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Rattles and vibrations are among the most difficult problems to diagnose and very often some of the easier to repair. What makes things challenging is the service advisor starting things off incorrectly. Any Noise, Rattle, or Vibration concern should have a questionnaire filled out or the advisor needs to ask these questions. And the most important piece is Listening to the owner of the vehicle. Most of these complaints can be diagnosed properly if only the advisor records, verbatim, what the vehicle owner is saying. The following story actually happened in our shop so I can only imagine how often this happens to others. Unfortunately, I have seen this scenario play out quite a few times in my career.
A customer comes in saying they notice a vibration while at stop signs and higher speeds. The Advisor puts on the repair order “Customer states there is a rattle, check codes and advise”. Later the customer received a phone call saying there were no trouble codes, we didn’t find anything. At that point, the customer is very upset and wants to talk to the manager. The technician did what he was told, checked codes, and didn’t find any. However, the technician didn’t take the extra step and drive the vehicle. You can imagine the earful that the service manager received from the customer.
At this point, the service manager asked all of the correct questions and proceeded to test drive the vehicle with our shop foreman. During the test drive, they were able to duplicate the customer’s concern and start the diagnosis process. This process does not need to pull diagnostic trouble codes, as there weren’t any trouble lights shown on the instrument panel. By actually listening to the customer and driving the vehicle, quite a few possibilities were ruled out right away. The key was that the vibrations happens at idle and while driving at high speeds. With this information, it is easy to rule out suspension components because it happens while the vehicle is stopped and the engine is running. The shop foreman lifted the vehicle in the air and started inspecting engine mounts and they all looked fine. The catch was there was a rear mount that couldn’t be seen from underneath. The only way to inspect the mount was to remove the top part of the engine to inspect the rear mount. This is where the trouble was found. The rear mount was damaged and the rubber portion of the mount was torn.
The service manager called the customer back and explained the findings along with the time spent to find the problem. After obtaining approval from the customer we were able to obtain a new mount and install it. Since we already had disassembled the top part of the engine to get access to inspect the mount, we were halfway there to reassemble the top part of the engine. The service manager and shop foreman test-drove the vehicle again to verify the customer’s concern was fixed. When the customer arrived to pick up the vehicle, the service manager test-drove the vehicle with the customer for approval that we had repaired their concern.
When looking up “Diagnosis” on Wikipedia you will find: Diagnosis (pl.: diagnoses) is the identification of the nature and cause of a certain phenomenon. I didn’t see where it said anything about hooking up a computer and reading codes. Diagnosis reaches far beyond checking trouble codes. Teaching young technicians how to properly diagnosis should be the most important skill required. In all my years, when there is a complaint from a customer, 99% of the time, it is because an advisor didn’t listen to the customer or tried to tell the technician what should be done. Customers felt they were not heard. As a customer, if you feel you are not being heard or what is being documented isn’t what you are trying to convey, don’t be afraid to stop the process and talk to somebody who will listen. Diagnosis isn’t easy. A technician will never have a chance to diagnose properly if they have bad information from the beginning.