A Rainy-Season Follow-Up Visit: Mud Water in a Customer's Engine

June 24th, Dar es Salaam, the tail end of the rainy season. It was still raining when the plane touched down, runway lights reflecting off the water.

This trip was a follow-up visit. In the second half of last year we sold 37 machines to customers in Tanzania and Kenya, with a promised check-in every six months. The three pandemic years grounded us and broke that promise for three years; this year we're making it up.

Joseph met me at the exit — he owns a repair shop in Dar and is an old customer who bought six wheel loaders last year. His first line: "One of the machines has water in the engine. Good thing you're here." My heart skipped.

Riding into town in his pickup, water stood everywhere, the deepest spots over the running boards. He said this year's rainy season ran long — April's rain stretched into May without fully stopping, and job sites were swamps.

The visit was scheduled for six days: four in Tanzania, two in Kenya. Day one with Joseph, then Mohammed's twelve machines and three smaller customers. Follow-up visits earn nothing — flights and hotels, RMB 16,000 — but skipping them isn't an option. With machines 8,000 kilometers away, what you can't see keeps you up at night.

Mud Water in the Engine

The machine was a 2018 Lonking wheel loader he'd rented out to a road crew working in the suburbs. At the worst of the April rains, standing water on the site went over the axles, and the next morning the machine wouldn't start.

Opened the engine: mud marks on the cylinder walls of cylinders two and three, oil turned coffee-colored. One bent connecting rod; the crankshaft survived. The shop's quote: overhaul kit, rod, labor — RMB 38,000.

Joseph didn't blame us. He said the driver forded water that was too deep — an operating problem. But I wasn't at ease, and the next morning I went to the site.

The Fault Was in the Air Filter

The site sat in a low river valley, water up to 1.2 meters deep. I looked at the machine: the intake sat high enough — water shouldn't have entered through the intake tract.

I opened the air filter housing and understood. The filter element wasn't seated — it sat crooked, the sealing ring not compressed on one side. Muddy water got sucked in through the gap. The element was a new one we'd installed before shipping, and it wasn't seated during installation.

I checked the air filter photos of the other machines in the shipping archive. For this machine, the photo was taken too straight-on — the sealing ring side wasn't captured. An incomplete photo is as good as no re-check. That's a hole in the process too.

The responsibility is mostly ours. Xiao Wang did the install — a quick-handed kid who didn't torque it down right. But it can't be pinned on his hands alone: my training didn't keep up, and pre-shipment re-checks didn't include this item. Thirty-seven machines, one failure — but one is enough to buy the lesson.

What We Covered

I called Joseph and offered to split the repair fifty-fifty. He declined twice, saying site operation was also at fault.

That night in the hotel I ran the numbers. Cover everything: RMB 38,000. Cover nothing: indefensible — the customer wouldn't say it, but he'd keep the account in his heart. Fifty-fifty gives everyone a way through, and it's a statement. In overseas business, money can be settled exactly; goodwill can't. Better to give a step.

What we settled on: we cover the parts, RMB 19,000, air-freighted from Guangzhou — shipped Thursday, arrived Monday. Joseph covers the labor himself; his shop has that capability anyway.

The day the parts landed I went to his shop to watch the install. His apprentice fitted the connecting rod while I stood by, and the torque wrench hit its mark before he let go. Joseph laughed at me — "you're more nervous than I am." I told him this machine went out of our door; nervous is what I should be.

While I was there I checked the other five wheel loaders too. Air filters, belts, brake fluid, one by one. One machine's air filter clamp was loose; tightened on the spot. Joseph's apprentices crowded around while I walked through the inspection sequence, and they filmed it on their phones.

On July 8th the machine was fixed. Joseph sent me a video, engine note clean and true. The money was well paid — it bought us clarity on a hole in the process.

The Shipping Reminders Changed

Back home, we changed the documents that ship with each machine. The old maintenance manual was a booklet nobody read.

Now every machine's air filter housing gets a waterproof sticker, Chinese-English with a diagram: after seating the element, shake it three times by hand — if it moves, it isn't seated. The cab gets a rainy-season notice: water deeper than half the wheel hub, do not cross.

A sticker costs RMB 2.3; all 37 machines got them. Xiao Wang's install procedure gained a step: photograph the air filter after installation, file the photo in the inspection archive, and I spot-check before shipping.

The two Kenya days went smoothly too. Both customers' machines were working normally; one road roller had a dead wiper motor, and I'd brought the part from Dar and swapped it on the spot. The follow-up checklist has eleven items — each checked off, customer signs, one copy for me, one for him.

In this trade, selling the machine isn't the end. The rainy season comes every year, and the reminders get posted every year.