Right now there is construction blocking me from parking within a couple blocks of my house so I can't do it myself.

I took my car to a shop close by yesterday to get my brakes bled.

I handed over the keys to the mechanic and watched him drive the car into their shop.
I went into the waiting room and a couple minutes later had the manager walking out to me asking me if I knew that the hood was damaged?

I said no, the hood isn't damaged, why do you think that? He responded by saying that his mechanic isn't able to open the hood.

I started laughing and walked past the manager and back into the shop, the hood of the car was already unlatched mechanically, but not lifted.
The trunk of the car was also unlatched and the gas door was sprung open.

I asked the mechanic to show me how he is trying to open the hood, he walked up to the front of the car and tried prying the hood open by its hinges.
I laughed again and walked over and gently opened the hood for him and asked him if he would need any more assistance in bleeding the brakes.

He didn't think I was very funny, he refused service to me and said that a different shop would be more experienced and might be able to help me.

I limped it home, I will just dick with it later when I have access to my garage.

I thought that **** was pretty funny and you guys would get a kick out of it too.

 

Wow. If I saw that i would have insisted nobody else touch my car.

My Dad personally saw a super young "tech" torquing the oil drain plug with an impact gun about 30 years ago..... These are the reasons nobody touches my cars except me or that I absolutely trust them.

 

Yeah, I feel the same way.

I had hoped beyond hope that a brake shop would be competent enough to bleed brakes. But I guess that was too high of aspirations.

 

Bleeding brakes is one of the most basic jobs beyond oil changes a shop can do. On the Jags, there is really nothing special there, so if they couldn't do that, then RUN. Better yet, learn to do it yourself. You'll be able to make sure you put the correct DOT fluid in the car, and have the satisfaction of doing the job yourself, and ultimately being cheap (me) and saving $$$ for more Jag parts and fun!

 

@srpope80 I just got done replacing the transmission and timing chains myself on the garage floor with no lift.

I can tackle bleeding the breaks.

I don't have access to get the car within a block of my house due to construction.

 

Bullet dodged. The lack of a sense of humour was nearly a criminal offense anyway.

 

Yeah, I was just more interested in getting the brakes bled so i didn't slam into the back of someone on the 3 mile drive home.

 

I would have thought he would appreciated the opportunity to learn something.
If I ever get that cocky I hope someone kicks my ***.

 

Sorry, but you're way off base Mad Hatter. It turns out that your car doesn't even have a hood since you have the coupe and not a convertible. That the thing covering your engine isn't a hood, it is a bonnet. Likewise you were mistaken that your trunk was open since your car doesn't have a trunk, but rather a boot.

I learned all this a few days after first getting my XKR 17 years ago when an indicator and warning tone came on indicating "hood open". I stopped the car and it was then that I found I couldn't even open the bonnet. Like you I thought it was the hood, and like your brake tech I thought it opened from the front. Somehow I figured out it opened from the back and after opening and closing it a few times and seeing the "hood open" message never went away I discovered it wasn't a hood but a bonnet. Next I tried the same thing on what I thought was the trunk thinking that was somehow triggering the hood indicator only to find I got a boot open message whenever I opened what I had previously thought was the trunk. Hmm...appeared I had a boot and not a trunk.

I was stumped for some time. Sat there quite while open to the sky on a nice bright summer day trying to figure out why the "hood open" message stayed on and what the hell it referred to. I can't remember how but at some point I discovered that my convertible top was actually a hood! Also that if you take your finger off the button before you get the tone signaling the top was completely up or down that triggers the "hood open" message.

So only convertibles have hoods and they cover the passengers not the engine and all Jaguars have bonnets and boots but no trunks.

 

The fundamental problem with beginning sentences with absolute adjectives like 'all' is that some jackass has a trunk in his boot, like me.

 

LOL
Two nations separated by a common language

@MH - I guess someone's watching out for you

 

Yeah, it's a good thing he couldn't get the hood / bonnet open. Who knows what problems you'd have now.

 

I agree with crbass, if you have no sense of humour and can't laugh at yourself ;well that's just not funny, LOL..if someone cops an attitude then I wouldn't want them working on my car either,steve.

 

It turns out that my brakes had nearly gone away entirely due to the vacuum brake booster plastic hose snapping in half at the throttle body.

I looked up the part online and everyone wanted nearly $200 for it.

I cut it into pieces and grabbed a couple vacuum hose connectors from the parts store and joined them with normal vacuum rubber hose.

I had to do a little bit of hot gluing to get good air tight seals as the pipe was brittle and i didn't want to push my chances by shoving in the proper hose connector.
The ones i did use are just a touch loose and would have had a small vacuum leak, hot glued the pipe to the connector and haven't had a vacuum leak from it again.

Brakes work .....better...... again.

 

They did you a favor by not working on your car. You don't want them to.
You are lucky that they didn't damage anything, like trying to pry the front of the hood with a crowbar. Yikes!!