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In typical business rates are tied to quality of work. Dealerships having a default peak/OEM service rate does not magically make the service run correctly. If the service is not working well then the perks you listed become heavy burdens and an excuse to cheat, like not paying techs, padding jobs, etc. This model does not work due to the competing interests. It will consistently and forever until the end of time generate a high proportion of cheaters.
GM has designed the system to do an automatic relearn in case the active one isn't performed or if a battery is charged incorrectly. In one of those the customer will notice the start/stop system will shut down, but then after the car has been parked for three to four hours it will return to normal all by itself. Those should not have been an issue, but just wait until you run into one with ADAS (advanced drivers assistance systems) on top of start/stop technology. You'll get to learn things that you don't want to know.
And that's exactly what good engineering should do with such a system.
I'm not sure what some people expect when they drive into this chrome and glass Taj Mahals called "the dealer". A guy in coveralls replacing your fuse and saying "That's okay, pal---no charge for that".
You can turn it off, but not permanently. If I had this on my new car, I'd ask someone like Doc how I could disarm it permanently and forever.
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
Oxygen sensor, bank 1 sensor 2, which is the downstream sensor, and costs about $48 on RockAuto. Probably less on Amazon. The dealer didn’t have the sensor, but offered to order it, and gave her an estimate of $420 for parts and labor. And they were generous enough to offer to take the $75 “diagnostic fee” off of that $420.
The last time I replaced an oxygen sensor it took about 15 minutes. In this case, what with jacking up the truck and sitting it on jack stands, make that 30 minutes? So 30 minutes work, a $48 part, and the dealer wants $420. That just doesn’t strike me as fair or reasonable.
YMMV
A man could probably gets rich re-boxing all the good 02 sensors that are thrown away each year.
She lives in a small town, she does not know any repair shops. I sent her to Autozone, as I know they can read OBD2, and will do so for free. Didn't occur to me until afterwards that her truck was too old for OBD2. She tried not one, but two, auto parts stores. Both told her to go the dealer, so she went to the dealer.
The more I think about this, the less likely it is that a small "Indy shop" would have the equipment to read a proprietary 23 year old OBD1 diagnostic code. Just my guess.
I bet Doc has one right on his toolbelt
There is Factory Service Manual for every vehicle manufactured. If a tech cannot read and implement procedures because these are not the exact cars they see most often, then I do not know what to tell you. In IT we get thrown legacy systems and problems outside of our bailiwick all the time. If something needs to keep running because it produces a report that lands on the CEOs desk, guess what? Those executives are outright tyrannical and have zero tolerance for excuses. Someone must fix the process and there is a significant chance the programmer working on it was not even around when the process was created, just like this tech/old car situation. A technical person’s job is to fix technical problems, not to fix the most common and easiest current problems.
I understand that OEM parts do drop off the map. The dealership has access to all the same Chinese parts as the independent dealer, and they also have a moral obligation to fix their own vehicle, which no one else really has. I guess they do not see it that way. If the brand were mine, I would be outright ashamed to turn away one of my cars.
You could tell me about tool challenges. But does fixing the A/C, radiator, gas tank, EGR valve on a 1985 Buick century mandate a different set of wrenches? That sounds like the perfect system! Leave all other work to lower rate independent shops who, despite Mr. S's assertion, I am positive have a much lower rate of overall cheating. The high rate and time allocated should be compensation for difficult jobs, and dealerships could charge even more in this scenario.
I care as much about your concern, the particular work a tech receives in a free market, as much as the average automotive tech cares about the extraordinary stress of being a senior IT analyst in America today, what jobs we are assigned, and the high rates of heart attacks and even deaths at ages in the 40's and 50's. How would I like to be an automotive tech constantly solving difficult problems? That is very parallel to what I do and how people lean on me. There are also parallel analysts who may even be paid more that no one would bother with a complex problem because they will not get anywhere. So pay is not always "fair" for the job. But I attack problems because I love attacking problems. A true automotive tech would feel similar. Being afraid or simply unable to address a problem not seen before is a sign of a weak troubleshooter or a person who clearly does not love nor belong in such a role.
It just came to me. I left my most recent position and am currently looking for work. One of the reasons I left was that recently I was spending too much of my day templating the same processes repeatedly (easy) and was not being introduced to enough new and complex stuff. To your point about gravy jobs, I avoid them with every fiber in my body. BORING!
