Deferred maintenance - your definition please?

You can't go wrong if you follow the maintenance schedule in the owners manual.

A lot of people "defer" the belt service because of the time and cost, but that's a big mistake. If one of the teeth on an old belt breaks off inside the engine, it can do a ton of damage.

 

Deferred maintenance - your definition please?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

To me, this means anything that needs to be repaired or replaced either by service schedule or as advised by a service professional but owner forgoes it and keeps driving it without doing anything. Important things would be engine related and things you can live with would be rear windows not working or ac blowing warm air.

i.e. Cam belt replacement, squeaky bearings, dry rot tires, hoses, fuel lines and brake lines etc

 

By way of an answer, I'm going to tell you a story, but it's a true story and well documented. However, I'm not going to look up the names and places on google.

Back in WWII, we built and maintained a lot of materiel that was put into some severe service. If it didn't work right, men died, and countries were lost. So, a rather astute chap in the UK looked at the maintenance records of aircraft and found an interesting thing. Aircraft that were well 'serviced' seemed to have a higher rate of failure, and flagging for issues on the planes that took them out of service. In fact, the best maintained planes were the ones with the poorest flight records! He did a careful study, and brought his findings to the command, and they scoffed as well, and told him his facts were wrong, and that mechanical things needed regular maintenance.

Of course, the pilots got wind of this, and anything that affected their safety and well being was pretty important. So they listened to this guy, and stopped having things done on their planes. To the point that some aircraft commanders made the crew chief sleep in the plane to keep the maintenance chaps out of there. And surprised to everyone but this one guy, the planes which were 'maintained' the worst started having the best flight records.

That was when the idea of infant mortality, and/or maintenance induced defects was borne. Which we know today colloquially as 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. Meaning if a system is running in nominal way, and is being used as designed, it's probably best not to alter or mess with it.

That does NOT apply to wear items, or sacrificial materials in a system. Wear items of course include belts, bearings, tires, brake pads, etc. If something is worn beyond it's service life, the chances of failure increase dramatically. As it relates to Ferraris, I think most of them are vastly overmaintained. Cars that are regularly serviced by Ferrari are the worst examples. BTW, I have a Ferrari with 100k miles. My windows are slow, but working. My fuel injection was giving me fits after not being touched for 31 years. Finally, the rough running at low speed got to me, and I just replaced all the injectors, fuel lines, rebuilt the fuel dist, and WUR. Now, I've maintained it, I'll probably have nothing but fits with the fuel inj system for a few months. lol....

 

I'm with Mike. Not fixing what should be fixed, also skipping items on the maintenance schedule. One thing that might come to mind is replacing the belts many times over the years without pulling the cam covers to check the valve adjustment.

I think my car has a great example of deferred maintenance. My differential is leaking a bit and spits some oil onto the exhaust at the rear. It was doing that 4 years ago at my last service. I didn't have the time and I left it. It hasn't gotten worse (fortunately) but it still needs to be done. If I left that and 5 other similar non threatening problems and the next owner wanted to make everything right, all of a sudden the shop bill will get very expensive to make my car perfect. Another example, my distributor caps are getting older. I reused them at the last service. If they were a $15.00 part I would replace them without question. As it is I will ask a respected tech to look them over and advise me on whether or not they can be used for another 30K miles. I will replace them if necessary.

When I did my last service I did the big items and stopped short of everything I'd liked to have done. Now the engine is on the ground and I need to make the same decisions. Last time I rolled the dice and left the water pump. This time I'll have it rebuilt. Last time I left the thermostat, this time I'll replace it. These are all items that are mentioned as service interval items and have opinions surrounding them.

My thought is that these were cars that were built with a high expectation of service and maintenance. They are robust enough to go without much of the talked about items. Those are personal choices that each of us have to make based on the information we can gather.

Will my car be perfect after this service. I doubt it. I'm trying to decide whether or not I'll make the A/C functional. And if I do, how far will I go? I don't know yet.

 

Hi Doc,

Good point, counterpoint arguments made. If I were to accept your statement as statistically accurate I would make an argument that statistically more than 50% of techs in the wide world aren't as intellectually curious and careful as I would hope. Many people do jobs because they are told to and go through the motions.

In the current airline industry planes are taken nearly completely apart and reassembled every couple years. They don't fall apart on a regular basis, but that his highly looked over and when we drop our cars off they are certainly not that highly looked over.

If my car was going to one of the top 5 techs in the country I would not be worried, but there are plenty of stories of cars going into shops and coming out with new problems where the owner would have been better to leave well enough alone.

And to your point I would also say that hard parts have a service life. There is often a bit of wear and tear simply by taking something apart and reassembling and many parts are only good for so many cycles. Ideally if the correct care is provided most of our hard parts should outlast the car but a cam cover can certainly be subject to abuse by the wrong person when off the car, dropped, dinged on removal, etc.

None of this really is designed to sway the OP either way, just a thought that came to mind

 

The 'why' of the statistics are important to a philosopher. The OP has his answer to your 'why' question right in the second paragraph. Some eye watering invoiced followed by simple wear item replacements.

Always a doubter in every crowd.

OBTW, I fly and maintain my own airplane. I've seen the results of over-maintenance with my own eyes. There's a buddy of mine who has an Aerostar with two good running engines, one had 2200 hours, and one had 1650 hours. He took them both off for 'rebuild'. It's been a nightmare ever since. The plane has been out of service now for 9 months. Prior to his service, the engines were running fine, making good power, not using too much oil, and basically operating nominally. Oh well.

