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Not all that surprising, and this is with everything "in house".
This author is raising some of the right points. http://www.autonews.com/article/20160419/BLOG06/160419880/-1
More complex engines and transmissions will also require continual training of the technicians tasked with repairing and maintaining new light vehicles. The industry is already short some 150,000 technicians by some estimates. Would you pursue a career knowing that not only would you have to work long hours in a physically tough environment, but that you will also be taking classes for your entire working career?
That's on top of all of the other reasons to do something else with your life....
(And don't try to tell me that standing on your feet for an 8 hour shift at Wal-Mart dealing with the public while bagging groceries isn't a physically tough environment).
Picture a "lowly" cashier having to work next to an open door in winter, or a picture window in summer, with broken glass mixed in with the coins in her register, and having to diagnose what's inside each shopping cart.
But there's not a technician alive that hasn't been gunned down in the dirt by a car.
This is all pretty typical though. As someone is learning to be a technician, they get to enjoy being belittled over every new lesson the job will teach them. Work hard, study more and genuinely rise to the top in the trade and your rewards will be comments that serve no purpose other than to tell you that you still aren't good enough.
Better flat rate it.
Multiplexing isn't a big deal. You can google and get a million (billions of ?) examples of multiplexed circuits. I present a four hour class and have people who have never studied electronics before that evening walking out the door not only knowing how one works, they know practical routines that allow them to test and solve problems with multiplexed circuits. Heck that's the easiest question you have ever asked. Because its cheaper and easier to buy back a car once in a while than it is to train and support a trade full of fully qualified technicians.
There isn't a single practical answer to your question and that's why people who have never spent any time in a shop and tried to learn how to be a technician don't have a clue as to what it really takes to do the job. I've had cars that beat a number of people up over an extended period of time that took less than five minutes to figure out. Some of those were little more than dumb luck where a random intermittent just happened to be occurring at the very moment I started looking at the car. Others came down to insufficient tooling or training where the problem simply outclassed their abilities. Most of the time, what others think is hard takes less than an hour to solve and that goes for just about any active failure. About the only time that it takes longer than that are when there needs to be some disassembly for component access to perform pinpoint testing.
I've had cars presented with multiple failures that the owner kept driving and driving as more things went wrong until they finally had no choice but to do something about it. Others where previous attempts elsewhere to fix something only succeeded in adding additional problems on top of the original failure.
I've had cars that took more than a month just to get some random failure to occur and had less than five seconds to solve before the failure stopped occurring. Some of those were solved in that five seconds, others took more than one occurrence to solve. That's where having a good game plan and setting the testing in advance makes all the difference. BTW, that's something that I have given you some examples of in previous posts. There were some of those never got to be diagnosed. It's not that they couldn't be figured out, lots of owners just don't have the time, nor the patience to allow it to be done.
I've had customers that once a baseline investigation of a problem was started, gave them back their car so that they could drive it around until the random failure occurred. When it happened, if they could drive it to the shop while the problem was occurring, I would drop what I was otherwise doing and figure it out. Or, if the car wasn't drivable when the problem occurred when I would go to them and analyze the issue wherever the car and customer were at.
Radio B1001, U2100,U2103, B1325
Power Steering Control Module C0845-01, C0000-71, U2105,U2107
ECM U0101,
BCM U2106, U2111
SRS B1370
Which codes are the most important and are the ones that indicate where the diagnostics should start?
FWIW, it took just under twenty minutes to solve.......
A 2005 Cobalt? I suspect the solution lies somewhere between the numbers for trade-in and salvage value....
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport 2020 C43 2021 Sahara 4xe 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport 2020 C43 2021 Sahara 4xe 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
Next?
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport 2020 C43 2021 Sahara 4xe 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
S62 Secondary Air System Repair
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport 2020 C43 2021 Sahara 4xe 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
Anyway, you want to talk about BMW's problems? Go right ahead. Carbon deposits are problems that aren't limited to any one engine or manufacturer and they darn sure aren't new.
Compare the previous photo to this one. Why is there a difference with the module disconnected? What does that voltage actually mean?
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport 2020 C43 2021 Sahara 4xe 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
You should get a chance to use the walnut shell blaster sometime and see just how nasty that build up gets to be.
This is CAN Hi with the module disconnected.
This was over 6v with it connected. The TCM is bad. The voltages shown with the module disconnected are normal for CAN circuit communication. They could be compared if need be to pins 6 and 14 of the ALDL. A scope would tell you a lot more about the circuit than a voltmeter does. With the TCM connected the bias voltages start pushing high. The ground circuit for the TCM was confirmed by loading it with 4 amps of current from a headlight with no notable change in a measurable drop.
So what happened?
The previous shop had to tow the car in after the boyfriend was trying to work on it. They found the under hood fuse block corroded and failed and replaced it with a new dealer part. Upon getting the car started they had power steering system warnings on the instrument cluster, a service engine soon MIL, the transmission stuck in second gear no communication with the TCM and various other issues.
The customer claims that none of those problems existed previously, however that was before the boyfriend was doing something (undisclosed) to the car where it ended up in a no-start and occasional start with immediate stall condition. Many of the codes listed were historical faults. Some of them were the result of insufficient system voltage, which was very likely caused by the failing fuse block assembly.
As for GDI issues, there was a lot of chatter about the problem on the Mazdaspeed forums involving the 2.3 turbo but my 2007 made it to 158k with no degradation in either performance or drivability.
I barely have 20k miles on the N55 in my 2 Series, but my SA and others at BMW who should know tell me that intake valve deposits won't be a concern as long as I "give it some stick" on a regular basis.
I don't think that will be a problem.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport 2020 C43 2021 Sahara 4xe 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
The N54 needs the valves blasted with walnut shells every 50k or so, no matter how you drive it.
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '08 Charger R/T Daytona; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '08 Maser QP; '11 Mini Cooper S
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport 2020 C43 2021 Sahara 4xe 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport 2020 C43 2021 Sahara 4xe 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
There are a lot of articles on the subject and there are a lot of differing theories as to the causes and the ultimate solutions.
http://www.underhoodservice.com/direct-injection-engines-develop-carbon-deposits/
http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2015/01/is-carbon-buildup-a-problem-with-direct-injection-engines-.html
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '08 Charger R/T Daytona; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '08 Maser QP; '11 Mini Cooper S
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport 2020 C43 2021 Sahara 4xe 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive