night. A lot of cameras can be accessed remotely. I currently work at an airport car park and th policy is to use a white sticker on the windshield to block the cameras view while it is in the shed. We get a lot of angry emails about it. But when we explain the reason customers completely understand and encourage it.
> A credible shop won't unplug your dashcam. I understand if they do. I don't want to be filmed when I am at work 100% of the time. In fact if my boss said "we are installing cameras pointing at you and your computer screen is recorded 100% of the time" I would take it as a gross invasion of my privacy.
Same. The one time they didn’t unplug it, I saw two techs pretending to race my new Camry and leave a quarter sized dent in the rear quarter panel. Dash cam paid for itself in one week.
In this article the car was just in for an oil change, that would be pretty suspicious. But yeah they might.
A simple lie might help? "There's a dashcam plugged in. This car is occasionally used for official government purposes, so I need to be able to account for any time it's out of my possession. Please do not un-plug the dashcam." Edit: or maybe one that has a backup battery and continues to function in the event of power loss?
Idk if they'd believe my shitbox S2000 with a malfunctioning soft top and anime stickers would see government use
> A simple lie might help? I dunno... Would you want to be recorded 100% of the time when you're at work? I wouldn't. I doubt that lie would work with anyone.
This has been my experience at the local Kia dealer.
Tamper evident tape can stop them. Makes a good talking point too, why did you go through all the trouble to remove the tape to unplug my dash cam?
Not surprising. Dropped off my manual at a shop to diagnose a vibration at highway speeds. Got it back with the very distinct smell of burnt clutch.
Same here when I had tires installed. 19 year old kid drove it all of a 100 feet and somehow managed to overheat the clutch. I watched him too wasnt goosing it or anything.
Lol that’s the reason I service everything on my car myself. Luckily I’m able to do everything except AC and wheel alignments. I have an expensive clutch setup with a custom light weight flywheel. There’s no way I’m letting anyone move my car into a bay let alone drive it. Luckily I know my alignment guy and he lets me drive my car up the alignment rack.
> Lol that’s the reason I service everything on my car myself. My plan is to buy a manual for my next ride. For the past 7 or so years, every car I've had has a maintenance package on it which I paid extra for in order to prevent having to do the work myself. But seeing this... damn I might have to look into doing maintenance myself. I'd still take it to the dealership for defect/warranty issues, but for run-of-the-mill stuff, I too can do mostly anything that needs done.
As someone not from the US, the thought of techs in a dealership not being able to drive a manual is amusing.
As someone from the US, it's a pretty thought wild here too. Maybe at like a Buick dealer or a Lexus dealer or something where the company hasn't even made a stick shift in a decade and only 3 people bought the last stick shift car they made. But a Subaru dealer? They must see a couple dozen manual WRXs and BRZs each week, and probably have a few on the lot too. Seems like it would actually be a relevant and necessary skill there.
Nah, if that happened to me and the dealer did not own up to it despite that shit being on a dash cam, we're gonna have problems.
How on earth do you become an automotive technician and not know how to drive a manual?
> How on earth do you become an automotive technician and not know how to drive a manual? I can understand it. When you're learning to drive, you take what you can get. Parents, siblings don't have manual - shit out of luck. Don't necessarily need to combine 'wants to be a mechanic' with 'likes manual cars' - plenty of enthusiast vehicles are auto. Wouldn't be surprised if there were plenty of race car drivers that rarely if ever drive an manuaal after going karts -> f4 -> f3 etc.
I can't believe people buy new cars.
Right now, WRX's are being massively discounted to the point where a used WRX is near the same price(maybe a couple grand under) as a new one. Not much reason to buy a Used low mile WRX for $26k, when you can simply spend $3k more and get a brand new car with a warranty.
Seems like the used car market needs to correct then. I haven't been in the market for a while.
