A Mechanic's Life - Tales From Under the Hood

thecardoc3

Besides if every citizen got a good education, there wouldn't be anyone left to fix our fast food.... or automobiles

I like the blush you used with that because what you are alluding to is the stereotype that still suggests that no education is required to be a technician today. Those little challenges I put on this forum were intended to reveal that to be an automobile technician today, an entire level of education is required that you find engineering students getting, yet we have nothing to offer them equivalent career wise if we did attract them. For the trade to attract those kids, things have to change and they need to change right now.

I have a guy that showed up at the shop yesterday that we have done some work for in the past. He has a 2004 F-150 5.4l that has never been in our shop before. With close to 90K his exhaust manifolds are leaking and none of the other places that he usually takes his cars to will even try to deal with them. This is another one of those occasions where the reward for really making the investment to be a complete shop (technician) is that we get the nastiest work while others enjoy just the gravy. He also wants the plugs replaced so tomorrow I'll be starting that routine with a top engine cleaner to start breaking up the carbon in the cylinders along the sides of the plug tubes. The funny part is when he had a guy come to pick him up they guy insisted on first asking what spark plugs we were going to use and he approved of the choice, then he proceeded to have to tell me to make sure to gap the plugs to .044". That's an incorrect step today especially with the iridium plugs we will be using because you can damage, if not simply break off the iridium tip if you try and gap the plug. The iridium plugs we are going to use come pre-gapped. They will also be the last plugs this engine likely ever gets without requiring a major teardown for other repairs.

BTW as far as inspecting the gap of the plugs, that is done totally by eye with the shank of a 1/32 drill bit for a reference. (that drill bit will be about .010" smaller than the correct gap) Any plugs that the gap isn't correct on don't get used, they get returned because for the gap to be wrong the plug must have been dropped at some point and that means it cannot be trusted.

Well anyway the next few days at the shop should be interesting. With the F-150 manifolds and plugs for a fill-in, the Jaguar for the ABS pump circuit failure, an HHR with loss of communication between modules, a Sienna that also has multiple module failures, (all sent to us by other shops) plus about a dozen cars with various issues that are my regular customers we will likely be working straight through the weekend and right into next week.

thecardoc3

many people who are "successful" are completely clueless as to how many breaks they were cut merely by being in the right place at the right time.

I remember the steel mills around here first stopped hiring just before I turned eighteen and then of course over the next few years of recession in the early eighties they just about all closed up and all of those jobs just went away. After my active duty in the Marines was done I had taken a job as a mechanic because I could naturally just do the work and really thought it was just going to be a short term job until I could go onto school. Then I met my future wife, never went back to school and essentially got trapped in the trade when during the recession there was literally no where else to go. By the time some places started hiring again I was so far along in this trade that it no longer made sense to just walk away from it. I spent 83 through late 84 working all day and then studying electronics at night with the intention of learning how to work on computers and it turned out that was exactly the education that I needed to be a better tech in this trade. (I was going to quit being a mechanic and fix computers instead)

When I think about people getting breaks to help them in their careers and then think about what I went through and see them complaining sometimes I'm glad that I did have to work hard and earn everything that ever came our way. The funny thing is today I do fix computers, its just I work on the ones that run on highways and city streets.

stever

One of my nephews works in a steel mill.

He runs the computers....

imidazol97

>Let's blame the schools, principals, teachers, government for our ignorant students. Personal responsibility is non-existent.

Of course it's someone else's fault, and the low info folks look for "someone" to pay for everything they want like food, healthcare, phone, schooling, place to live, and so on. Of course the left is happy to oblige to buy the votes for more future giving.

As for the schools, relevant to cardoc's plight, is that everyone thinks they know how things should be done in schools. So the politicians play into that by offering nonpublic schools paid for by public monies. And then they drag out the one example of homeschooling that got admitted to some elitist east coast liberal school as proof that all homeschooling works. Same for charter or community schools that operate out of the public trough but have few, if any real controls--several here have been found guilty of misuse of funds.

