Good day Today.
Today was another interesting day at Mazda. I was giving a repair order for a 07' Mazdaspeed3, and was asked to take a ride with the customer to verify his concern being that it is the third time it was back and he was starting to lose confidence in our dealer. So the noise only happens when he's turning hard to the right almost like doing a U-turn. The noise was coming from the right front and its sounded like a binding rack and pinion or a splash guard rubbing against the tires. Something in that sound range.
So I get the car back to the shop start to look it over and look into the history. Car has 33,000 miles good tires, good brakes, no apparent leaks, and in really good condition. So as I'm looking the vehicle over I find the right front shock blown, and leaking excessively. I didn't think the noise was coming from the blown strut because the sound I verified wasn't a common noise coming from a blown strut. So I called our hotline and was told to put friction indicter into the transmission because they have seen cases where the LSD makes noise when making slow turns. So I grabbed a bottle of that.
So after removing the strut from the car and compressing the spring to remove it. While removing the strut to install the new one a piece of plastic falls out with the old strut. I pull the bearing top off the spring and find the plastic bushing that supports the blows from potholes and speed bumps we hit everyday was broken and pretty much destroyed. I end up replacing the bushing and strut but did not put the friction indicter into the Trans yet. I did this to verify that the noise was coming from the busted bushing and maybe not even the blown strut.
Now on the initial first drive after the repair the car sounds much better and quieter. I'm 99% sure the noise is gone. But being that the customer has been here 3 times for the same concern. I wanted to make sure it was gone so I put the fluid in the Trans and took it on another test drive. Sounded Severn better. So maybe the sound was coming from both places? Don't know but I know for sure that I fixed it. All my buddies at work were proud of me and my confidence is now on a million.
That's what this apprenticeship is all about right?
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