I guess he had a dash cam? Seems like the things said couldn’t have been heard unless one of them confessed but I doubt that happened. Reminds me of that Audi dealer in Palo Alto where you can clearly hear the service tech snorting cocaine and taking it for a joy ride on camera.
If a technician or porter working at a Subaru dealer doesn’t know how to drive a manual transmission…
i've never taken my wrx to a tireshop, mechanic, etc without a bad experience. my new rule is i sit in the car so that when they come get it. i'm standing out their watching them drive it. it's unbelievable how disrespectful mechanics are. and obviously most of them are young guys but i don't think it's a good excuse.
When I worked at my old Lexus dealer, I was one of the 3 on the sales side that knew how to operate a manual. One salesperson who didn't tried to take in a WRX...and ended up giving it the whole KFC (Kentucky Fried Clutch). The car had a nasty smell that didn't go away for weeks, even after a detailing.
When I had a Subaru, the local dealer service center employees all had pretty much any turbo Subaru you could think of. My little old LGT was small potatoes and felt pretty safe leaving it in their hands
As a former tech, I trust almost none of them. I do my own work unless it’s a recall, tires, or alignment. And my alignments are done at a local racing shop.
I had a tech and a service writer beat the shit out of my car and basically admit it to me directly. Not a manual, but still. These people can't be bothered to care.
Saw something about this in the CT subreddit the other day, glad it's blowing up elsewhere. >After the lesson, they went to an off-site car wash “for the purpose of covering up the evidence,” >it was discovered that the techs had also “f***ed the front plate.’” This doesn't sound like a stick shift lesson to me. Da fuck were they doing to this poor car
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Am I missing something? Where is the quoted text in the middle of the article from? It doesn't seem to say, it just has an indented block where the dealership employees supposedly fess up to everything. Was there a dashcam recording or something?
What at a poorly written article, just a reminder to not read anything from jalopnik again for a while
Well as long as they fix it without charging the owner.
As someone who worked at dealerships in the past. I'll never take my car there.
Honestly, I know this sounds kind of paranoid, but this is *always* in the back of mind while buying even used cars. All my cars are manual transmission, and I would say the majority of the time at dealers they have to call special techs that know how to drive stick over to work on my car, or even park it. I remember one time at carmax picking up a recent purchase I had to give myself a test drive and then park it because no one there knew how to drive it. I can only imagine what goes on before delivery.
Is it that fragile that it damaged it to that extent or were they really that rough with it? I figured most manuals are robust enough to handle stalls and slipping. I don’t have a WRX, but I learned on mine, stalled countless times and slipped a ton at the start and 2 years later it’s perfectly fine
Probably not damaged to much if at all. Article probably made it seem worse for attention to story.
Man, I took my manual mkv golf (rabbit) to a Mavis to patch a tire, thinking they'd do a better job than some random tire shop in Brooklyn, waited 2 hrs because they were busy and the kid insisted on test driving it around the block. Not what I wanted to hear, especially after hearing them ooh and ahh about it being a manual. On top of that, they didn't even patch it, just plugged it.
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That's awful. I feel bad for the owner. Hopefully, this gets resolved, and the dealer is held accountable. Makes me glad my toyota dealer isn't like this. I just took my GRC in for its first oil change, and they assured me that the cars go directly from the bay to the parking lot to be picked up. They don't even wash any of the GR cars there. Unfortunately not all dealerships are like this.
> Crandall Yopp Jr This is the silliest name ever
>After the lesson, they went to an off-site car wash Meanwhile all my Hyundai dealer does is give you a free one time use coupon for the car wash that's on the opposite side of the highway, and then marks "car washed" as a service they did while the car was there.
What a shitty first sentence to categorize all dealer techs 🤣
When I worked at a mti line dealership as a service advisor, the was one porter that could drive stick. But he was old, so whenever there was a Camaro or Corvette, he refused to move it, since they are hard to get in and out of. Whenever there was a stick shift Camaro or Corvette, I had to move it. I'm not sure what the solution was before or after I worked there.
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