I've helped tutor some students with my science and math knowledge. I find the public schools do a good job considering the hamstringing they have these days. As for healthcare that Mr._Shiftiright mentioned, I doubt the mass public setup is going to work as efficiently.

What cardoc should consider is setting up his own training facility for techs. He can glean public funding and private funding from the car makers, such as in Germany where the companies have large apprenticeship programs and training programs. Here the car makers see the technicians as someone to use and their special training should be at public trough cost rather than as someone for whom they should be responsible for preparing, training, and maintaining.

fintail

With real world inflation probably at 4-5% and savings ROI at maybe .25%, putting more than an emergency fund in savings is bad planning.

US is closer to oligarchy, or more accurately, oligocracy, than anything resembling capitalism. Too much consolidation and collusion these days, and has been happening for at least a few decades.

fintail

And someone else can subsidize long pensions, too :shades:

You probably won't find many liberals supporting charter schools or homeschooling. Those are pets of the other side. Like you say, given the limitations, public schools do all that can be expected and then some. And in many areas, they are still decent.

In Germany, employers are compensated by the government for apprenticeship programs as well. Seems to work out better than the often sketchy for-profit training programs/schools in the US - which also end up subsidized by the government via student loans. Future employers have a direct role in training, and students are not saddled with ridiculous debt. It works.

thecardoc3

What cardoc should consider is setting up his own training facility for techs. He can glean public funding and private funding from the car makers

The problem is the job isn't worth having, until we deal with that no-one should come into the trade.

Here the car makers, dealers, and chain stores see the technicians as someone to use

Fixed that for you.

Their special training should be at public trough cost rather than as someone for whom they should be responsible for preparing, training, and maintaining.

That's actually left up to the individual to accomplish, and usually at our own expense. When I studied electronics in the 80's I took a path that was totally unique. In the mid-eighties GM realized that electronics training was really important and they created their SET class, (Specialized Electronics Training). It was a basic DC class but they made it a pre-requisit for classes like the GM 30 project. (Think Buick Riviera with the CRT in the dash in '86) My dealer wouldn't send me to SET, I had way more training than that class provided. GM wouldn't let me test out of it (anything less than a perfect score and I would have been disappointed with myself) and the end result is I couldn't even attend training on cars that I was the only one fixing.

Mr_Shiftright

It's hard to do well in school when you arrive hungry--if you get through the neighborhood at all that is...

I *LIKE* the idea of a formalized apprentice program for the auto industry--instead of a useless AA degree at a junior college, the student can stream into a 2 year (or 4 year) apprentice program---and pay tuition just like any other college degree.

Graduating this apprentice program CAN have prestige attached to it, if it is rigorous enough.

The reason an AA, or certain B.A. degrees, are not valued is because getting one is often about as hard as falling off a bar stool. You almost get a diploma for "trying".

The student has become the "customer" in college, and the college is the "vendor". The vendor must satisfy the customer by not failing him. No "F"s allowed--a "C" grade is given for maintainng a body temperature of 98.6 or close.

If the "worker" (professor) offends the "customer" with an F, the "worker" gets no more customers (he is figuratively "Yelped" out of having future students) and the worker's class is cancelled.

How interesting it would be to have a mechanic's apprentice program where graduation depends on putting a car together and driving it to the graduation ceremony (or not). :P

jipster

I like the blush you used with that because what you are alluding to is the stereotype that still suggests that no education is required to be a technician today

Yeah, that joke was for your your own personal enjoyment. :sick:

I/we know the training, working conditions and education needed to be a top mechanic. You've demonstrated that quite well. Though I really don't care for some of the methods you've used to achieve that goal, (I.e treating fellow members like laboratory animals, playing with their emotions so they know "what it feels like." )... But, it has been effective. Though in alienating many members, you could be damaging your cause. As you stated earlier, it is up to us the consumer to do something about the plight/ working conditions of the auto mechanic. I asked what we could do, and you didn't answer. So, perhaps you were trying to teach me a lesson? :confuse:

