You make a lot more money as an entertainer of the public if you tell them what they want to hear rather than what they don't want to hear----even politicians know this simple rule. Certainly "news commentators" know it.
Doc, if what you are demanding in the media, which is after all, a "product"--that this media conform to high levels of intellectual honesty--then all you're going to do is blow out your brain circuits. I don't see how you can apply the high standards seen in tchenical journals or the best trade magazines to the entertainment industry.
I know there will be no getting people like that to make any changes in their approach, you should hear his podcast on this. He makes statements like (paraphrased because I don't want to listen to the whole thing again to quote it exactly) "They tell you it will be $9000 for your transmission and when you decide to take it elsewhere then they hit you with you still owe $1000 for diagnosing it when that wasn't agreed on in advance".
First, if someone really did that I would hope something could be done and get them the heck out of the trade, but the bigger issue however is he uses $1000 where $100 should be and $9000 for $1500-$2000. ( FWIW, he does this thing about adding an extra digit all through the blog) But the one part of this that there is no getting around is that he challenges the shops and techs to find fault with his statements, mocks them at every turn, and if you really do try to take him to task, well don't expect your response to be approved. He wanted no mention of the fact that shops give away hundreds of hours worth of time every year when it comes to diagnostics. His need to be the hero and only get paid if he wins his lemon law case doesn't mesh with the idea that techs, who don't make any where near as much money to start with actually give away more than he likely does.
At this point I pretty much see him as a bully who is proud to make money off of a law that was written in the 20th century and still trying to apply it to businesses that service 21st century cars.
Got nineteen minutes to spare? Then sit back and take a listen to the podcast that I mentioned above.
In it he talks about some shops telling a consumer that there is a law that makes it illegal for the owner to take their car if the brakes are found to be unsafe. He is correct in that there is no such law. Now if he stopped right there then there would be no issue, but as you will see he carries this out and makes a number of other statements that really need to be examined closer.
While there is no law that states the shop can keep the owner from taking the car, the shop can be held liable if something did happen when the owner does take the car. This kind of thing is sort of like playing the game of "Cups and Balls" with Penn and Teller. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPyvAtQYVok From the shops point of view they have as much of a chance at being held liable for someone else's actions as you do of knowing which cup the ball is under. In this example, you could replay the video or else back it up and then you would get the answer for a given event, but shops don't get to have that kind of an option.
One of the key points that Mr. Lehto tries to make is "If the brakes were that unsafe, how did the owner get the car there in the first place?" The answer is without the owner having total regard for him/herself nor the other motorists that were out there on the road with them. Frankly I don't think there is a law against that either. but maybe he will finally chime in and let everyone know. (Doubtful)
In a real event where a car is genuinely unsafe to be driven the only safe thing that the shop can do is have the car towed to where-ever the owner wants it to go and if the owner won't pay to do that then the shop should. The laws that are on the books don't protect the shop from liability at that point no matter what is signed in the form of a waiver, or how much documentation has taken place so they might as well go ahead and lose a little right now instead of risking even the time that it would take to fight any other legal challenges. At least once the car is on the tow truck the shop has truly done the best that they could under the circumstances at that point in time. Now "some" lawyers will probably argue that and make a good point one way or the other but they still look like Teller with the "Cups and Balls" from my point of view. BTW, the advice of having the car towed from the shop comes from the repair associations lawyer and even they say that the customer can still refuse that solution, drive the car away and turn around and try and hold the shop liable if something does happen.
Later in that podcast Mr. Lehto talks about a shop that he goes to and recommends. He talks a good bit about how he bought a used car that he took to them and he trusts them so much that he told them to do anything and everything that the car needed, no questions asked. I'll discuss that with the next post.
OK. So you want to know about the laws in your state (country), well then either go to law school and study until the end of time, or consult a lawyer and hope that he/she is truly up on the subject at hand. Now if you want to know about auto repair and how cars really work I guess you should go to tech school and study until the end of time or else consult a lawyer!
OK, maybe that's not fair but then again that's the point, being fair. In the linked podcast Mr. Lehto describes buying a used car and even with a blank check the shop only replaced the spark plugs. It's notable right here that we don't know anything about this car, make, model, year, mileage, previous repair history etc.
Over the last few years if you have paid attention to the information that has been shared the first thing that you should realize is that you can't take any given symptom on any given car and automatically know what is wrong, and especially what part to replace. People often guess with respect to a given symptom what part(s) may be causing an issue and like any guess they just might be right. However when it comes to really being proficient one has to test, not guess because when it comes to service and repair the guesses will quickly lead to one of Mr. Lehto's top five rip-offs where part after part get's replaced. Experience has taught top techs that nobody can just tell you what is wrong based on a symptom, but we can tell you how to test and prove what is wrong.
In some of the threads here in the forums we have discussed the issues about only replacing the spark plugs on today's cars and this actually dates back into the mid 80's once computer controls hit the scene and the engines were designed to run a leaner air fuel ratio. (I promise that I'll try and do this without writing an entire book on engine performance so there may be some portions of this that deserve to be explained in greater detail). In the podcast Mr. Lehto praises the shop for only replacing the plugs and not the plug wires. That is actually a mistake on the shop's part and anyone who listens to the podcast who doesn't know better could listen to Mr. Lehto and then stop trusting a shop or the technician who correctly advises to replace both as a set.
