I finally told a building manager they were wrong about their elevator noise... and it backfired hard

Last Tuesday I get a call about a noisy elevator in a high rise downtown. Manager swears it's the motor mount, been complaining for months. I show up, listen for 5 minutes, and tell him it's actually a worn guide shoe on car #2. He got real defensive, said I didn't know what I was talking about. I spent 2 hours pulling the car and showing him the uneven wear on the shoe. He just walked away mid-conversation. Has anyone else dealt with a building manager who thinks they know more than the mechanic on site?

3 comments

3 Comments

morgan.cameron3d ago

Did you actually check the torque on the rail bracket bolts when you had the car pulled? I get what you're saying about the scraping sound, but a worn guide shoe can absolutely cause a dull thump if the clearance is just slightly off. It doesn't always scrape, especially if the shoe is composite material getting loose inside its holder. That thud can trick the sound into traveling through the frame and make it feel like a motor mount problem. I've had two jobs where the manager swore it was the mount, but it was a shoe with uneven wear that let the car rock a tiny bit on each pass. Still, you're right that rail brackets are worth a look they get loose way more than people think.

diana_bell741mo ago

Wait, are you sure it was a guide shoe? Usually those make more of a scraping sound, not the kind of thumping that gets managers calling about motor mounts. Ive had a few where the guide shoe wear was obvious but it was actually a loose rail bracket causing the noise to travel wrong. Did you check the rail alignment while you had the car pulled? Building managers can be impossible once they lock onto their pet theory.

evand651mo ago

Did you actually check the guide shoe clearance after you pulled it, or just look for visible wear like chunks missing? Ive been burned before where they looked fine but the clearance was way off and causing a weird thump that fooled everyone as a motor mount issue. A cheap feeler gauge can save you a re-do on a job like that, trust me.