That is very misleading and taken on its own merit, wrong. There is still way too much fossil fuel, including natural gas burned to make the electricity required to charge the batteries. What are the tires that it uses made from? What about the manufacturing process and materials? What about the final disposal and recycling?
Those cost exist for conventional vehicles too and it is something that does need to be addressed.
Dealership just called. Chrysler told them to replace both complete headlamp assemblies. They feel water must be getting in there and causing damage, etc.
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
I think point source pollution is generally better than non-point source. Easier to identify and regulate, as opposed to zillions of polluting cars running around.
I say generally because some things may be better being diffused. Individual septic may be better than sewage systems, for example. I don't think that way about tailpipe emissions.
True enough, but the reality is still that a good portion of Teslas are coal-burning vehicles--just not in front of you. As for their non-dealer model, it has that same kind of pixie dust facade.
Vehicles will always need service centers of some kind, again, because they are not closed systems---outside air, rain, obstacles, accidents, shock, abuse, neglect and vibration---all of these assault your vehicle in a way that does not exist in static computer systems.
That's okay, so long as we're talking @qbrozen's "ultimate" dealer solution.
Instead of messing around a week or two, just go ahead and swap the "system" out. Diagnosis and repair just isn't efficient or cost effective any more.
That's okay, so long as we're talking @qbrozen's "ultimate" dealer solution.
Instead of messing around a week or two, just go ahead and swap the "system" out. Diagnosis and repair just isn't efficient or cost effective any more.
Really? It may certainly be headed that way, but its not there yet. It's taken a long time to work at driving the talent out of the trade and there is still some left. Top technicians would have handled qbrozens headlight issue with such an ease that it would not have stood out as any significant type of a repair, and that's part of the problem. Repairs like this only show up as a significant issue when the shop doesn't have sufficiently qualified techs. Meanwhile for a shop that does use qualified technicians there has been a decades long consumer trends to have to find fault whether anything was wrong with the service or not. There can be no other explanation for that other than it has always been intentional to try and make service and repair be something less than the craft that it needs to be.
You know it's pretty convenient how it all works out too. The big money is in selling high dollar parts assemblies that take very little talent in the scope of installing them. So labor costs drop even as their price to the consumer goes ever higher, all while the career as a technician becomes even less desirable which serves to make it even more prohibitive to push one's self to become the tech that would have made easy work of a more normal repair. I hope you do enjoy spending $1000 to save the $20 that could have gone to a technician for the same end result.
No shop is going to charge "$20" for that repair---c'mon!
That isn't what I was saying. The money that a tech makes for a given repair is only a small fraction of a customers actual bill. Steve keeps pushing for entire assembly replacements, versus being able to replace individual lamps, or to replace a pigtail harness to solve a wiring issue. For the tech they make less to install an assembly, than they would for doing a more precise and skilled repair. So, I hope he enjoys spending $1000, to save the $20 bucks that a tech would have made for the same end result. Meanwhile the dealer profited several hundred dollars more, and gets to enjoy a lower cost of skilled labor. Which of course explains why things don't get diagnosed as easily as they really should.
I don't think Steve was implying that assembly replacements would be cheaper, only faster and more convenient (less down time for the owner, less frustration because of comebacks for the shop). It's really just a futuristic extension of what has happened already to, say, how we "repair" alternators and starters. Often a good clean up and a set of brushes would get a starter motor going, but now you just swap 'em out for $350. (Or alternately, buy a piece of crap rebuild at a chain store).
I still repair alternators, starters, wiper motors, power antenna motors, carburetors and more when appropriate. BTW. I'm coming up on forty years experience pretty soon and there is always something new to learn.
Proper diagnosis and repair is way more cost effective than complete assembly replacement. But this actually isn't about that cost. It's about what can they do to have greater profits while at the same time have people they have much greater control over. When anyone starts to rise to an elite level, they become the ones who should be gaining control of the job and that doesn't sit well with management that can't competently do the work, let alone do it at an elite level. Steve is preaching what they actually want at the consumers expense. They acknowledge that there is a significant shortage of qualified technicians, and that is only going to get worse especially since they really don't have any interest in addressing the issues that drive people who could have been great techs out of the bays.
Good technicians are like woodworkers doing custom cabinetry. If you want the best of something, you will have to pay for it.
No dealer is cheap in their labor charges. You can't blame the consumer for trying to "chisel" on auto repairs at the dealership level because the dealer won't let them. What happens is the consumer pays through the nose AND doesn't get the best work.
So the responsibility here falls directly on the head of dealer management.
Did you read through my responses on the Honda threads? I outlined how that diagnostic should be performed the first time that it was encountered, and that's without ever having touched one of those. The routines that I use and teach would guide a tech straight in to the problem and straight back out, with ease.
At @58 minutes the Audi segment that reports how many new hires they had, per year, compared to how many techs have actually stayed in the job. The 2008 group lost close to 90% of the hires. It looks better by the later years, but "it's just a matter of time".
My feeling is a bit of a rehash - no one wants to be a tech, the job is physically demanding, the skill set takes years to master, the pay structure is goofy, most techs have to bring their own (expensive) tools to the job, and the commission service writers are skimming off the good money. The person quoted made it sound hunky-dory, but FCA dealers need ~5,000 new techs in two years. Where will they come from? And when you find them, are they going to be willing to do shift work?
