It started like any other day. Nothing crazy going on, just a normal morning in the service department. I had barely sat down in my office when I heard people sprinting down the hallway yelling
“Boss! Boss! Somebody just ran into the building!”
Now, I don’t know about you, but that’s not something you ever expect to hear at work. My heart dropped. I immediately pictured the worst … someone plowed through the front of the service drive, glass everywhere, chaos.
I jumped out of my chair and took off running to the front.
And sure enough, when I got outside, there it was. A Corolla. Nose buried into one of the big yellow poles out front. The car had literally used the building as a brake.
The good news: everyone was okay. The bad news: they had to use a building to stop the car.
Well, the sign said “pull forward”
This is the actual RO that I wrote up. LOL
The “No Brakes” Moment
I started asking questions, and that’s when I found out the customer had completely lost braking power. They said they were lucky to make it here. But that’s when my second thought kicked in …
“how in the world did they drive fifteen minutes across town without brakes? That’s terrifying.”
DIY Gone Wrong
Now I’ll give them credit, they tried. But when it comes to brakes, “trying” can go wrong fast.
One of my technicians is the kind of guy who loves testing stuff that probably shouldn’t be tested. You know the type he’d drive a car with no brakes just to “see what happens.” Sure enough, he hops in, pumps the pedal, and it goes straight to the floor. Zero pressure. The car would barely slow down.
We got the car pulled into a bay to check it out. On the surface, it didn’t look too bad. The bumper was dented from the pole, but that was about it. Once we got it up on the lift though, the story got worse.
The calipers had been damaged when they tried to reinstall them during their home repair. Because of that, this car had no chance of stopping.
This doesn’t look good …
We didn’t repair any of the building damage, but we did help the customer get their car fixed up properly. New calipers, rotors, and pads. The car stopped like new when it left.
What It Really Costs to “Save Money”
Here’s the thing. I get it. Everyone wants to save money on repairs. You see a YouTube video and think, “How hard could it be?” But there’s a reason technicians go through years of training.
Braking systems today aren’t simple. Between electronic parking brakes, reset procedures, and sensors that need to be recalibrated, one small mistake can cause major failure.
So when people ask if they can just do their own brakes, my answer’s pretty simple: “You can. But you better know what you’re doing.”
Because the few hundred bucks you might save isn’t worth risking your safety or using my service drive as your backup plan to stop your car.
Lessons Learned
Looking back, that day taught me a lot…
Always expect the unexpected. You think you’ve seen everything until a car uses your building to stop.
Be thankful for safety poles. Those things aren’t just decoration, they saved everyone that day.
Help first, lecture later. The customer was embarrassed enough. My job wasn’t to make them feel worse. It was to help them get safely back on the road.
At the end of the day, nobody got hurt, the building was fine, and we got a pretty wild story out of it.
Thanks for reading the DealerPlateGuy Newsletter.
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— DealerPlateGuy
Fixed Ops Director | Creator | “Making fun of an industry I’m trying to change.”