I rather set my car on fire than have it maintained or repaired at CanTire.
I like the store, it is useful for DIY home owners, but the auto service are horrendous
OK. Seriously. Canadian Tire is not the place to expect anything mechanical to be done right. Hell, I had to take a tire back to them 3 times to get the valve stem sealed, they can’t even do tires correctly.
Don’t get repairs done at Crappy Tire.
They were fine decades back, when they had pride and the store was stocked for auto repair, now its just a giant “dollar store” of household items.
20 years ago, I went in asking about schduling replacing U joints on my GM truck drive shaft. (Because they didn’t have cir-clips on the joints, but would not come apart.) The guys said they were booked but that make and model of GM had injection molded retention clips internally. They said grab a blow torch and heat the joint, you’ll see plastic eventually squirt out. And then he sold us the repair parts. Sure enough easy fix.
10 years ago: timing belt broke on friends car, we were stranded. Tow it to CT, they fix it. Drive 10km it breaks again. Tow it back, and find it was a faulty install. Had to have it fixed again.
Now; zipties
We have a mechanic in my hometown, who is probably the best mechanic in town, without refute. Unfortunately he’s had a bit of a drinking problem over the years, and naturally that’s led to a few run ins with the law. Most of the local shops wouldn’t have nothing to do with him later in his career, probably because of the insurance. Except Canadian Tire, which is where he ended up as the place of last resort. Thus it became the one and only Canadian Tire, on the planet, I would ever feel comfortable taking my car to.
Every other CT though, hell no.
I had a set of snow tires installed and they didn’t balance them.
Hypothetically, if say, a mechanic installed two new tires on my spouse’s car recently but didn’t balance them, would there be an obvious way to tell?
I live in a rich neighborhood and my Cambodia tire is surprisingly competent and see a lot of luxury brands move through there somehow
Easy enough to say if you’re familiar with cars, car maintenance, and Canadian Tire.
But this is a service they’re offering to people who know less about any of that than themselves who will assume they are doing a competent job
Hence the warning.
TFA really overstates the importance of the part in question. The part is typically is plastic, and serves primarily an aerodynamic function, improving fuel mileage, with a secondary function protecting the engine bay and limiting ingress of dust and debris. It’s really not a critical part and typically replacing every bolt with a zip tie of sufficient size (that is important) would be enough to hold it in place. It is indeed quite common for the bolts to be replaced with zip ties; often the bolts are weird shapes and sizes and threading. In fact, several cars I’ve worked on have used plastic screws which wouldn’t have significantly greater strength than a zip tie.
But in this car it’s metal, which makes me wonder if it’s a semi-structural component and therefore the zip ties wouldn’t hold, though this is again a pretty uncommon configuration outside of convertibles (which need reinforcement as they lose the roof structure). The photo in TFA shows some very thin sheet metal, and I don’t think that it is structural in any way.
In any case, if a shield falls off your car and it makes you drive into a ditch, particularly after you’re made aware there is a problem, I’m not sure you’re really prepared to safely operate a 1500kg wheeled vehicle at 100kph.
Its a metal splash shield, not structural, but protects your oil pan and filter from getting hit by road debris, so essential.
Plastic fastener in vertical axis is strong and can absorb vibrations. A zip tie around a sharp metal edge will get cut through with vibrations starting a gouge which become a stress riser for fracture.
A metal shield dropping its front edge. Is going to cause a lot of issues if it catches on pavment.
The photo in TFA shows some very thin sheet metal, and I don’t think that it is structural in any way.
If it’s thin metal it’s a heat shield. Putting nylon straps on a heat shield is just stupid. But, bad news guys, most shops, including dealer service, just throw these shields out. This is one reason why I change my own oil.
I don’t think that’s a heat shield; all it would be shielding is the ground from the engine. It’s right under the oil pan.
- 1 for doing your own oil change. Gives you a chance to inspect for fuckery.
I don’t think that’s a heat shield; all it would be shielding is the ground from the engine.
or, a HEAT SHIELD. This prevents engine heat from igniting grass when parked on a field.
It’s a skid plate. Protects engine from debris and provides aero.
It’s a skid plate. Protects engine from debris and provides aero.
JFC…that’s not a skid plate, and that’s no what a skid plate does.
That is literally the aftermarket part name for it when you buy them online. You have to remove it to drain the oil. This thing is so thin it’s basically a dust cover, so all it provides is protection from road debris and helps with aero. It isn’t going to protect anything if you bottom out.
But in this car it’s metal, which makes me wonder if it’s a semi-structural component and therefore the zip ties wouldn’t hold,
Even if it isn’t structural in the least, the massively increased stiffness of metal over even thick plastic means that even pretty minimal flexing of the vehicle’s chassis would eagerly shear any size of plastic zip ties off.
This is very much a consequence of paying technicians among the lowest wage in the industry and failing to mentor them effectively. Not to mention being ignored, unsupported, and abused by Manglement.
I love Canadian Tire for its breadth of products, and have almost always found the staff there to be eager and helpful, but I don’t make use of their vehicle services for a damn good reason.
The metal probably is sharper too, and harder. It’s an opportunity to tell the customer that something broke and they should come back tomorrow and get it fixed for 1/4 hr labour, or it may fall off in the near future.
The tech cut corners and the chain may suck, but I object to the way the article presents the issue. It’s not like they zip tied brakes on.
This isn’t a new problem.
Canadian Tire has always hired inexperienced “mechanics” and paid them as little as possible.
Before i could drive, I remember my dad’s friends all complaining about their first and last experience having work done on their cars at CanTire.
