Wouldn't it depend on his employment contract? If he's a hourly rate employee the owner assumes liability. If he gets paid on a percentage of the job wouldn't he have to assume a percentage of the liability?

You already got the lawyer's answer, which is correct but also the right thing to do. You can't take the upside of the job, making profits beyond what you pay the employee and then pass down the loss to him, if he messes up.

The proper process is to put the guy on a performance improvement plan and if he keeps messing up, give another warning, then fire him. That's a pretty stupid mistake for a mechanic ... I would not wait for him to forget again and toast another motor. As part of the performance improvement plan, I would force the guy to place a sign over the steering wheel at the time he drains the oil. Then write him up if he doesn't follow through with the reminder sign.

G

I'm sorry but anyone who needs a sign on the steering wheel reminding him to replace the oil he just drained should not be anywhere near other people's machinery. Just based on this guy's history that we know about,he should be fired and strongly advised to find another line of work.

Any employer who lets this guy touch a customer's car is liable. Forgetting to put oil in something is a severe lack of focus issue.

I am just wondering if you have ever worked in a small shop speeder. Sometimes, you gotta wear all the hats, answer phones, order parts, deal with customers, write invoices etc. There are days where I get sidetracked from my sidetrack. Sometimes, you have to move to another car while you wait for parts on the one you are on, and then come back to it later. It can get hectic, and mistakes can happen .

Fwiw, the motor he popped in my shop , was my fault. I gave him a job over his pay grade. It was my mistake. My other good guy was already on something, and I took a chance on him, it backfired .
I remember that was the day, I had decided to let all my guys go, and have at it solo

I work in my own small shop. There aren't any customers or phones ringing but I can definitely be involved with multiple projects at once. There is a protocol for changing oil that is absolutely essential. When done correctly, it's impossible to forget the second half of the job. The hood goes up and the oil cap comes off before oil is drained, both to improve the flow of oil draining and set the job up for refilling. The new oil is staged right in front of the car, (or sometimes under the hood if it's a gallon jug).

If someone is draining oil w the hood closed, they have no business being near anyone else's car, period.

Ummm, ever use a hoist? Sometimes you can't have the hood up with some vehicles in some shops when they are all the way up on a hoist... it will hit the ceiling.

What you so eloquently described is fine for a shady tree guy doing one oil change in a morning but in the real world, lunch breaks, coffee, other jobs come up sometimes.

Denis,

You can't compare yourself and your one man show to a guy that changes oil and brakes for a living at a shop. Have you ever had a team of laborers, technicians or other 'skilled labor' report to you? Would you work for $12/h?

Mistakes happen and if you run a place, you may not have the luxury to go fire everyone for the first mistake they make. Who will replace the guy the next day? Will you find people that are better? Not on drugs? Show up on time? Good luck finding good help, often it is better to work with what you have!

Your job as the owner or supervisor is to put the proper controls in place and assign jobs according to the level of training. Signs for 'lock out / tag out' are very common for safety and such engineering controls can be what make the difference in scrap / mistake. Another suggestion would be a check list / flow diagram for every job the worker performs.

Again, it is easy to say "guy is stupid, go fire him" ... maybe you have to, but not until you give him a chance and yourself some time to look for an adequate replacement ...

G

A simple,routine oil change is very easy to have a foolproof procedure to prevent driving empty engines away

Project work that involves draining oil first, doing a multi day repair (waiting for parts or whatever) is very different. There should be safeguards like a tagged ignition switch

World champion motorcycle racer Eddie Lawson (Same caliber as F1 car racing) crashed when his brakes failed. The mechanic forgot to tighten something

Lawson said he always wanted that guy to work on his bike from then on. The mechanic had learned such a devastating lesson that Lawson knew that from then on he would be the most diligent mechanic in the paddock, and didn't want that expensive moment of training to go out the door.

I think it is far easier to forget to refill something on an engine swap than an oil change. An oil change is 15 minutes of sequential work. An engine swap can be days and days with multiple interruptions.

I've never made that particular mistake, but I've made others.

Who starts a car after work is done without checking oil pressure gauge or to see if the warning light went off?

Sounds like attention to detail and repetition are tools that are absent from this guys bag.

Interesting argument of good labor is hard to come by.
Sounds like the guy is over worked like most Indy shop mechanics I know.
Implement a procedure so it doesn't happen again. Pmcs the **** out of the vehicle before the key is even turned.

Give him some time off to collect himself then slowly throw him back to the wolves....

Yeah, I've used a lot of hoists. I've never seen a hoist installed in a location where the ceiling is as low as you describe but the hood could still be open, just lower it a little or stop going up before you hit the ceiling, I guess. If you're draining oil w the cap on, (or differentia/trans oil w the fill plug installed), you're doing it all wrong and don't know the first thing about maintaining a machine properly.

As to your first paragraph, yes, I have. For years. Workers without a sense of quality in their work, or without the aptitude, get very expensive in a hurry. Sometimes on the first day. I cannot have them around.

You are imagining a situation where good help is just impossible to find. Nothing could be further from the truth. I've made a life long study of small businesses and how they are managed. I'm not the best people manager myself but I've seen plenty that are and run an amazing ship.

An example at the present time is a finish carpentry crew using part of my shop space to build a huge custom bed and cabinets for a high end job down the street. We are all part of the same loose organization, sharing an employer. They work under a successful designer w an architectural degree who keeps them constantly busy. It's one Mexican immigrant guy w a team and they are tighter than a bull's ass. The quality of work they are putting out and the speed is amazing. It's all because of the leadership talent of the head guy. He probably has the talent to be a 4-star general if he'd been born into different circumstances. He has trained the other guys somehow. Quality is sky high and fk ups are rare.

Just because you're no good at something, don't assume that it's impossible or highly difficult. I've never used that excuse, all you have to do is look around at successful organizations. :cool:

I should add that I'm not against "no oil" signs on steering wheels of cars being rebuilt, (they are a necessary safety tool). But else where on the thread, we have stories of a guy working as a pro mechanic who "forgets" to refill a differential he just drained? HTF do you do that, when all you just drained it? That guy should not be working on other people's vehicles.

Because , no human, , has never made a mistake at their job , when they were busy, under pressure , and handling several vehicles at the same time, all of them expected to be finished at days end. Which is the environment of most small shops that I know of .

+1
Good policies and procedures would have avoided this. It is especially important when you have 5 guys running around, taking breaks, lunch, "hey can you help me with this" etc.
I do something similar myself because I never know when I'll be interrupted. Before I even jack the truck up the containers of oil go on the driver's floor.

If you don't have policies and procedures in place, shame on you. If they are in place and your employee isn't following them, then yes, he has no place working for you.

As for the lift, "Hood UP" and "Hood CLOSED" are two different things. It doesn't have to be gaping all the way up to be noticed.

Mistakes are made all the time. It's part of life. But if catastrophic results are coming out of your shop, you don't know how to manage people or enforce procedures.

Speeder is correct. Hood up, oil fill cap off and to the side. In this case you are taking steps to eliminate ' thinking / remembering' to complete the steps in a particular job. I've never seen an instance where the ceiling was too low or other factors that would inhibit this - and I've worked in some *****ty places..........

Here's the thing, Fred; I'm not trying to come off as holier than thou. I'm a bit of a space cadet if anything when it comes to attention span. I also happen to be OCD about vehicle maintenance, though, and I do not leave certain things to memory. There are procedures and practices that guarantee I cannot forget to put oil in an engine.

If I was running a retail auto repair business, I'd have certain rules w a zero tolerance for ignoring them. Mostly safety related but some related to protecting customer's vehicles.