There are several things that happen when someone tries to do only the plugs, or only the wires. As the boots deteriorate from the engine heat and simple aging that not only weakens their insulating capability but it also causes them to harden. In that condition when they are removed and re-installed on the plugs they cause microscopic scratches on the insulating porcelain of spark plug. Any damage to that surface can allow spark to start to jump outside of the cylinder instead of across the gap of the plug. When that happens it results in carbon tracking of the plug and the plug-boot. We learned this the hard way back in the 80's and 90's when we used to still pull plugs to inspect them. Back then it was quite common to pull and inspect the plugs and quite often we found nothing wrong with them, so we would re-gap them and put them back in. Then, and it could be a few days to a few months later the car would come back and now it had a misfire that it didn't have only a few days before and we would then find an external carbon track on the plugs. The real fun then was that if you didn't replace both the plug and the wire at that point was you ended up re-transferring that carbon track from which ever component you didn't replace to the one that you did and the car would keep developing repeated misfire conditions until someone finally came along and replaced all of the plugs and wires at the same time.
This didn't happen in the 70's and earlier cars but it happened frequently when leaner engine designs became the norm. Today when you are driving your car down the highway it takes anywhere from around 9000v to some 20,000v to fire the spark plugs depending on the operating conditions.(avg. 12000v-15000v) The richer air fuel ratio's of the older cars only required 5000v to 12,000v so even though the same scratches could occur to the older model plugs the spark demand inside the cylinder simply wasn't usually high enough to force the spark to get to jump outside of the spark plug like newer cars can.
The things that contribute to the spark demand voltage that is required to ionize the gap of a plug are primarily the air fuel ratio in the cylinder, the compression of the cylinder, the plug gap, and the timing of when the plug is fired. It gets pretty complicated but essentially the leaner the air/fuel ratio the higher the voltage demand will be. The same goes for compression, the higher the compression the greater the demand voltage as well as the closer the ignition timing is to TDC and the wider the plug gap. As a technician road testing a car many misfires can be proven to be ignition spark leakage related by simply understanding this and operating the vehicle during a road test in ways that cause the spark demand voltage to be raised and lowered to see if the tendency for the cylinder to misfire changes. When you take all of this into perspective and especially since the number one reason to try and prevent misfires is to protect the catalytic convertor one should avoid inspecting and re-installing spark plugs or replace only the plugs or the wires (plug boots coil on plug) individually.
Telling people that they must start spending more money on their car repairs is like telling them that they need to pay more taxes. In reality, they MIGHT need to pay more taxes if say their community's infrastructure is going all to hell, or if other cities are hiring away all their talent with better salaries and benefits, or if they have a serious health or fire hazard looming. But.....BUT....you can't scold them into it, and they must be shown the benefit of spending more money.
When you spend money on a paint job, well at least you see the results every day. But spark plug wires? The old ones are still "working" so why throw them out? (and on some cars, these cables are not cheap).
Another problem is psychological. If one chooses to set oneself up as a "hero", or "advocate", or "protector of the people", then one needs a VILLAIN for all to mutually despise. In a way, the hero and the villain are partners. They co-create each other.
So what I'm saying without trying to get too cerebral about it, is that the very structure of such podcasts make adversarial conflict inevitable. Sometime this might also do some good, I can't say, but my point is that there is a difference between EDUCATING a person on a problem and INCITING them about it.
I try to stick to facts. What's the fuel pressure supposed to be? 50-65 psi. Boom! That's a fact, not an opinion. Or how do I test fuel pressure? Well you do this and this and this. Get the right tool. Work safely. All this can be helpful to people if delivered properly.
So you are OK with people distributing advice that is not only inaccurate it actually has significant potential to end up costing the consumer a lot more money? There are some very common examples of how neglect (ignorance?) of regular maintenance ends up causing a lot of grief and consumer expense in a number of the other threads in this forum. How much money has been wasted on just the engine failures that have been reported here from the usage of oil that didn't actually meet the engines specifications? How much more has been wasted on top of those with similar failures that didn't get reported in the threads on this website?(rhet) It's a misdirection to try and paint this as getting consumers to simply spend more money and that ultimately hurts a number of the consumers.
BTW, when it comes back to the topic of doing the plugs today its more common to have COP (coil on plug) systems which have serviceable boots instead of wires and they usually retail under $8 a piece. Which is worse, for the consumer to buy a set of 4,6 or 8 boots with the spark plugs when its time to do them or risk their having to spend one or more thousand for new catalysts? Oh wait, someone will feel the need to play hero and out of a lack of experience (ignorance?) and try to twist that into a claim of just trying to scare the consumer into spending another $30-$70.
If a shop services the spark plugs in a customer's car and doesn't replace plug boots (or wires) and the worst does happen and a misfire occurs and kills their catalyst is it a stretch at all to think that someone will be all to happy to try and blame them for the failure? At the same time when the shop correctly advises that the boots or wires be done with the plugs they are still wrong because of some perceived lack of proof when it really reflects a lack of knowledge/experience/training on some consumer experts part?
I have to say I am liking the Cups and Balls analogy more and more. Playing the role of Teller are the consumer experts. The consumers are playing the game and thinking that they actually have a chance and techs are on the side screaming to them that the game is fixed, only to have the consumer experts say don't listen to them they are just trying to take your money. Are you ready to play again? Go ahead and make your bet.
I had a good dealer experience yesterday. 75 minutes, $75 bill.
The bill was going to Dodge though for an ignition module/fob recall so it didn't cost me anything. The shop appeared to be pretty slammed but they got to me faster than expected. The estimate on the wait was at least two hours.
I had a good dealer experience yesterday. 75 minutes, $75 bill.