You'll call this one luck, but I'll call it skill and or experience. But, I successfully diagnosed a friend's 2001 Ford 150s ignition coil problem. :shades:

His truck has been having a slight miss. His indie mechanic thought it might be bad gas, truck was not showing any codes. Friend thought it may be tranny. In riding in his truck it felt like a coil problem I had experienced often in my Mazda MPV. The truck had like 200k miles, never had trans fluid change. So mechanic dropped pan and changed fluid and filter, and put in New plugs. Test drove still missing, but code came up misfire in cylinder 4. So changed out all coils, runs really smooth now.

thecardoc3

Test drove still missing, but code came up misfire in cylinder 4. So changed out all coils, runs really smooth now.

A common issue with those is coolant seepage from the heater hose connections that are directly above the #3 and #4 coils.

But, it has been effective. Though in alienating many members, you could be damaging your cause

Nothing else has ever worked. If there are causualties along the way, then thats the price that had to be paid.

jipster

A common issue with those is coolant seepage from the heater hose connections that are directly above the #3 and #4 coils.

My friend stated he was losing trans fluid, with no noticeable leaks. I'll have him check that heater hose and coolant level. Thx.

alcan

In the mid-eighties GM realized that electronics training was really important and they created their SET class, (Specialized Electronics Training). It was a basic DC class but they made it a pre-requisit for classes like the GM 30 project. (Think Buick Riviera with the CRT in the dash in '86)

That seems so long go now. Not sure about the U.S., but GM Canada had found that over 80% of electrical components replaced under warranty were actually OK when tested after return. They decided that E body vehicles would not be supplied to any dealers who didn't have at least 2 service techs who'd gone through SET.

To deliver the training they contracted with colleges across Canada to supply automotive instructors. I was seconded from my college and we first gathered in Oshawa to run through all 8 days worth of lessons and experiments, some of which didn't work and had to be tweaked. Then off to our areas to deliver the training.

The funny thing is, back then we thought that what we were dealing with was really high tech

thecardoc3

That seems so long go now. Not sure about the U.S., but GM Canada had found that over 80% of electrical components replaced under warranty were actually OK when tested after return. They decided that E body vehicles would not be supplied to any dealers who didn't have at least 2 service techs who'd gone through SET.

Techs back then didn't get paid diagnostic time at all, they only got paid a labor amount related to any parts that were replaced. (sound familiar?)

BUT, we also didn't get paid anything at all if the car wasn't fixed the first time no matter what part we subsequently replaced. I had E-bodys being sent to me from all over the zone the moment they realized that I could diagnose and fix them. My reward for going above and beyond the norm was more difficult warranty work that left other techs making more money per hour for that period of time.

BTW when I made the advisory council for the June '86 meeting I tried to get them to listen and let me test out of SET and they still refused. ( I had the highest score in the nation on GM's Master Technician test for Buick that year)

dave8697

For many other people, 'Right place at the right time' means putting in the hours. Min wage of $1.85 back then would buy almost 2 gallons of gas, which was enough to drive one way to classes at a community college that just 300 more hours of min wage work would pay the tuition for a semester at. When not working or in school, HW was required. All part of some peoples right place at the right time.

Min wage doesn't buy any less gas today, cars don't need a set of plugs until 120,000 miles, and they get better mpgs and have cd players and a/c. And home interest is 1/3 to 1/4 of what it used to be.

Invest heavily in education and get: 600,000 annual graduates from college vying for 27,000 full time jobs in the last 7 month's? That is tough. Maybe even tougher than paying 13.5% interest on a house once you get a job.

Mr_Shiftright

Your stats appear to be faulty:

In 2012-2013, the corrected stats are:

937,000 associate’s degrees; 1.8 million bachelor's degrees; 756,000 master's degrees; and 174,700 doctor's degrees.

Your conclusions also need some interpretation.

Students holding science and technical degrees fare WAY better than what your stats suggest for employment, and certain areas of the country fare WAY better than others in providing jobs for college grads.