Canadian Tire has always hired inexperienced “mechanics” and paid them as little as possible.
Their mechanics are all licenced. This is not a Canadian Tire problem, it’s a trades certification problem and Ontario has basically eliminated trades certification inspectors since the fat man took over. It’s also impossible to report a mechanic. I had one sign off on a motorcycle safety with no working brakes.
Their mechanics are all licenced
I didn’t say unlicensed, I said inexperienced and underpaid.
and both assumptions are wrong. it takes 6,500 hours of practical time to get a licence as a mechanic. They make more than average, about $34 versus $25 average in Ontario.
I work at Canadian Tire in Nova Scotia. At this location, the mechanics are paid a flat rate for each repair. They aren’t going to spend very much extra time on a job if something goes wrong. This is a Canadian Tire problem.
It’s an industry wide problem.
LOL! The only time I did an oil change at Canadian Tire, the mechanic asked me what oil they should put. I told them it was literally written on the cap.
I think the question was more in the sense of “synthetic or regular”, there’s a price and a functional difference.
Both will work, but synthetic will last longer because it resists shearing better.
It’s just a splash shield under the engine, it is not a “critical” part of the car, it’s as critical as a mudflap. Pretty much every Civic of this generation on the road has it held on with just zip ties at this point, unless it has just been tossed in the trash. There is no way this affected the acceleration or speed of the vehicle. The shield gets trashed due to snow/ice damage, and the bolts all seize which rip out the nuts from the shield when you try and unscrew them.
it’s critical if you park on tall grass in a dry field.
You’re thinking of the exhaust heat shields. This is the engine skid plate. It’s there to protect the engine compartment from road debris and provide aero for better fuel economy. It’s pretty common for the screw holes in them to rust or wear around the fasteners to the point where the fastener head no longer covers the hole and they fall down.
Not really. The only part of a car that is hot enough to ignite grass is the cat converter, and this shield does not cover it. And cars before 2010 or so never had a shield like this. It is purely for fuel effiency.
OK, it’s clear this clear this thread is full of “experts” , but I actually worked in this industry.
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Any exhaust piping from the engine before the cat is hot enough to ignite, and even more so if there is a turbo. It gets red hot. On teh top of the motor, at the exhaust manifold, these are insulated to keep heat out of the engine bay, but the heat from there to the catalytic convertor needs to be dissipated.
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Catalytic converters have been around in cars since 1975. And heat shields made of thin aluminum. Not sure where this 2010 number comes from.
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Aero coverings under a motor away from any exhaust routing are make of smooth ABS plastic , or PET, they are called “splash shields”. PET is nicknamed “hairy cardboard” by mechanics. These are not skid plates. Skid plates protect the sump and transmission from impact damage and are typically thick steel or thicker aluminium and are aftermarket for off road use.
This is the actual part, it’s a combination of splash shield and heat shield :
It’s a large pressed sheet of aluminum, with added noise insulation on the sides, but not the middle because of heat. It also has a NACA duct to direct cool air to the hot exhaust above it. It has to come out on this model to do an oil change. It is held in place by a series of plastic push clips which typically break when removed. It’s not a good design. However, it has no weight, which is why the tech used nylon straps. I’m pretty sure what caused the failure was damage from driving over a speed bump tearing the aluminum, then air flow at speed ripped it apart.
I have been a licenced tech for 30 years, was at Honda/Acura for 18 of those years.
Working at CanTire?
No, I don’t work on 20 year old shit boxes.
oh, so you hook up a scanner and replace whatever it tells you until it gets it right and the customer is properly milked… got it
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FTA:
some of those zip ties snapped — dragging part of the metal plate under his car at highway speeds, causing him to slam into a ditch.
Sounds pretty damn critical to me.
Most mechanics, including dealership mechanics, simply discard the heat shield when the thin aluminum gets brittle. BUT, they should tell the owner and give them the option to replace it, which no one does because of the cost.
That’s complete bullshit. It is only there to help fuel economy a bit, it is paper thin aluminium, about half the thickness of a licence plate. You can fold it in half with one hand. Sounds like someone drove into the ditch and is trying to find someone to blame and cover the costs because they don’t have insurance.
I don’t think anyone claimed the car drove itself to the ditch… it was the part suddenly falling off the car and dragging that cause the emergency stoppage.
The fact that CanTire mechanics, and you apparently, think it’s OK to leave pieces of a car (non-vitals as they may be) dangling under the car barely held in place by plastic zip ties, does not really mean there is no claim here.
Do better… your shitty attitude is exactly why mechanics have such bad reputation
A few decades ago I took my car to crappy tire. They did the work but held the car hostage. They said that further work was needed to be done and said it would be unsafe to release the vehicle. Was so long ago I forgot what I did about it but I have never taken vehicle back to them again.
They said that further work was needed to be done and said it would be unsafe to release the vehicle.
they legally have to do that.
Canada does not do vehicle inspections for safety unless the car is sold. In most european countries, you need a MOT safety test every two years after 4 years of car life. Canada we let rotting pickups drive until they shed wheels.
They can’t hold the car hostage either though. Show up with a trailer and cart it out of there.
I’ve got a single similar (yet not as potentially deadly) Canadian Tire story about the mechanic winging it and failing to inform.
Single because it’s the one and only time I’ve taken my car to a CT for servicing.
I just haven’t trusted since then that CT has the necessary processes and procedures in place to prevent stuff like this, instead leaving things up to the individual mechanic who is under pressure to just get the job done, and who feels anonymous under the CT banner.