The bill was going to Dodge though for an ignition module/fob recall so it didn't cost me anything. The shop appeared to be pretty slammed but they got to me faster than expected. The estimate on the wait was at least two hours.
And I got a free mini inspection.
So it's all checked out and ready to sell or trade?
The Kia dealer here doesn't have a very good reputation. The Honda/Buick multiplex dealer is a no-haggle shop and I hear okay things about the Toyota dealer. Lithia was good on the recall but they just do Dodge/Ram. Could look at a Dart but would rather check out some of the Fiats, don't want a truck, SUV or muscle car. The other Dodge dealer is run by the same people that have Kia, and they really pooched my email service request. Haven't heard squat about the Ford dealer. My brief VW experience wasn't encouraging. Could be wrong, but have to assume that if the sales side isn't run well, the service department won't be either.
Nice thing about a "small" town, word gets around fast.
Should just go get a nice used car from a neighbor who runs a place down in El Paso. I have a relationship now with a good local shop, but they are pricey and don't have wifi, or shuttle service, etc. And he mostly likes to work on pickups and 4WDs.
I have a good local shop here in town. You can tell they're good the first time you walk in there---they go the extra mile for you. They actually compete for your business. And they aren't GRUMPY. (or probably more realistically, they hide it from customers).
I had a great online experience with a Kia salesperson down in "lower" Michigan last year (Thelen Kia). May have to look him up and plan a road trip in fact. No hiding the ball, emailed quotes, would dealer trade for the model we'd want.
We'd lose lemon law protection if we purchased out of state, but most lemon laws are pretty lame anyway.
Well you can go to pin 16 (light blue ) of connector #1 of the BCM and check for power there. The fuse that controls the trunk relay is the same one that provides the solenoid power from the relay. If you have power there, then at least it isn't a blown fuse. Grounding that pin commands the relay to power the trunk lock solenoid.
Otherwise have fun, even trying to release and fold down the rear seats is going to be tough, the release cables are also inside the trunk.
So if I ground pin 16, and if the fuse isn't blown, and if the trunk lock activator isn't bad, then the trunk might pop open? Geez, this is a long shot isn't it? I do have a Sawz All......
I am a level 1 tech getting ready for my second year and I gotta say all you guys need to move north to Canada. Techs make a killing here , especially at dealerships. 30-55 an hour is a common Pay scale for journeyman techs. Flat rate and hourly pay jobs are available and benefits.
When I worked at Honda the highest paid tech made 57 an hour and averaged about 300 hours a month!
Personally, I love my work and the challenge+ satisfaction of fixig cars ....s maybe the grass is greener here?
The licensing program in Canada has helped make a difference for techs there. Here in the states anybody that has ever changed a spark plug can hang a sign on the side of a building and make all kinds of claims about their experience. Wait a sec, scratch that. Now we also have guys running around and working out of the trunk of their cars for cash, with no training and little to no real experience. They pretend that they are shops and don't charge what you can make as an employee. The result is that contributes to pricing for the easiest work has been forced below a level that it needs to be at for trade growth and it clearly shows when shops can't find qualified people.
Today there is no career path that would guide a new tech to become the master technician that people need in the bays. You can find shops that push selling services and find some techs that can turn some serious hours that way but there is no incentive to learn how to handle the more difficult work. When I look at that 300 hour month I know that isn't possible with the way the shops around the US are managed especially if the tech deals with the robotics and electronics under warranty. Warranty labor times are so low that you can forget about beating them in fact just coming within 10% of them takes a lot of experience and an insane personal drive. Diagnostics under warranty pays the techs .3 one time, if at all. You can't turn many hours when the work you are assigned pays nothing, or next to nothing.
The pricing pressure that shops work under saw me running my shop, (one man) purchasing and supporting sixteen scan tools (eleven of them O.E) and becoming an instructor (which also subsidized the tool expenses) so that I could get even more training to try and keep pace with the technology going into the cars and our GP (gross profit) wasn't half of what that 300 hour/month tech works out to. There was no shortage of consumers who believed that our $77. shop labor rate was excessive (there are still many that are cheaper in this area) and it was hard to get them in the door to find out just what I could really do. BTW, many of the answers to requests for help here that demonstrate the right way to go about diagnostics are only a glimpse of what it really takes to perform the more difficult diagnostic routines. When shifty asked about the Malibu trunk issue a tech under warranty would need to get the vehicle into the stall, pull the operating schematic, access the connector and pin referenced and measure for the voltage there and see if grounding it commanded the trunk open in about 45 seconds to be on pace to make money doing it.
@bigblockbuild, I had car trouble in Haines Jct. back in the early 80s and the shop mechanic/owner was terrific. His assistant was young and just thought our transmission was shot. The owner traced the shifting issue to a vacuum issue (low engine compression). What impressed me though, besides the owner's studying on the issue overnight and taking a lot of test drives, was seeing the "official" certifications on the wall (more "official" looking that the association certs you'll see in a lot of places here) and chatting with the owner about the required training. The impression I came away with was that you couldn't just open a shop without those government certifications.
We got home fine and it didn't cost us much money getting the car running either.
We couldn't even rent an apartment in San Francisco with what we have taken home through the years. BTW the scan tools and software updates cost the same for people there as they do here which makes accomplishing what we have all the more difficult. Every time someone tried to play the suggestion that we overcharge and make gobs of money they revealed how little they actually know how much of a Spartan lifestyle this career has demanded.
It's been my experience that a fair number of people who own their own repair shop are not very good businessmen. I see a lot of waste, poor accounting, neglect of equipment and pretty poor social skills. The shops that I know are boomin' right now have certain things in common which are *aside* from the technical training. The shop is clean and efficiently run. Everyone gets a friendly reception. The answer is never "no"--it's either "no problem" or "we'll try". There's good follow-up by phone or e-mail. There' a place to sit down. There's a late night drop off key slot. The cars get paper floor mats. Appointments are made and kept. There's community service and good PR.
"The shops that I know are boomin' right now have certain things in common which are *aside* from the technical training" Business management "experts" taught shop owners that they couldn't make money fixing broken cars in the 90's and 00's, they told them sell the easier services and that is exactly what you are seeing.
"It's been my experience that a fair number of people who own their own repair shop are not very good businessmen."
This is true. The majority of technician become shop owners have little to no formal business training. Most of them decided to open their own shops because they had reached the end of their patience working for someone else who also likely opened a shop for the same reason. That pattern is likely to repeat although the cost to try and do it today is outrageous which forces the ones who might still try to specialize and do mostly just the easier stuff. Many make the mistake of thinking that if they try to run with a cheaper price they can make money by turning a large volume of work. This all works to further weaken the entire trade and you see that as a contributing factor in the shortage of qualified technicians.
"The shop is clean and efficiently run. Everyone gets a friendly reception. The answer is never "no"--it's either "no problem" or "we'll try". There's good follow-up by phone or e-mail. There' a place to sit down. There's a late night drop off key slot. The cars get paper floor mats. Appointments are made and kept. There's community service and good PR."
That's stuffs all nice but did they manage to fix atc's car?
Of course they could fix it--that's why it takes 3 weeks to get into the shop. But I see your point---all nice and pretty doesn't always add up to technical competence, but you have to admit that good habits in one area of one's life often translates into good habits in other areas.
The old line goes "You can't judge a book by it's cover" applies here as much as anywhere. Trade management has been putting a lot of pretty icing on a very stale cake and telling consumers this is what you need to look for. Every time that you see a post like atc's it proves that there still is just so much money to work with and the management can either spend it on a pretty bathroom in the shop, or it could be spent on wages, benefits, tools and schools for the techs. The problem is they have been spending just about all of it on the bathroom for so long now that the trade is running out of qualified techs.
I took my MS3 to my Mazda dealer for the 15k mile service. The estimate before starting work was $319(an odd number because I pick services a la carte). Anyway, everything went according to plan until my SA printed out the final invoice of $520(!). Before I could say a word my SA immediately said, "Boy that number is WAY off." He spent the next few minutes adjusting the bill down to the promised amount. Is there any wonder why I give the dealer five stars on Mazda's surveys- or why I always praise my SA by name on the same surveys?
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
But a lot of people don't do this. Once the 3 year/36,000 mile warranty is over the dealer never sees the car again. These people might find a great independant that maybe charges a bit lower labor rate.
Or they might go to the Quickie Lubes and maybe save a few bucks on an oil change.
But, when the transmission fails at 85,000 miles (after a Quickie Lube flush job) guess where they return?
When I got my Quest, the (good) salesperson moved to another dealer across town the very next week.
With extended service intervals, a typical driver may not visit the service department but three or four times in the first three years (hopefully not more than that). So how do you establish a relationship when you only see the person at the counter once a year?
Well at least they have all your records, so when they punch you in, they can tell you are a repeat customer. And there will be no claims of "oh, someone didn't do this job right".
Well at least they have all your records, so when they punch you in, they can tell you are a repeat customer. And there will be no claims of "oh, someone didn't do this job right".
Isn't someone supposed to attempt to quote Magnusson-Moss right about now? BTW, I looked up the factory service interval for RB's Mazda. Its supposed to get about eight checks which include checking the various fluid levels, the lights, the brakes, rotate the tires and change the oil and filter at 15,000 miles. Oh, and that's based on the severe schedule. If we overlapped that with a state and emissions inspection we would be under $90 for the whole service. So what else did they do to account for another $229? Which brings us right back to the bigger problem, people get charged big bucks for the simple stuff but not for the really complicated technical work and that of course mirrors how the techs are compensated as well. The more difficult the work, the worse the pay is for the technician performing it. That's where the line of"Here is some gravy work to make up the time" comes from. That's how the techs get trained through a series of rewards and punishments to start overselling. It also exposes why there is an over abundance of people who do the basic, easier work and a significant shortage of techs qualified to do the difficult work.
Of course they could fix it--that's why it takes 3 weeks to get into the shop. But I see your point---all nice and pretty doesn't always add up to technical competence, but you have to admit that good habits in one area of one's life often translates into good habits in other areas.
So if your car won't start this morning, you need to wait three weeks to get it in to them. That looks like a consumer's issue to me. But even then, you don't really know if they can handle the things that are happening today or not. You are assuming that they can and don't know where the line is drawn between what they are competent at, and where that competence ends. A local shop near me discovered yet another line that they weren't ready to cross with a 2008 Mercedes 320C. The classic ignition switch failure that you can Google wasn't what was wrong so in an instant they went from appearing competent to being in trouble, big time.
They called and I went over analyzed the issue for them, and then helped them repair the car. Competence today isn't measured in how fast you do something that you have done a number of times, it's how efficient and effective you are the first and likely only time you encounter a given problem. To the consumer they fixed his car, and get to keep that appearance as competent. The reality is that they didn't have the tools that were required and haven't attended the training necessary to solve problems at that level and were set up to fail without support from someone who could handle the problem mobile. So where are they going to be when that is gone? In a bit of irony being able to save them today works to actually make their fall come a little later, and it will be a whole lot harder when that day finally does come.
The greatest issue that the trade and ultimately the consumer faces is that there isn't a career track to guide new technicians to become that master technician. It's much more profitable and there are fewer headaches just doing the ordinary work and that's where the majority of shops concentrate their efforts. It can be taught, but still takes decades to master and the learning never stops.
I misspoke; it was a 30,000 mile service; my dealer uses an A-E system to designate the various services for a particular mileage and I confused them. In addition to the regular service I had the shop change the transaxle oil, flush the brake fluid, and balance the tires. I should have caught that since I change the transaxle oil every 30,000 miles. The dealer also provides me with an inspection sheet giving that also reports the tread depth of each tire as well as brake pad thickness.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
No of course I don't wait 3 weeks for a shop to fix my car if it doesn't start. They aren't the only game in town. We have a lot of talent here in the Bay Area because we pay well.
"Most new cars do not require extra oil between changes" about sums it up. The perception for lots of us is that having to add oil between changes indicates poor engineering or workmanship.
I think all the flapdoodle about this is simply a waste of time. I'm not sure how burning 1 quart of oil per 2500 miles is "an expensive habit" for a BMW V8 owner! C'mon!
Fact is, an engine can burn 1 quart per 2500 miles for the next 400,000 miles. It's not an indicator of a defect, as long as oil consumption does not continue to increase on a regular basis.
It's an inconvenience, at worst.
Now if it were one quart per 1000 miles on a brand new car---different story.
With 7,500 miles being the new norm and 10,000 mile oil change intervals getting more common, one quart per 2,500 miles adds up to an extra oil change every year or so.
With 7,500 miles being the new norm and 10,000 mile oil change intervals getting more common, one quart per 2,500 miles adds up to an extra oil change every year or so.
Quite true. If I had a new car that consumed that much, I would be concerned. If I found out that most of the like engines did the same, then I would probably chalk it up to "normal" for that engine. But, *my* normal is a quart in 10,000 miles, as that (or less) is what I experience on my daily drivers. However, I also have a an old truck that leaks/burns enough oil that I only change the filter every so often; I never intentionally drain oil from it! LOL
2018 Subaru Crosstrek, 2014 Audi Q7 TDI, 2013 Subaru Forester, 2013 Ford F250 Lariat D, 1976 Ford F250, 1969 Chevrolet C20, 1969 Ford Econoline 100
I've got a '14 Outback 2.5 that uses oil.. I've been too lazy to measure it, but it's somewhere around 1 qt/2500 miles. I just sent my wife & kid on a 1,500 mile trip. The light comes on at about 1/2 a qt low... so I overfilled just a little and we'll see if they can make it home without worrying about oil. I don't want to put a bottle of oil in the car, it'd just be my luck if it leaked.
What i'm trying to say is, it's no big deal, but it's a definite inconenience.
And I wonder what "all that oil" will do to the catalytic converter. I have no feeling for whether that's even an issue, but my mechanic thinks it will.. and I've learned to trust his judgment over the years.
On a side note, my '07 Vibe would use oil -- never happened to me with that Toyota 1.8 engine, and I'd had a few -- and the consumption would kick in around the 3,000 mile mark. Mostly city driving, so that's around the time the oil deteriorates.. I switched to synthetic, changed twice a year, and would lose about a qt between ~6k changes, so usually didn't add any. The synthetic definitely made a difference.
A recent thread on one of the fixed operations forums in Linked-In concentrated on the potential wages of the parts and service management of dealerships. It was more than just a little disturbing to see these professionals expecting packages that approached 20K,,,,, a month. https://www.linkedin.com/grp/post/3945201-6023046457555173377?trk=groups-post-b-title The majority of the people in this position have never been technicians, in fact the vast majority come from the sales side of the operation. When they go off to school to learn how to manage the fixed operations aspects of the dealerships, one of the goals they are taught is to keep expenses below 25% of the gross. Think about that for a moment when you see $100+ labor rates. Keep in mind since the majority were never techs they know little to nothing about what the career really demands, and with the way that pay plans like flat rate are administered
Now here is an article in MSN regarding expected beginning wages for some college graduates. http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/22-college-majors-with-the-highest-starting-salaries/ss-AAdCQme?ocid=DELLDHP&fullscreen=true#image=21 The work that top techs do today is easily on par with at least three and maybe four of these degree fields. The automotive diagnostic technicians work today is so challenging that these very graduates would be a good ten years removed from mastering that kind of work after they graduated from college. A good example of this is these very college grads often become the field engineers that get assigned to deal with the problem child cars and it only takes a few minutes to watch them work and realize that they don't have the skills to go along with their knowledge because those skills are only developed by the years on the line as a technician.
Now look at the wages that these people can demand, and then go back and figure out what the dealer would have to charge in order to have their 75% net profit.... Don't expect any change in the trend of the shrinkage in the numbers of qualified technicians any time soon.
m - I din't know this for a fact but was always told that having half a quart too much oil in the crankcase is worse for the engine than being down a quart.
We had an oil consumption issue on our 07 Camry that eventually got us a free ring job from Toyota but while the problem existed we always kept oil in the trunk. They put good caps on those. No leaking at all.
2015 Mazda 6 Grand Touring, 2014 Mazda 3 Sport Hatchback, 1999 Mazda Miata 2004 Toyota Camry LE, 1999.
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Doc, if what you are demanding in the media, which is after all, a "product"--that this media conform to high levels of intellectual honesty--then all you're going to do is blow out your brain circuits. I don't see how you can apply the high standards seen in tchenical journals or the best trade magazines to the entertainment industry.
I know there will be no getting people like that to make any changes in their approach, you should hear his podcast on this. He makes statements like (paraphrased because I don't want to listen to the whole thing again to quote it exactly) "They tell you it will be $9000 for your transmission and when you decide to take it elsewhere then they hit you with you still owe $1000 for diagnosing it when that wasn't agreed on in advance".
First, if someone really did that I would hope something could be done and get them the heck out of the trade, but the bigger issue however is he uses $1000 where $100 should be and $9000 for $1500-$2000. ( FWIW, he does this thing about adding an extra digit all through the blog) But the one part of this that there is no getting around is that he challenges the shops and techs to find fault with his statements, mocks them at every turn, and if you really do try to take him to task, well don't expect your response to be approved. He wanted no mention of the fact that shops give away hundreds of hours worth of time every year when it comes to diagnostics. His need to be the hero and only get paid if he wins his lemon law case doesn't mesh with the idea that techs, who don't make any where near as much money to start with actually give away more than he likely does.
At this point I pretty much see him as a bully who is proud to make money off of a law that was written in the 20th century and still trying to apply it to businesses that service 21st century cars.
In it he talks about some shops telling a consumer that there is a law that makes it illegal for the owner to take their car if the brakes are found to be unsafe. He is correct in that there is no such law. Now if he stopped right there then there would be no issue, but as you will see he carries this out and makes a number of other statements that really need to be examined closer.
While there is no law that states the shop can keep the owner from taking the car, the shop can be held liable if something did happen when the owner does take the car. This kind of thing is sort of like playing the game of "Cups and Balls" with Penn and Teller.
One of the key points that Mr. Lehto tries to make is "If the brakes were that unsafe, how did the owner get the car there in the first place?" The answer is without the owner having total regard for him/herself nor the other motorists that were out there on the road with them. Frankly I don't think there is a law against that either. but maybe he will finally chime in and let everyone know. (Doubtful)
In a real event where a car is genuinely unsafe to be driven the only safe thing that the shop can do is have the car towed to where-ever the owner wants it to go and if the owner won't pay to do that then the shop should. The laws that are on the books don't protect the shop from liability at that point no matter what is signed in the form of a waiver, or how much documentation has taken place so they might as well go ahead and lose a little right now instead of risking even the time that it would take to fight any other legal challenges. At least once the car is on the tow truck the shop has truly done the best that they could under the circumstances at that point in time. Now "some" lawyers will probably argue that and make a good point one way or the other but they still look like Teller with the "Cups and Balls" from my point of view. BTW, the advice of having the car towed from the shop comes from the repair associations lawyer and even they say that the customer can still refuse that solution, drive the car away and turn around and try and hold the shop liable if something does happen.
Later in that podcast Mr. Lehto talks about a shop that he goes to and recommends. He talks a good bit about how he bought a used car that he took to them and he trusts them so much that he told them to do anything and everything that the car needed, no questions asked. I'll discuss that with the next post.
OK, maybe that's not fair but then again that's the point, being fair. In the linked podcast Mr. Lehto describes buying a used car and even with a blank check the shop only replaced the spark plugs. It's notable right here that we don't know anything about this car, make, model, year, mileage, previous repair history etc.
Over the last few years if you have paid attention to the information that has been shared the first thing that you should realize is that you can't take any given symptom on any given car and automatically know what is wrong, and especially what part to replace. People often guess with respect to a given symptom what part(s) may be causing an issue and like any guess they just might be right. However when it comes to really being proficient one has to test, not guess because when it comes to service and repair the guesses will quickly lead to one of Mr. Lehto's top five rip-offs where part after part get's replaced. Experience has taught top techs that nobody can just tell you what is wrong based on a symptom, but we can tell you how to test and prove what is wrong.
In some of the threads here in the forums we have discussed the issues about only replacing the spark plugs on today's cars and this actually dates back into the mid 80's once computer controls hit the scene and the engines were designed to run a leaner air fuel ratio. (I promise that I'll try and do this without writing an entire book on engine performance so there may be some portions of this that deserve to be explained in greater detail). In the podcast Mr. Lehto praises the shop for only replacing the plugs and not the plug wires. That is actually a mistake on the shop's part and anyone who listens to the podcast who doesn't know better could listen to Mr. Lehto and then stop trusting a shop or the technician who correctly advises to replace both as a set.
There are several things that happen when someone tries to do only the plugs, or only the wires. As the boots deteriorate from the engine heat and simple aging that not only weakens their insulating capability but it also causes them to harden. In that condition when they are removed and re-installed on the plugs they cause microscopic scratches on the insulating porcelain of spark plug. Any damage to that surface can allow spark to start to jump outside of the cylinder instead of across the gap of the plug. When that happens it results in carbon tracking of the plug and the plug-boot. We learned this the hard way back in the 80's and 90's when we used to still pull plugs to inspect them. Back then it was quite common to pull and inspect the plugs and quite often we found nothing wrong with them, so we would re-gap them and put them back in. Then, and it could be a few days to a few months later the car would come back and now it had a misfire that it didn't have only a few days before and we would then find an external carbon track on the plugs. The real fun then was that if you didn't replace both the plug and the wire at that point was you ended up re-transferring that carbon track from which ever component you didn't replace to the one that you did and the car would keep developing repeated misfire conditions until someone finally came along and replaced all of the plugs and wires at the same time.