The job stats you mentioned are way way off BTW.

As for "right place, right time" I was referring to genetics. Just being born in a certain place at a certain time to a certain family gives you a massive head start.

And I doubt anyone would claim that the infant had a hand in that event.

thecardoc3

937,000 associate’s degrees; 1.8 million bachelor's degrees; 756,000 master's degrees; and 174,700 doctor's degrees.

Those are interesting statistics. Check out these.

http://www.ase.com/about-ase/statistics.aspx

Automobile Technicians, 236,589
Advanced Engine Performance Specialists , 38,897
Master Automobile Technicians, (certifications A1 through A8) 78,076
A9: Light Vehicle Diesel Engines, 13,414

Mr_Shiftright

Those are TOTAL numbers for all currently certified people, right?

thecardoc3

As of this morning directly from that link to ASE's website.

FWIW I'm a CMAT with L1 and A9.

fintail

Minimum wage 1.85, so ca. 1974? Let's call it 1974, where minimum wage was $1.90-2 and gas prices, inflated from 1973, averaged 52 cents. That same year, public 4 year university tuition, room and board averaged $1760, and the average new house was under 40K. Kind of hard to pity.

Minimum wage indeed buys less gas today, a lot less education and healthcare today, cars are also more expensive to compensate for improved technologies, and interest is lower while prices are higher, and the deduction scheme remains. And I won't even get started on the dumb trickle down economic policies. Right place at the right time can also mean starting out in a much less competitive and expensive environment.

Mr_Shiftright

"Trickle Down Economics Explained"

There is a banquet and you are the waiters. The people attending the banquet eat as much as they can until they are stuffed. Then, they grab the four corners of the table cloth and roll up the remaining food, silverware, plates, candles, decorations, then dismantle the table and throw that in the bundle. They drag this bundle up the stairs and out the door.

Anything that happens to fall out of the bundle is yours. "

dave8697

Min wage was $1.85 for my first couple jobs, then went to $2.00 for me when I got my first car in '74. On Day 1 of owning a car, gas was 76 cents a gallon just outside NYC, where I lived, and never fell from that price. That place was as far away from non-competive as you can get. And state college in NYS was at least $4500 per year in '75. (near triple 1760). A full time year of work 2080 hrs without vacations or holidays, at $2 an hour would net about $3500 take home. A comparable figure today is $13,300 take home. Even education is only about 50% more expensive today and that is due to the huge student loan usage and availability combined with huge University budgets.

As far as the jobs numbers, I was wrong, but not by much:

Obamacare Full Frontal: Of 953,000 Jobs Created In 2013, 77%, Or 731,000 Are Part-Time:

When the payroll report was released last month, the world finally noticed what we had been saying for nearly three years: that the US was slowly being converted to a part-time worker society. This slow conversion accelerated drastically in the last few months, and especially in June, when part time jobs exploded higher by 360K while full time jobs dropped by 240K. In July we are sad to report that America’s conversion to a part-time worker society is accelerating: according to the Household Survey, of the 266K jobs created (note this number differs from the establishment survey), only 35% of jobs, or 92K, were full time. The rest were… not.

So actually over 8 newly created jobs per state per day this year were full time in a country of 310 million people. Cheer that?

jayrider

That is why it would be helpful to negotiate what the waiters receive before the meal is served. Each one could of course beg for more before everything is trashed but doing nothing usually begets nothing.

Mr_Shiftright

What can we say? The banking and financial industry destroyed the economy in 2006 by cheating, lying, stealing and.....getting away with it. Added to out of control government spending 2000-2008 on foreign adventures, it's a miracle we even exist anymore.

I'm surprised we are as well off as we are, given the severity of the wound.

Fortunately, America is rich in natural resources, so we will come around. But I expect us to take another 10 years to recover from the 2006 disaster.