If the tech has an OBD-1 tool available, or has the proper procedure at his fingertips, then fine, he can do it.
Or when I would test and prove a component failure instead of just shooting from the hip only to have someone say, "I don't know what you did all of that testing for, we knew that is what was wrong" which of course has it's own bookend statement that occurred if we didn't test (because we had just gotten yelled at and cheated for testing) and the repair that usually worked didn't this time and it was "didn't you test anything? I thought you said that you knew what you were doing!"
Guys like Eric are getting the chance to do things the right way all of the time because of the group of technicians that came before him who figured out the right way and did it the right way in spite of what it cost us. Now you might be thinking what do you mean cost you? Everytime some reporter wanted to write a story about diagnostics and how it should be free which really was nothing more than a sponsored story for toy tools like CarMD and now Fixd it put the suggestion into consumers minds that what you see Eric actually doing was wrong when were pioneering the way. Yeah, we didn't have a way to get people to see what we were really doing, Eric does and he does a fine job of it.
For me, the more techs that I get to adopt the same habits and skills that Eric is putting to use the more everything that I had to overcome in the past was worth the effort. Which BTW brings us back to the dealership life that stills does everything it can to prevent growing techs like Eric.
The point is that he is a professional, with a reputation to nurture and uphold. It's his livelihood, and that of his family. For most car owners, taking a good guess makes sense sometimes. The only consequence to us is to have failed and maybe dribbled away $50--$100 bucks.
Besides all that, some problems on cars are not that hard to solve. They aren't all devilishly complicated rabbit-holes.
"Guessing" is not illogical. It is getting to YES by discovering all the NOs
Given enough time and persistence, any intelligent car owner can solve a fair number of his car's problems.
Besides, at $150 shop rates in some zip codes, what does the "guesser" have to lose?
Besides, I hate to tell you how many repair shops are doing exactly what I do--making educated guesses. But you already know that. You see it posted every day here on Edmunds.
I must disagree about Eric--he reached a point on one video where he took a guess, but one based on prior knowledge of similar cars with similar symptoms, and because there was no real testing to go any further. The problem was simply too erratic.
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 time they spend continuining testing until the failure is proven or until the owner says to stop.
The cost of the part and the labor, even if it is agreed in advance to do the tryzee on the customer's dollar. There are many cases where the vehicle owner develops buyers remorse or amnesia and the publicity battle ensues if the customer has to pay for something that didn't fix their car. Yeah and how many times are they told to go get their money back when the guess didn't work?
BTW, they should be called uneducated guesses if they have to called anything more than just a guess. There is always real testing that can go further the only questions are can the tech figure out how to do it and how long will it take to perform.
For the tech many times diagnostics would be sold for about an hours time assuming of course that any time is sold at all. Once that hour of time expires however quite often the tech is expected to invest what-ever amount of time that it takes to get to the answer. It's hard to argue against the choice of tossing a part versus spending who knows how many unpaid hours if you don't consider what the rest of the outcomes might be.
One scenario is if you guess right and actually fix the car. But you don't really have any proof that it is fixed, you only really have a condition that hasn't happened again yet so the customer can easily be left with a vehicle that they cannot trust to woork correctly. Three years from now if the car presents a similar symptom you'll be told that you got it wrong.
The other possibility of coruse is you toss a part and right away it is proven that it didn't fox it. Now you are in a situation where you spent the customers money (which they may still go back on that deal) and you owe them so the tech again will end up spending what ever time it takes and doing whatever test is rquired to figure out and finally get the problem repaired and not be paid for doing so.
The only way to avoid both of these scenario's is with experience, knowledge and the discipline to apply those skills.
Hello Sir,
How are you, hope all is well. How is work.
Please I need your professional advice. I have been trying to get my truck to pass inspection in texas
It 2006 Infinity QX56. I got P2A03 on bank 2 sensor 1 via my reader. I replaced the sensor, but i am still getting the same code. I have no leak or whatsoever. I took it to the exhaust shop to get it checked, No problem found.
I run the readness for the emission after first failed.
After I completed the drive cycle, everything I need shows ready, but it kicks the check engine light on.
Whenever I delete the code, the emission READNESS would not be ready until the check engine kicks on.
I know for sure, they would not reinspect my suv with the check engine light on.
I know it will pass when the readness all shows complete.
Please help me.