This didn't happen in the 70's and earlier cars but it happened frequently when leaner engine designs became the norm. Today when you are driving your car down the highway it takes anywhere from around 9000v to some 20,000v to fire the spark plugs depending on the operating conditions.(avg. 12000v-15000v) The richer air fuel ratio's of the older cars only required 5000v to 12,000v so even though the same scratches could occur to the older model plugs the spark demand inside the cylinder simply wasn't usually high enough to force the spark to get to jump outside of the spark plug like newer cars can.
The things that contribute to the spark demand voltage that is required to ionize the gap of a plug are primarily the air fuel ratio in the cylinder, the compression of the cylinder, the plug gap, and the timing of when the plug is fired. It gets pretty complicated but essentially the leaner the air/fuel ratio the higher the voltage demand will be. The same goes for compression, the higher the compression the greater the demand voltage as well as the closer the ignition timing is to TDC and the wider the plug gap. As a technician road testing a car many misfires can be proven to be ignition spark leakage related by simply understanding this and operating the vehicle during a road test in ways that cause the spark demand voltage to be raised and lowered to see if the tendency for the cylinder to misfire changes. When you take all of this into perspective and especially since the number one reason to try and prevent misfires is to protect the catalytic convertor one should avoid inspecting and re-installing spark plugs or replace only the plugs or the wires (plug boots coil on plug) individually.
When you spend money on a paint job, well at least you see the results every day. But spark plug wires? The old ones are still "working" so why throw them out? (and on some cars, these cables are not cheap).
Another problem is psychological. If one chooses to set oneself up as a "hero", or "advocate", or "protector of the people", then one needs a VILLAIN for all to mutually despise. In a way, the hero and the villain are partners. They co-create each other.
So what I'm saying without trying to get too cerebral about it, is that the very structure of such podcasts make adversarial conflict inevitable. Sometime this might also do some good, I can't say, but my point is that there is a difference between EDUCATING a person on a problem and INCITING them about it.
I try to stick to facts. What's the fuel pressure supposed to be? 50-65 psi. Boom! That's a fact, not an opinion. Or how do I test fuel pressure? Well you do this and this and this. Get the right tool. Work safely. All this can be helpful to people if delivered properly.
BTW, when it comes back to the topic of doing the plugs today its more common to have COP (coil on plug) systems which have serviceable boots instead of wires and they usually retail under $8 a piece. Which is worse, for the consumer to buy a set of 4,6 or 8 boots with the spark plugs when its time to do them or risk their having to spend one or more thousand for new catalysts? Oh wait, someone will feel the need to play hero and out of a lack of experience (ignorance?) and try to twist that into a claim of just trying to scare the consumer into spending another $30-$70.
If a shop services the spark plugs in a customer's car and doesn't replace plug boots (or wires) and the worst does happen and a misfire occurs and kills their catalyst is it a stretch at all to think that someone will be all to happy to try and blame them for the failure? At the same time when the shop correctly advises that the boots or wires be done with the plugs they are still wrong because of some perceived lack of proof when it really reflects a lack of knowledge/experience/training on some consumer experts part?
I have to say I am liking the Cups and Balls analogy more and more. Playing the role of Teller are the consumer experts. The consumers are playing the game and thinking that they actually have a chance and techs are on the side screaming to them that the game is fixed, only to have the consumer experts say don't listen to them they are just trying to take your money. Are you ready to play again? Go ahead and make your bet.
The bill was going to Dodge though for an ignition module/fob recall so it didn't cost me anything. The shop appeared to be pretty slammed but they got to me faster than expected. The estimate on the wait was at least two hours.
And I got a free mini inspection.
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2015 Subaru Outback 3.6R / 2024 Kia Sportage Hybrid SX Prestige
Need to get rid of it before I have to buy tires. Got 6/32nds, but still...
The better half wants to check out C-Maxes again. The Soul is still my fav, but the mpg is just middling okay.
Nice thing about a "small" town, word gets around fast.
Should just go get a nice used car from a neighbor who runs a place down in El Paso. I have a relationship now with a good local shop, but they are pricey and don't have wifi, or shuttle service, etc. And he mostly likes to work on pickups and 4WDs.
We'd lose lemon law protection if we purchased out of state, but most lemon laws are pretty lame anyway.
So yeah, there's at least one out there.
What's sad about this is that GM put the fuse and relay for the trunk release----wait for it----IN THE TRUNK!
sigh......
Otherwise have fun, even trying to release and fold down the rear seats is going to be tough, the release cables are also inside the trunk.
When I worked at Honda the highest paid tech made 57 an hour and averaged about 300 hours a month!
Personally, I love my work and the challenge+ satisfaction of fixig cars ....s maybe the grass is greener here?
Today there is no career path that would guide a new tech to become the master technician that people need in the bays. You can find shops that push selling services and find some techs that can turn some serious hours that way but there is no incentive to learn how to handle the more difficult work. When I look at that 300 hour month I know that isn't possible with the way the shops around the US are managed especially if the tech deals with the robotics and electronics under warranty. Warranty labor times are so low that you can forget about beating them in fact just coming within 10% of them takes a lot of experience and an insane personal drive. Diagnostics under warranty pays the techs .3 one time, if at all. You can't turn many hours when the work you are assigned pays nothing, or next to nothing.