Mr_Shiftright

What can we say? The banking and financial industry destroyed the economy in 2006 by cheating, lying, stealing and.....getting away with it. Added to out of control government spending 2000-2008 on foreign adventures, it's a miracle we even exist anymore.

I'm surprised we are as well off as we are, given the severity of the wound.

Fortunately, America is rich in natural resources, so we will come around. But I expect us to take another 10 years to recover from the 2006 disaster.

The brightest prospects look to be in technical and science fields, of which I hope the auto industry is included.

fintail

You must have lived in an anomaly area, just like you do now for gas vs diesel prices. I guess I would need to see data to believe it. Either way, the stats exist - I linked them (median income in 74 was also over 10K ), and it is really difficult to feel pity for those getting started 40 years ago compared to today - heck, I am thankful I was able to go to school in the late 90s vs today, based on cost. It might have been easier to get going as a mechanic then, too - lower costs of entry, probably more purchasing power.

The jobs report you list appears to be copied and pasted, what is the source?

30 years of trickle down nonsense, abusive FIRE sector, burgeoning Praetorian class, and this is what we get. Cheer it.

dave8697

it was a fact check site that goggle pointed to in 2 seconds. I just googled again and got the 77% number as the percent of new US jobs that are part time showed up from 3 sources on page 1. Huffpo, wash times, etc.

I can't believe that part time jobs are even considered countable jobs. I never knew that. If I hire an 8th grader to routinely mow my lawn that would be a new job counted, but only if I file FICA taxes for him.

US pop is 316 million today.

That 8 new FT jobs per day number per state is after 5 years of H&C. There are 6400 post secondary schools in the US. Can you imagine if it rotated each day, so that 8 colleges each had a FT job finder on Monday, then on Tuesday, 8 more colleges, and so on.... How many years would it be before every college had just one graduate land a FT job? Only 2.19 years if saturdays and sundays counted. I can't find how many graduate per year to share the 92,000 FT jobs so far this year, but the country gains about 100,000 graduates per year after the deaths of about 500,000 graduates. About 2.4 million die each year in the US. in 2011, 30.4% of Americans have a college degree by age 34.

Can SS admin disability division give 77% of the 88,000 new monthly successful applicants a much smaller monthly check and say that they are on part time disability? It seems logical.

fintail

I'm not seeing it - I google the stuff you copied and pasted without attribution, and I get trash sources like zerohedge and blogger babble. No doubt the unemployment numbers would be higher if the US calculated them like other OECD nations, but some of these claims are simply dishonest.

A quick google/goggle finds this, which discounts the claims

I suspect most mechanic jobs are fulltime, too.

thecardoc3

As you stated earlier, it is up to us the consumer to do something about the plight/ working conditions of the auto mechanic. I asked what we could do, and you didn't answer.

There are a lot of things that you can do but lets start with the simplest one.

Get genuinely educated about how cars work and what it takes to service them completely instead of continuing to promote the badly outdated stereotypes. Yea, there are still some around who live down to the stereotypes and consumers can make choices to make them either get with the program, or simply go away.

Here is just the start of the second thing.

There isn't much that can be done about the google mentality and of course some answers to car problems can be found that way. The problem is you really only find the easy stuff which should be work directed to the youngest techs to help them gain experience as they learn to be the master techs that consumers need us to have. Consumers need to recognize that tomorrows tech will need to be a four year college graduate, and have to earn a wage that reflects that level of schooling while he/she manages to make a living while buying their own tools and paying for that schooling. Bear in mind that college grad should be entering an apprentice program of three to five years and after that will still be some ten years from being that master tech that the consumer needs the shops to have. BTW, today's top techs have educations that are on par with most engineers, consumers need to be told that, and get to see it on a regular basis. Those technical challenges that I put up here have more than one purpose. One of them is to help someone who likes the challenge of trying to solve those kinds of the problems to realize that we have lots of that kind of work for them. But again, we have to make it worth their while to make this career a good choice. That's going to require consumers to make some choices differently and they need education not sensationalism to make that happen.

ohenryx

You're leaving out some very important items. You don't need a 4 year college degree and 10 years of experience to change brake pads. You need someone with a very strong knowlege of electronics and computers, plus years of experience, to trouble shoot. But you probably only need one trouble shooter for every 5 techs.

Now the kicker is that you cannot pay that trouble shooter via the flat rate manual. That is never going to work.

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Interesting. Italics and bold still work, you just have to know the correct mark up commands.

thecardoc3

You're leaving out some very important items. You don't need a 4 year college degree and 10 years of experience to change brake pads.

This article is dated because today lots of cars have this technology built into them. If someone can't handle the whole system then they shouldn't be touching any of it.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-07-18-self-braking-cars_n.htm

You need someone with a very strong knowlege of electronics and computers, plus years of experience, to trouble shoot. But you probably only need one trouble shooter for every 5 techs

That's some of the conventional thinking but to become that troubleshooter one first must cut their teeth as a tech doing the easier work. How do you put someone through school and then have them compete for work in a shop with a significant overhead that the next person doesn't have? Meanwhile all the schooling still only produced a slightly better apprentice in the beginning, who will make as many mistakes as someone with much less training. (Not to mention the same ones too)

dave8697

I got it from therightscoop.com

are you implying that the 77% number or the 'only 92k FT jobs so far in 2013' are not true?

I did make a mistake in my post. 1840 FT jobs per state so far this year in 210 days is 8.76 per day per state, and 128 colleges per state avg, so it only takes half a month for each college to get ONE grad a job, not 2.19 years. But for a hundred student grad class that is 100 half month waits for the last one to finally get a job. That means 4 more years of grads piled onto the 'looking for FT work' heap, so that would be about 17 year wait for the last grad 4 yrs from now. I hope we get a new kind of hope.

Mr_Shiftright

Yes, the statement that 77% of new jobs created are "part time" is not true.

In fact, it is pretty badly wrong.

The reason is that Obama critics have used only the "household survey" to determine this number, which has no fact-checking attached to it. It reports whatever random households are surveyed and believes everything they report. The WSJ, predictably anti-Obama, and the Huffpost, a wildly erratic botch of journalism, were the two main sources for this erroneous conclusion.

The government uses an "establishment" or "workplace" survey as well as the household survey. In this survey, fact-checking is done through tax and company records. So the businesses that did the hiring send in the reports.

In the workplace survey, data suggests that most of the jobs created are NOT part-time. The average employee worked 34.4 hours.

About the only thing accurate on the data cited in your post is that a person could rightly infer than more Americans are working part-time now than in the mid-2000s. This suggests a still weaker than usual economy.

but still, 80% of jobs in America are full-time.

So what we have here is the usual business of raw "statistics". People can find the ones they want, and use them to prove whatever they wish.

It takes some digging to figure out the basis for them.

ohenryx

If someone can't handle the whole system then they shouldn't be touching any of it.

I disagree, strongly. I cannot / could not handle the troubleshooting jobs that you have described previously here in this forum. And when I need someone to do that kind of troubleshooting, I will pay the $150 per hour or whatever the going rate is now. But I can and have in the past and will continue in the future to change my own brake pads. If the brakes are working fine, and the only problem is worn down pads, I do not need a degree in automotive technology to change the pads. Same thing is true for changing the spark plugs and wires at 100k, and many other jobs.

Mr_Shiftright

Perhaps Doc meant by 'system', a CLOSED system. Brake pads aren't multiplexed. True, there are some common sense things you need to know about brake pads and sensors and calipers, but rocket science is not required.

dave8697

I agree that all the really important stuff is much harder to google. I find that anything for my '96 Riv is hard to find. They are rare cars (16k/yr) and half are totaled by now. That only leaves 160 per state, at the most.
OTOH, 230k mustangs were produced in '98, so it is easier to find info to help diagnose and to find parts. Plus, most of the totaled ones were probably the V8s.