I already reset my MAF sensor to clear the stored memory
How about you help him your way? Unless you are willing to admit that your way has little to no chance of success and he needs my way. This isn't a mind numbing exercise it is a basic failure that can be correctly analyzed in under fifteen minutes the first time a properly prepared technician ever encounters it and he/she doesn't even need a factory flow chart.
So what do we know here? We know the PCM has found a problem with the upstream Sensor 1 on Bank 2. So we also know that the sensor is measuring ambient air content vs. exhaust content and that the sensor isn't sending the PCM the correct voltage values.
His original "guess" wasn't that bad, was it? He suspects something is wrong with the MAF, and you know, he could be right.
But he has no real technical knowledge, and he needs to pass smog.
So he goes on the Internet, and finds out he should check for vacuum leaks, a bad MAF, exhaust leaks, damaged wiring or an engine misfire.
So what's the harm is spending $27 bucks on a new MAF? Two screws, 3 minutes of work and maybe he'd got his solution. Or, ---what's the harm in him buying a cheap code reader? Maybe it'll tell him he DOES have a misfire? or something amiss with manifold pressure or TPS? Maybe he'll find some bad wiring next to a hot exhaust. Maybe he'll learn how to use a basic VOM meter?
Sure, he could waste some time and money, but he could also be successful. There is no harm in encouraging him to do some basic research and exercise some basic skills.
As we've all said before, a man has to know his limitations. But if he wants to risk $50 bucks, that's his business.
If he makes 2 bad guesses and 1 good guess, who's to say he was a fool to try, in his stumbling way?
Are you able to see data with your scan tool?
If so, can you capture and post the freeze frame data? That's the data that the computer stores when a code sets. It should have three frames before the code is generated, the fame of the code maturing, and the next one after.
His response was.
I will do that now. The PCM has run tests on the signal and it is out of range/performance, that doesn't mean that the part is bad. Once I see that data I'll tell him what to do next.
So he's got a tool capable of reading freeze frame data and yet he went out and bought an 02 sensor before checking anything? Say what?
I'm not going to defend a person for guessing when he has a scan tool and enough technical expertise to use it.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PJPHEBO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Besides that, there are plenty of people who can genuinely be helped by simple advice. They don't need a Doc. They need a pointer and some good information.
E.G. https://forums.edmunds.com/discussion/52423/ford/mustang/engine-swap-upgrades-before-the-swap-to-prepare-for-more-torque#latest
Your example is outside the realm of what we are talking about IMO.
In any event, let's forget about THAT debate and play with this.
So, next step seems to me that he should observe fuel trim at a higher rpm than he is using now and see what happens.
Let me mention to you that I recently had downstream sensor 2 bank 2 code which was P0430.
I used spacer on the sensor. Could this be the cause of the problem? I just ordered a new downstream sensor now when I read where you mention upstream uses downstream to determine.
Do you think the spacer on the downstream sensor might be the issue here?
He actually got part if that backwards, the system uses the downstream sensor to test the accuracy of the upstream sensor. Even though he didn't give me all of the freeze frame data that I wanted to see, which would have included both upstream air/fuel sensor signals and both downstream sensor signals what he provided was enough to not rule out an innacurate downstream sensor signal. Then he admitts that he installed antifoulers between the downstream sensors and the exhaust to try to stop a P0430 catalyst efficiency code from setting. That amounts to "simple advice" that some on this site have preached and it's completely wrong. It might succeed in preventing a test from running accurately, but it doesn't fix the problem. Today the system is capable of detecting a discrepancy in the response between the upstream and downstream sensors when someone tries that hack.
Oh, and speaking of hackery.... Now sure there are people who can do transplants and achieve a functional result, the vast majority cannot and they end up with a frankenstein that might be faster but does little else right. Even your link advises most people to just go find a used 5.0l and go from there. Funny my example is what I have always been talking about, it just happened to be occurring concurrent to this exchange. Great Idea. We teach this using not just rpm but engine load. Go ahead and start the outline and let's see how you do. What are the primary areas of focus?
Strange, the link won't copy correctly. You may have to search the article or type it in.
OPINION: Car mechanics shortchanged by how they’re paid
NICK GALLANT
Published September 10, 2018 - 5:00am
Last Updated September 10, 2018 - 5:00am
OF COURSE it makes no sense to swap a 5.0 into a 4 cylinder Fox body Mustang. LOTS of things people do to modify cars make no sense.
Actually I often give people like this very good advice, which is: "If you want a faster car, go buy a faster car" .
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