The pricing pressure that shops work under saw me running my shop, (one man) purchasing and supporting sixteen scan tools (eleven of them O.E) and becoming an instructor (which also subsidized the tool expenses) so that I could get even more training to try and keep pace with the technology going into the cars and our GP (gross profit) wasn't half of what that 300 hour/month tech works out to. There was no shortage of consumers who believed that our $77. shop labor rate was excessive (there are still many that are cheaper in this area) and it was hard to get them in the door to find out just what I could really do. BTW, many of the answers to requests for help here that demonstrate the right way to go about diagnostics are only a glimpse of what it really takes to perform the more difficult diagnostic routines. When shifty asked about the Malibu trunk issue a tech under warranty would need to get the vehicle into the stall, pull the operating schematic, access the connector and pin referenced and measure for the voltage there and see if grounding it commanded the trunk open in about 45 seconds to be on pace to make money doing it.
We got home fine and it didn't cost us much money getting the car running either.
And welcome to the Forums!
Business management "experts" taught shop owners that they couldn't make money fixing broken cars in the 90's and 00's, they told them sell the easier services and that is exactly what you are seeing.
"It's been my experience that a fair number of people who own their own repair shop are not very good businessmen."
This is true. The majority of technician become shop owners have little to no formal business training. Most of them decided to open their own shops because they had reached the end of their patience working for someone else who also likely opened a shop for the same reason. That pattern is likely to repeat although the cost to try and do it today is outrageous which forces the ones who might still try to specialize and do mostly just the easier stuff. Many make the mistake of thinking that if they try to run with a cheaper price they can make money by turning a large volume of work. This all works to further weaken the entire trade and you see that as a contributing factor in the shortage of qualified technicians.
"The shop is clean and efficiently run. Everyone gets a friendly reception. The answer is never "no"--it's either "no problem" or "we'll try". There's good follow-up by phone or e-mail. There' a place to sit down. There's a late night drop off key slot. The cars get paper floor mats. Appointments are made and kept. There's community service and good PR."
That's stuffs all nice but did they manage to fix atc's car?
I took my MS3 to my Mazda dealer for the 15k mile service. The estimate before starting work was $319(an odd number because I pick services a la carte). Anyway, everything went according to plan until my SA printed out the final invoice of $520(!). Before I could say a word my SA immediately said, "Boy that number is WAY off." He spent the next few minutes adjusting the bill down to the promised amount.
Is there any wonder why I give the dealer five stars on Mazda's surveys- or why I always praise my SA by name on the same surveys?
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
Dealers can go to bat for loyal customers and can often talk the factory into fixing something no longer under warranty.
Doing this isn't as easy when the store has never seen the customer once the warranty has expired.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
Or they might go to the Quickie Lubes and maybe save a few bucks on an oil change.
But, when the transmission fails at 85,000 miles (after a Quickie Lube flush job) guess where they return?
With extended service intervals, a typical driver may not visit the service department but three or four times in the first three years (hopefully not more than that). So how do you establish a relationship when you only see the person at the counter once a year?
They called and I went over analyzed the issue for them, and then helped them repair the car. Competence today isn't measured in how fast you do something that you have done a number of times, it's how efficient and effective you are the first and likely only time you encounter a given problem. To the consumer they fixed his car, and get to keep that appearance as competent. The reality is that they didn't have the tools that were required and haven't attended the training necessary to solve problems at that level and were set up to fail without support from someone who could handle the problem mobile. So where are they going to be when that is gone? In a bit of irony being able to save them today works to actually make their fall come a little later, and it will be a whole lot harder when that day finally does come.
The greatest issue that the trade and ultimately the consumer faces is that there isn't a career track to guide new technicians to become that master technician. It's much more profitable and there are fewer headaches just doing the ordinary work and that's where the majority of shops concentrate their efforts. It can be taught, but still takes decades to master and the learning never stops.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
Fact is, an engine can burn 1 quart per 2500 miles for the next 400,000 miles. It's not an indicator of a defect, as long as oil consumption does not continue to increase on a regular basis.
It's an inconvenience, at worst.
Now if it were one quart per 1000 miles on a brand new car---different story.
What i'm trying to say is, it's no big deal, but it's a definite inconenience.
And I wonder what "all that oil" will do to the catalytic converter. I have no feeling for whether that's even an issue, but my mechanic thinks it will.. and I've learned to trust his judgment over the years.
On a side note, my '07 Vibe would use oil -- never happened to me with that Toyota 1.8 engine, and I'd had a few -- and the consumption would kick in around the 3,000 mile mark. Mostly city driving, so that's around the time the oil deteriorates.. I switched to synthetic, changed twice a year, and would lose about a qt between ~6k changes, so usually didn't add any. The synthetic definitely made a difference.
Cheers -m
Now here is an article in MSN regarding expected beginning wages for some college graduates. http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/22-college-majors-with-the-highest-starting-salaries/ss-AAdCQme?ocid=DELLDHP&fullscreen=true#image=21 The work that top techs do today is easily on par with at least three and maybe four of these degree fields. The automotive diagnostic technicians work today is so challenging that these very graduates would be a good ten years removed from mastering that kind of work after they graduated from college. A good example of this is these very college grads often become the field engineers that get assigned to deal with the problem child cars and it only takes a few minutes to watch them work and realize that they don't have the skills to go along with their knowledge because those skills are only developed by the years on the line as a technician.
Now look at the wages that these people can demand, and then go back and figure out what the dealer would have to charge in order to have their 75% net profit.... Don't expect any change in the trend of the shrinkage in the numbers of qualified technicians any time soon.
We had an oil consumption issue on our 07 Camry that eventually got us a free ring job from Toyota but while the problem existed we always kept oil in the trunk. They put good caps on those. No leaking at all.