When my tilt steering broke on the Riv, I had to wait until one got junked before my mechanic could do the repair. I happened to get lucky that I asked my mech to take out the broken part to let me go weld it. The specialty welder that I found through google said it was pot metal, not aluminum, and couldn't be welded. He then called his friend who owned a scrap yard, who just happened to get a '96 Riv in the day before. I got an entire matching steering column and brought it to my mech.

Recent (last 12 mos) repairs/fixes/problems in my 3 90's cars:
broken tilt st wheel pivot pin housing
disintegrated serp belt idler pulley bearing that shredded belt edge before it fell off
bad plug wires, one wire not working at all (15 yrs old wires)
rusted out exhaust flange
turn signal bulb, two times
brakes that pull to side
broke down seat padding
power lumbar stuck out all the way
vac tube bad that directs a/c from defrost vents to front vents
a/c leaking from cprsr fr face - not gonna fix
temp spare so rusty and old it wont hold air (stows under vehicle)
flat tire - led to discovering no air in spare
corroded pos battery terminal
leak in radiator (2 cars)
battery old and weak
a/c charge - took 1/3 of can after 15 yrs.
blower cuts out after 2 minutes when max a/c and highest fan speed

That is 6 problems per car per year, though the Mustang is over half of them. The Buick tilt wheel/serp belt episode was a $75 tow, $81 junkyard part, and a $455 bill from my mech. Getting a new Mustang battery at Walmart was next most expensive item, followed by $31 for set of long overdue plug wires for the Mustang, which has got it running good. The blower fuse is a $35 part but for now I keep the fan on med spd. The VW owner who lost just his radiator at 70k miles, said his blower brg went bad which would cause his fuse to blow. My Astro doesn't make any bad fan brg noise though, like he described from his VW. His blower motor brg was an expensive job on the Jetta 2.5.

dave8697

With 2.4 million Americans dying each year, there must be about 2 million baby boomers leaving their jobs and retiring each year. Our country has to smoke that 2 million number for new employment to be considered to hold steady, being that our population grows by 3 million per year. That 3 million is above the 2.4 million that die, so 5.4 million new people each year.

thecardoc3

If someone can't handle the whole system then they shouldn't be touching any of it.

I disagree, strongly. I cannot / could not handle the troubleshooting jobs that you have described previously here in this forum.

OK, so you disagree.

If someone is working as a technician and he/she didn't (doesn't) have the knowledge and experience to work with the system completely would most consumers be in line with you in their perspective and accept that it was OK for that inexperienced person to touch their car?

If the brakes are working fine, and the only problem is worn down pads, I do not need a degree in automotive technology to change the pads.

Yea, and these two writers thought they knew enough about brakes to write an article on it as well.

http://www.edmunds.com/how-to/how-to-change-your-brake-pads.html

We haven't even touched on the variations that hybrid and electric vehicle technology impacts this "simple" service.

fintail

Yes, I have doubts about the stats. I don't know if rightscoop is seen as a universally credible source. I know if I was an econ student and I used it as a citation, it would be dismissed.

Maybe the next time, the alternative to this hope won't be offered up by a born-elite private equity suit and Rand-loving running mate who offer no specifics about their miracle plan, and fail to do so even in defeat. I hope we have a new kind of hope too, one that so far is offered by neither nearly identical choice.

Regarding replacement rates, a lot of boomers are retiring late - maybe not by choice, which has a marked impact. I think even mechanics work later - which isn't always a bad thing for us who own old cars. As so many employers are unwilling to put a little skin in the game when it comes to training, sometimes knowledge actually comes from experience.

Mr_Shiftright

Aging populations will be a problem for all westernized industrial nations.

