Wandering Time

A real shoddy job by Bears Auto Clinic, Woolongong

I wrote this post over Xmass, but have held off posting it because I don't like saying how bad people are. I much prefer to say how great that are and give compliments. But thinking of the "work" that Bears, I find myself getting angry.

I had Bears Auto Hospital of Woolongong do some work on my van. I cringe to use "work" here as I was ripped off; Really I paid for them for a shoddy job.

Initially when I picked up the van, it was filthy - dust and grit throughout, over the dash, seats and in the rear. They said they run out of time to do any cleaning. On complaining about this, they did offer a free detailing if I'd bring it back to them another day. I was leaving the area, and by this time had seen the windscreen work so, I decided that I wouldn't take them up on that offer.

At the same time I went back to complain about the dust and grit, I also asked about a small spot of rust in the cargo bay that they said they would fix at the same time as the windscreen. They offered to do it straight away. Arrrrgghhh - their fix was paint over the top of it, without removing the rust that was there!!! This should have clued me up that their other work might not have been the best, but, I left looking at the repairs until now (mid December), and 1000km away.

I started cleaning it up now. First up was the outside wash; But, I found water dripping in the drivers side under the dash.. oh o... Pulled all the vinyl matting out - it was all damp - and put the hose on to run water down the windscreen. Yep, water is leaking in on both the drivers and the passenger side.

On top of feeling angry and frustrated, that Bears Auto Hospital removed the windscreen to fix the rust around it and only fixed one corner of the rust, I now have a leaking windscreen!

Went to windscreen repair place in Byron, and they said that there wasn't much sealer around the windscreen.. They tried to patch it up, but said that it probably wouldn't work and that the windscreen would have to be removed and refitted. Didn't charge me for trying though. They were right, the patch didn't work, it still leaks.

The Bears Auto Hospital quote does say "Rust around front screen".

Here is around the windscreen. This is the stuff I was paying to get fixed:

While the van was in getting the windscreen done, I asked for and got a quote to paint the van floor. Seemed a good idea at the time.

Bears didn't remove the rubber grommets before painting, just painted over the top of them. I think they pulled some grommets out, or more likely they were sand blasted away, as this one shows, the ones remaining were painted over. I had pulled some out myself, I'm not 100% sure if the missing grommets are a result of Bears or not.

But this was nothing compared to what I found when I went to change the back door seal. Under the weather strip and rubber seal, where you can't see it:

Less than two months and its rusting. Bears removed the strip and seal, painted, and put it all back.

Not one item of the job I had done by Bears Auto Hospital, Woolongong, was done well. The easy to see parts of the job looked okay, until they were more closely examined.

Okay, Bears has many workers - maybe I was just unlucky to get one that wasn't so switched on that week. However, when I confronted the manager, I could have had a better response than I did. My experience with the work, and dealings with Bears Auto Hospital just leaves me really angry.

I do not recommend Bears Auto Hospital to anyone.

The happy ending to this sad tail was that I went to Warren Simmons Panel Beating in Byon Bay and he fixed the windscreen and the paint issues. Warren did a excellent job - all the rust sanded away and painted. The windscreen does not leak. The job was booked in, and the work completed in three days. After the my negative experience with Bears Auto Hospital, dealing with Warren Simmons Panel Beating was wonderful.

Slack effort - car alarm

Time to catch up on blog posts. Have had three on the burner and, well, it was Xmass and New Year, so didn't get them posted.

Was up in Byron Bay. It was hot and humid, but I got even more hot under the collar after I set about washing and cleaning the van.

This and the next two posts, will be with rants about quality workmanship I've found so far with my van. I'l go from annoying upwards to expansive..

You may want to skip them.

Exhibit one:

My van didn't have an factory immobilizer and I wanted one. An alarm wasn't much more so I thought: why not? The installer had to cut the wire to measure. Could he spare a few more centimeters of wire? So rather than having the wiring hidden, I have this to look at on the ceiling.

I'll fix this myself at some point. In hindsight, the alarm gives me a warm feeling, but I don't think its that useful overall.

Think about how many times a car alarm has sounded and everyone ignores it..

Byron Bay

Well I'm out of Sydney now. Road trip to Byron Bay. Took it slowly, and hung out in places for a few days.

The plan was to drive up the coast road, but I strayed inland a bit. Even so, had times like this:

House sitting a friends place now. Just hanging out and doing work on the van.

Spider Wasp?

While eating lunch at the Addison Road Community Garden, noticed this wasp dragging a spider along.

The wasp pulled the spider down the hole in the ground in the bottom photo.

I tried to get a video, but was too slow..

I think it is this wasp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_wasp

Jerrawangala State Forest/National Park

Haven't been totally idle hanging out in Sydney. Been running about sorting out the van to make it livable. While there are many layouts online for most van to camper van conversions, non applied to me. Yep, I'm different. I wanted the bike inside, rather than outside. This changes the layout options. In the end, basically I put a mounting for my bike, and a flat space to sleep on. I've still more space than in my tent. Then all the little things that need to happen - clothing, footwear, storage, cooking gear, etc. Have been using the bicycle camping gear a lot, in the cooking department, but decided I wanted to use LPG and have a good saucepan with a thick copper base with a handle rather than thin light camping pot. Using all the bicycle gear in the sleeping area.

I decided to get some work on the van and needed to empty it. I don't have that much more than my cycle gear. More tools (heavy) and more clothes (bulky) were the main areas that grew the most.

Had the work done in Woolongong. Yellow water was running off the rubber around the front windscreen. I was worried about rust under there. Was recommended Bears Auto Hospital. To fix it, the windscreen had to be removed and refitted and they would need the van for three or four days. I'd thought (perhaps naively) that "remove rust around the windscreen" meant the whole windscreen. Alas no. After taking off the windscreen, they fixed one corner and left the rest alone and refitted the windscreen. Not happy. When queried on this, I was told to do the whole window would have been a higher price. Arrrrrggghhh.. Not happy!!! Will have to revisit this another time at another repair center.

Anyway, while the van was in, not getting work done, I went off camping again. In true style, it was fine every day except the day I needed to pack up. But a good time was had.

I used Kennards Storage in Woolongong to store my gear. They were excellent. The Woolongong center had only been opened about three weeks earlier. Staff were very friendly and helpful. Totally enjoyed the experience there.

While down south, went to the Jerrawangala State Forest/National Park for a short two hour walk.

Love the big trees. Will have to do more walks.

Also visited the Tianjara Falls in the Morton National Park.

There was very little water trickling over. Need more rain to have it really flowing. While I was in the area, it only drizzled.. Maybe another time...