did i do my job

[lost profit]

got called out to a bmw alpine last night the tip of the key had broken off in the ignition they had tried to start it with the spare and pushed tip to back of lock and too far for broken key to work and to me unretreiveable .
.i tried for 20 minutes to extract end of key but the piece that broke off was no more than 1cm . in the end i picked the lock and got the car started , this car was a old auto model parked in the high street of a bad area with the window stuck down .i said to the man this is the best i can do i'll follow you home incase it cuts out and at least you can close the windows and lock it up somewhere safe for this service i'll charge you £40 the guy said thats no good he only wanted to pay for the key to be removed and the car was as safe their as at home so i turned off the engine put steering lock back on and left . at 9pm i get a call from guys wife can you come back we can,t get another locksmith out ,i declined at 10pm i get another call asking me to come back and i explained i lived 10 miles away i had given good service and got turned away so i declined . did i handle this situation properly what should i have quoted should i have done anything different?

[p team]

You were in a no win situation.For what it is worth i would have done the same as you did .Let them sit and rot.

[jimb]

I would have gone back and charged them for 2 calls and made them pay in advance.

[NickBristol]

I think you handled the situation well with difficult clients.

The only thing I could suggest doing differently is to agree a few situations up front with the customer, in this case say "If I cant get the key out, do you want me to start the car instead?", draw up an invoice as you're talking to them and get them to sign it off before you start work agreeing the price in advance. It's easy to cross out tasks you didn't do, for example if you had got the key out, then fill in the final price.

I try to remember to do this but usually forget

Nick

[Shrub]

No you did it wrong, the way you handled it was reasonably ok if your skills didnt allow the required job but if you didnt do the job you should not have charged them anyway,

You should never start a car for an owner without a key and you should never let them drive off,

If there is an accident there is no way of turning the car off, additionally its against the law to do this as far as im aware,

You should have either been able to get the key out or stripped the cowling off and striped the lock down to do it,

If you cant do a job you should put things back as they were and simply leave with appolagies saying you cant do it you should not charge them for wasteing their time,

[UNFORGIVEN]

i dont do cars but after 5pm at night your looking to pay £65 plus may be different for cars i dont know and after 9pm its £125 plus
i mean if you explained to the person that you are unable to remove the broken key he should accept that
other than that you handled it in the way you thought best at the time

[raimundo]

ya shoulda told him to get a hammer and a screwdriver and do the chicago punch.....buahahaha

[lost profit]

thanks for your opinions lads ime not sure where shrubs coming from but ime sure he means well .i love doing cars i love helping people out when their stuck night or day .i never come the big i am with people .i offered this guy an alternative but he chose not to take it so i didn't charge him.I just left him with the car in the condition that i found it in, game him a smile and went on my way.

My dear old dad always told me, god bless him' it's nice to be important but its important to be nice'

[Varjeal]

got called out to a bmw alpine last night the tip of the key had broken off in the ignition they had tried to start it with the spare and pushed tip to back of lock and too far for broken key to work and to me unretreiveable .
.i tried for 20 minutes to extract end of key but the piece that broke off was no more than 1cm . in the end i picked the lock and got the car started , this car was a old auto model parked in the high street of a bad area with the window stuck down .

I agree with Shrub. You should never start a car for a customer without using the proper key. It may not be legally wrong (and yet it may be) but what happens if the car needs to be shut off and can't?

i said to the man this is the best i can do i'll follow you home incase it cuts out and at least you can close the windows and lock it up somewhere safe for this service i'll charge you £40 the guy said thats no good he only wanted to pay for the key to be removed and the car was as safe their as at home so i turned off the engine put steering lock back on and left .

You can correct us if we're wrong, but from the way you've worded things it sounds as if you started the vehicle without the permission of the owner...that is DEFINITELY NOT a good idea. Once you've determined that you cannot extract the broken portion, your next step should have been to alert the customer to the problem.

In regards to his not wanting to pay for what you didn't do, I wouldn't want to pay you either. Was the customer discourteous? Of course. However, you didn't complete the work that he had asked you to do.

What you should have done was to offer to call a tow truck to move the vehicle if he was worried about leaving it out, and if he wasn't, asked him if he wanted the steering lock to go back on.

Secondly, you should have offered to remove the ignition (assuming you have the tools and knowledge to do so) to extract the broken portion of the key, and mentioned that daylight hours would be more appropriate for such a job.

Hope that helps for next time.

[criminalhate]

Ok Im a total newb where locks are concerned, But automotives is where I work everyday. In south East Michigan there is no law about whether you need a key or not to drive the car and also every single automotive lock (that I have worked on / with) will turn to the off postion with or with out a key in it so you can still shut the car off with no problem. In fact having no key in it may be easier to shut it compared to the people with ten thousand keychains on there keys.

But it was kinda wrong to start the car with out permission. Also you should have still been able to charge for the service call even if you could not fix it. Every plumber and electrician i know will charge at least $35 just to come see if they can fix it. But all in all I would have probably done the same thing you did.

[lost profit]

i did have the customers permission he asked if i could take the steering lock off i did this and the lights lit up on the dash i said this car will now start . at this he leant closer and i turned the lock he was quite pleased to see this but when he realised i would want paying he changed his mind .
At this he said the car is just as safe here as it would be at his house, he asked how he could turn the engine off so I showed him that by using the other end of the broken key in the lock , he would be able to do this by sticking the broken key back in the lock. You can't strip the steering lock out in the dark its just not worth it and so i offered him the best alternative. He declined this but rang me up two or three times afterwards wanting this service. I haven't amended this story to make me look any better or to make shrub any worse I appreciate honest answers. but I do feel that I did do something wrong because this guy came across as very arrogant and shady and I realised when I left that I didn't actually ask for any proof that this man owned the car and hadn't just found the key. So it made me glad that I had left the car in the state that I found it, and I was wondering whether you lads would pick up on this. Would you ask for some proof of I D or ownership as I always to do on householders or is it normal to ask for it with motor vehicles, do the owners usually carry it? The few cars I have done in the past have been for family or friends or acquantances and so I haven.t needed to ask for it, and so I think that I let the side down on this one OR DID I ?

[raimundo]

Automotive is especially necesary to see something you can construe as proof of legitimacy, there are threads on this, my best suggestion is ask the customer to pose in front of the car holding his Id and photograph him and the car liscense plate, costs nothing on a digital camera, it could even be faked and no picture taken, but a thief is not going to go for it, while a legitimate owner will understand.
Well thats how we all live and learn, sooner or later some shifty customer will take everyone down a peg, but distrust is to be balanced with what kind of world we want to live in, (certainly not the cowardly boasting lying bushworld)

[lost profit]

thats an excellent idea i allways carry a camera phone, and your right a thief would,nt want his picture taken but a stranded motorist would,nt mind. cheers