Many people, possibly Doc, will not retire on schedule. He may have to stay in the game longer than he planned for, and thus, unintentionally, keep younger people out of the job market.

thecardoc3

Many people, possibly Doc, will not retire on schedule. He may have to stay in the game longer than he planned for

I have no plans to retire, beyond working right up to my last day. (And no kidding, I'm dead serious about that) We don't have a dime put away for retirement and with the way costs keep rising for us there is no way to generate additional profits that could even be set aside.

thecardoc3

Here is a little example of a no-start diagnostic that I did today.

http://johng673.blogspot.com/

You'll see this went a little beyond the point of just getting it to start, getting it to start and run was important to the owner. At the point that we stopped we have a good picture of the situation but we reached the point where some trees need to be cut down to see the forest on this one. It's just not likely to reliably identify any other potential issues until the car can be driven, and that can't happen with an engine that can't breath and a MAF that is failed.

dave8697

You dispute that 77% of new 2013 jobs creation are part time. Yet the only stat you throw back is that 80% of all existing jobs in the country are still Full time. You have presented no case to dispute the numbers or anything in the rightscoop article that is focused on the drift from FT to PT in our country. The data suggests? blah blah. Most? So lets celebrate if 50.1% are FT? Just the sheer numbers retiring are retiring from FT jobs 80% of the time by your stats. Losing millions of FT jobs and replacing them with PT ones at a time when $25,000 health care plans are to be handed out as a freebie to 40 million people will bankrupt us further.

Mr_Shiftright

Well I thought I did present the data but perhaps you didn't read it thoroughly? I mean about the two different surveys and how the actual business survey (not a phone survey, but hard copy) reported an average weekly employment time of 34.4 hours?---which is not a part time job, at least by the usual definition.

A phone survey showing a 77% part time job rate seems so flawed on the face of it that anyone familiar with statistical analysis would have to at least question such a radically unlikely result or find alternate studies.

phildevon

hi have sportrac 1.6l 1993 j reg been having problems starting when warm but ok when cold I have changed o2 sensor plugs and cleaned rotary arm and cap and put some fuel cleaner in , still same fault ..some one said change engine management temp sensor but cant find it on engine any help please

Mr_Shiftright

Hi phildevon,

This topic is a discussion of the career of being a mechanic, so I think you'd want to post your question in our ANSWERS section:

http://answers.edmunds.com/defaultloggedin.aspx

Also, try to use full words and sentences and more detail in describing your problem, as well as a clear description of year, make, model.

Thank you, see you over in Answers,

HOST

printerman1

so do I. Cars/trucks are not made to tinker with. The diagnostic equipment my car guys needs is surprising. Now that my 2011 is out of warranty, let the games begin. I was constantly brow beaten by my selling dealer, about upgrades to the 2011 tranny. Nothing ever was wrong with it, until I showed him the noisy solenoid in the tranny & lurchy forward. Service is where Ford makes money. Like computers & printers, service is the money maker.

thecardoc3

Cars/trucks are not made to tinker with. The diagnostic equipment my car guys needs is surprising

You can sure say that again, it seems that we find something else new just about every week.

thecardoc3

This is a vehicle that had several people looked at before it got towed to our shop. The blog explains the problem and the diagnostic routine in detail. It's a common failure typically caused by low oil level.

http://johng673.blogspot.com/

So with that, it seems IMO it may be time to close this thread. It's pretty much run its course and there isn't that much more to say. I made the points that I felt I needed to make about the tendency to judge us all by the stereotypes. The techs of tomorrow will need to be able to perform the kind of testing you will find on my blog and more. The top techs of today are already doing things that most people don't even know are possible.

BTW, I'll tell you about the highlight of the day. I got a call to help out at the Medical Center. They are replacing one of the MRI units and needed to get the new one out of the truck that it got shipped in and down to the ground and in the door. (approx. 4000 lbs) Our flat bed made that easy, safe, and we were glad to chip in and help.

explorerx4

4 hours labor and a refurbished engine computer, a bit over 1K.
The owner said they had around 40 hours in it and he said he was doing me a favor.
No kidding. A bad engine computer can kill an older car.
I swear they put a MAF in it, but I didn't see it on the bill.

thecardoc3

40 hours labor at 80/per is some $3200 at straight time without any parts being sold. By only charging 4 hours they would be better off if they had never tried to fix the car.