Mechanic lunches a customers motor, should he have to pay for it ?

[fastfredracing]

Not me, guy works for a shop. He forgot to fill it up with oil, and sent it out the door. His boss made him buy the motor, and install it on his own time, nights, and weekend .
Same guy used to work for me. He lunched one in my shop as well. I assumed the risk, and ate it myself . He did not forget the oil, rather , he fudged up valve adjustment, and sent valves right through pistons, it was ugly .
He stayed late a few nights, and helped me put it back together, but still , I as the shop owner, though my it was my shops responsibility to eat mistakes made by employees .
I had heard another similar story where the shop held the employee accountable for his mistake.
What do you think ?

[osidak]

the shop should cover it for the customer and then if the employee was being careless or was just incompetent they should be held responsible for it.

If it was a component failure (new timing belt failed for example) then it is on the shop.

[MRM]

I actually happen to know the answer to this, and there is an actual answer. It is no, you cannot make the mechanic pay for the damage because it would take him below minimum wage, which is a violation of wage and hour laws. I know it is common for restaurants to make wait staff pay if customers walk out on their bills and employers to make employees pay for damage to equipment or product but they shouldn't.

Holding an employee accountable for his mistake means a talking to, reprimand in his file, no raise, or being fired. It doesn't mean making him actually pay for the mistake. The business owner has both the risk of profit and loss. The employee gets paid a set rate.

Your approach is both the most ethical and legal.

[1990C4S]

Contractors are responsible, employees are not.

You can fire the employee, you can't bill them for errors, or even make them work for free to fix it.

Your labor laws may differ....

[svandamme]

Let's face it, people make mistakes, things can go wrong.
At some point an employer has to accept that and at the same time be supportive for his employee if something did go wrong.

When that happens, he will get the respect and start having loyal employees.

An Employer that does not screw over his employees over an honest mistake, will see the employee work his butt off for him , first to correct his mistake, and then to make you successful

If my boss made me work for free, to correct an honest mistake.
I would expect that he can't be trusted and would ****can me right after doing the free work to fix it.

Essentially at that point i'de tell him to go fuch himself. He can fire me on the spot and fix it himself.


Obviously this is a story of giving somebody a chance to redeem himself.
repeat fuchups is a completely different story

[gr8fl4porsche]

Two of my employees fixed mistakes they made on their own time, this week. I did not ask them to do it. They repaired the mistakes and told me they would not turn the time in. Some guys, who are very confident in what they do, are embarrassed when mistakes are made and will take care of it on their own time. Of course, there's also the Shiite happens rule, and I routinely pay for that.

[masraum]

shop should cover the issue. Employee may have caused the problem, but the customer didn't bring their car to the employee, they brought it to the shop. Also, that's just the pain of doing business. You don't get to make your employees pay for crap they break. You can fire them if you want. I think if I was the employee, I'd have told them to pound sand and walked.

[DanielDudley]

Same Guy ?

[look 171]

I am always responsible for that kind of "Stuff", not my guys, never. I would always show them the bill so they know what they cost me. It doesn't happen often but they are all human and make mistakes. They drop a door or leave stuff out overnight and ended up with rain soaked cabinets. We jsut make new ones. No, I can't and will not make them stay nights or without pay to make new ones. Never. Thankfully, I don't have too many of those mistakes.

This rain we had costed me about 3000 bucks in cabinets a couple weeks ago. My men left them in a client's storage and their storage leaked and soaked all the custom cabinets, so I ate it.

[McLovin]

I used to work in a shop, and we had the almost exact same thing happen.

The mechanic did a full service on a BMW. Drained all the fluids (engine, trans and diff) and did all the other parts of the service (sparkplugs etc).

He refilled the engine and trans, but forgot to refill the diff!

It was amazing how quickly the diff destroyed itself, on the fairly short test drive.

Anyways, the shop owner's lawyer said the employee could not be made to pay for the damage.

He did end up getting fired, though.

[fastfredracing]

Originally Posted by masraum

shop should cover the issue. Employee may have caused the problem, but the customer didn't bring their car to the employee, they brought it to the shop. Also, that's just the pain of doing business. You don't get to make your employees pay for crap they break. You can fire them if you want. I think if I was the employee, I'd have told them to pound sand and walked.

.
That is what I told him, I would have been willing to do some free hours, but no way would I dig into my own pocket for something like this . Mistakes do happen, to all of us.
Yep, same guy , he was a lummox, when he made mistakes, he made big ones .
I dropped a 10 mm nut down the intake of a 5.4 once, cracked a cylinder . Had to buy the guy a new motor . Mistakes in my biz can be bad

[Gogar]

I bet there's an insurance product out there that helps in this situation.

Probably costs about the same amount as a motor.

[asphaltgambler]

For me - it would depend on the guys history if this was the only time there was an issue, I think not but most shops I know would make the mechanic do it over, pay for the parts, once its done then fire him.

[Dan J]

At my shop I pay for the repair. Humans are unfortunately human and occasionally
make mistakes. If the tech makes it a habit he gets to find a new job

[billybek]

It wasn't uncommon at one time for mechanics to eat a little time on something they royally screwed up on. Shop always paid for the parts and collateral damage.

Do that too often and you are looking for a job.

[Jeff Higgins]

We were in Mumbai one time on a 777 repair when one of the mechanics miss-drilled a hole. The parts through which he drilled were not repairable, and central to the repair. Worse yet, it would be at least a month to get replacements made and sent to Mumbai. After doing whatever else we could do working around this, about 60 of us were all sent home until the part could be obtained to continue the repair. We went back about a month later to finish. The airplane, about a $150 million piece of equipment, sat for an additional month, not generating revenue for its now very upset owner.

Anyone want to guess what it might cost to fly us back and forth like that (we fly business or first on internationals)? Anyone want to guess how much revenue was forfeited by the owner of that airplane? Hmmm... take it out of that poor mechanic's check? That might be problematic...

[seafeye]

We had two guys at work cork 2 jet engines. 3 million in damages. That would be a lot of overtime

[jyl]

Mechanic should contact a labor lawyer.

That is illegal and abusive employment practice.

And maybe a guy who shouldn't be a mechanic, but that's not the point.

[wildthing]

Originally Posted by jyl

And maybe a guy who shouldn't be a mechanic, but that's not the point.

My thoughts exactly. Maybe he needs to look for a different line of work.

[tabs]

He could always post comments on PARF.