 

In italian I say "Se funziona e quasi basta, non toccare se no si guasta". The translation is:
"If it works and that's enough, don't touch, otherwise it brokes".
I agree that over maintenance it could be "dangerous" but the regular mantenance HAS to be done.... even if, sometimes, it's not enough.
My personal experience: my daily (and for now only) car is a Alfa Romeo 159. It has 64.000 kms on the odo and 7 years. It has been serviced like stated by Alfa (every 2 years or 30.000 kms) but at 63.000 kms the gearbox and differential broken down in a catastrofical way and I have to change it all (2600 € for a refurbished gear). I suspect that they didn't put enough oil in the gear at the factory because the car has been kept maniacally and always driven in a proper way (I even double clutch when I have to downshift), always driven carefully when cold... everything.

So, coming back in topic: no over maintenance, yes to regular maintenance and lots of luck is needed anyway
Alessandro

 

Another post which proves my point. Serviced the trans incorrectly(low/wrong fluid) -> catastrophic failure due to a maintenance activity. If he hadn't serviced the trans, it would still be in good order today.

 

Ehm, I haven't serviced it... service of the trans was due at 90.000 kms (changing oil).
Here the problem has been.... bad luck, probably someone at the factory slept on my gearbox and didn't put enough oil in it.

Back to topic now
Alessandro

 

So because you can't pick a good mechanic it's better to ignore maintenance?

Great plan.


Maybe you should spend a few extra bucks and get someone good.

 

That's like not getting a cancer removed because you fear the surgeon might do a bad job.

 

When “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” was written the author forgot to remind us that if we do not keep that history in context we will draw the wrong conclusions.
In WW2 a vast number of the aviation mechanics were, just a few months earlier high school students or working in a hardware store, a farm or taking tickets at the local movie theater. They were scooped up, given good training and thrown into the deep end of the pool with little or no practical experience, too little supervision and a great deal of patriotic zeal causing them to work all nighters with little or no food and rest trying against all odds to keep airplanes in the air so their pilots could go fight the enemy. Often that airplanes maintenance test flight was the next combat sortie. I find it little surprise mistakes were made and I find it very difficult to find many parallels with servicing cars by experienced mechanics in peacetime. By this logic I suppose I could say following a Second Lieutenant into combat can get you killed and advising not to ever follow the instructions or commands of superiors. It would be equally bad advice.

 

I'm reminded of what I did when I first purchased my car. I did research, found the best mechanic I could and set an appointment to meet him, show him the car and discuss it. I was surprised by the questions he asked. He wanted to know what my goals were with the car, what I wanted to do with it and how I would use it.

Every time he had it I asked him to let me know of any concerns or any potential problems. I let him lead the way on what should be serviced or repaired because he knows the cars. I told him every time it was in that I was happy to pay an extra hour just for them to give the car a looking over and peek at anything they considered patern issues. He never did charge me that extra hour.

He gave me guidance on what was necessary to be done with/to the car to achieve my goals. I felt like he was the doctor and the car my child. He let me know what was normal, what to look for and what needed to be attended to.

I miss talking to him. A very zen fellow.

I never asked him to do anything to a price. I trusted him and he was always fair and I always got good value. Value, not price is what I was looking for.

What am I getting at? Find the best tech you can and that you trust and let him tell you what your car needs.

 

PV is right about finding the best wrench you can. It's the "trust" part that's nebulous. How do you really know whether your water pump is in imminent danger of failing or whether your mechanic's kid just needs braces? That's the trust part.
If things are seriously in need of replacement, then for heaven's sake do it. Other items I would do w/o fail are safety items such as brake lines, fuel lines, etc. Do I think the world will end if you go 25% over the factory mileage interval for cam belts, etc? No! (Some others will disagree.) Do I think a perfectly functioning water pump should be changed just because you're having your cam belts changed? Hell no; not for $800. It's easy enough to change yourself when necessary. Having said that, if my water pump was 8 yrs old, and I was going on a 3,000 mile drive, I would change it. Ditto for fuel pump.
I would say that repair areas which could somewhat safely be deferred would be vacuum lines, suspension bushings, shocks, etc. The next caveat is, however, that the sooner you change these, the sooner your car will again feel like a Ferrari!

 

Whoa, where did this come from? I picked a good mechanic, me. It's ok, be a sheep. baaaaaaaaaa

 

Actually, I think there are parallels to the "if it ain't broke" for humans, too. Seems like a lot of people go in for a minor procedure and end up opening the floodgates to a host of additional problems...think Joan Rivers.

I think I'll live with the aches...LOL

 

Amen.


Deferred maintenance is better than maintenance preformed by incompetent mechanics.

I learned the hard way.

 

Well now that depends... keeping (a driver) or buying. For a lot of owners who drive their cars, little things (problems?) can be taken care of later. On the flip side, a buyer looking at the same car may think that this particular Ferrari isn't maintained as well as it should (i.e. everything perfect, all the time).

 

Teddy, They're will always be "lambs". We can only be thankful that "the incompetent mechanics", didn't ruin your Mondial experience. You were saved (hello, Dave Helms & family) - and there is a chorus of cheerleaders, all screaming for justice.

So - we'll discuss this over wine on Friday night.

Can't wait to see ya, my friend.

Hankie

 

Couldn't agree more. Can't wait!

Have you ever been to Boulder?

 

How would one of the teeth on a timing belt get inside the engine?