Doc's view seems to be not that there's any problem finding bodies to hire, but rather their level of training. I'm more on that train of thought---that there are plenty of people who WANT jobs as techs but a) their training level isn't sufficient when they start work, and so, without a proper apprentice program to help them mature and gain experience, they get discouraged, the dealership gets impatient, and they leave the profession.
So what I'm seeing is poorly trained, or if not that, inexperienced techs, being put into a "sure to fail" system that only the best and brightest survive in---and then, the survivors leave anyway to start their own businesses.
My only experience with a tech's life at a big dealership is through the techs who post on YouTube (like "The Humble Mechanic" and he's pretty forthright in his pros and cons). I've learned a lot about the hassles of dealership employment through his video discussions.
With the independent shops, I get to stick my nose under the tent because I'm pretty friendly with them--so I've witnessed a lot of hire, firing, training, successes and failures. I know "what it takes" to make it in an indy shop.
Even in the best shops, there's a struggle with monotony, the occasional dreaded comeback, and a continual and unrelenting learning curve that must be mastered. Working conditions are less than idea (too cold, too hot), break rooms are nasty or non-existent), the commute is often difficult, too. Pay is good, business is good, but man, you need stamina. It's a young man's world, that's for sure.
Makes more sense to me just to congregate the good techs in Central Casting and let them remotely control the robots at the dealers. R&R seems simpler - not repair and replace but replace and send back to Iowa for repair or recycling.
picked up the van this morn. Headlights working... for now. The report says "found water in both lamp assemblies. found assemblies corroded along with wiring internal to lamps, ballasts, ignitors, bulbs."
I do have to wonder if replacing the headlamps is all that needed to be done. Water shouldn't be getting in there, but were both truly defective? Or is there another reason why water is getting in?
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
Reference Number(s): 08-091-14, Date of Issue: October 24, 2014
CHRYSLER: All Models GROUP: Electrical Superceded Bulletin(s): 08-086-13, Date of Issue: October 30, 2013 NOTE: THIS BULLETIN SUPERSEDES SERVICE BULLETIN 08-086-13, DATED OCTOBER 30, 2013, WHICH SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM YOUR FILES. ALL REVISIONS ARE HIGHLIGHTED WITH **ASTERISKS** AND INCLUDE THE ADDITION OF TIME ALLOWANCE REIMBURSABLE WITHIN THE PROVISIONS OF THE WARRANTY.
SUBJECT Exterior Lamp Condensation And Fogging
OVERVIEW This bulletin involves evaluating lamp condensation and fogging condition.
DISCUSSION Some customers may report that on occasion, vehicle exterior lamp assemblies are fogged with a light layer of condensation on the inside of the lenses. This may be reported after the lamps have been turned on and brought up to operating temperature, turned off, and then rapidly cooled by cold water (such as rain, or the water from a car wash). Lens fogging can also occur under certain atmospheric conditions after a vehicle has been parked outside overnight (i.e., a warm humid day followed by clear cool night). This will usually clear as atmospheric conditions change to allow the condensation to change back into a vapor. Turning the lamps on will usually accelerate this process.
A lamp that exhibits condensation/fogging should be evaluated in a service bay environment by first drying all water from the outside surface of the lens and operating the lamp for 20 minutes.
If the condensation/fogging has begun to clear from the lamp lens after 20 minutes with the lamps operating, this indicates the lamp sealing has not been breached, and the lamp does not need to be replaced (Fig. 1).
G09606302 If the condensation/fogging has not begun to clear after 20 minutes with the lamps operating, or the lamp has large amounts of water droplets visible on most internal surfaces, this indicates an issue with the lamp sealing that has allowed water to enter the lamp. In this instance, the customer is also likely to report that moisture in the lamp is always present and never disappears. A lamp that exhibits internal moisture permanently should be replaced (Fig. 2).
G09606303 POLICY **Reimbursable within the provisions of the warranty.**
So the tech has to clean the lens. Then test/inspect after operating the lamp for twenty minutes. If the lamp fails and needs replaced, he/she then gets paid twelve minutes for the whole operation and to replace the lamp(s).
And they don't know where the techs that they hired went......
As far as the FCA dealers wanting to hire 5000 more techs, they want to sell more flushes and other high dollar services, and they want cheap labor (entry level people) to do that. Eventually the novice techs start to gain experience and the reward for that is they get subjected to more events like the above TSB, and get to do less of the gravy work and the cycle of needing to find yet another technician repeats.
If you watched that whole video (I did not, I only scanned certain sections) at a couple points they discussed the technicians career path. They suggested that the career path had the techs moving up the scale from an apprentice (funny, we don't have an apprenticeship program) to a journeyman, and then a master technician. From there the tech could be promoted to be a service advisor, to assistant service manager and eventually a service manager/fixed ops director.
That career path does not exist except for the rare exception. Audi hired in 600 techs each year to go into their @275 dealers. The techs that are already there have likely been made the same promise, that one day they could become the manager too, yet there is already someone sitting in that seat who probably isn't done working yet, nor anytime soon. Not to mention that it is very unlikely he/she came from the service bays anyway.
The service advisor has a better chance to become a service manager, and the majority of them have never been technicians. Even if a technician does manage to become a service advisor, that effectively suspends their career growth and learning that the technicians career demands. It's that aspect of the change that very quickly erodes their skills as a technician and in as little as two years, they would have a lot of hard work to do to try and just catch back up to where they were before the career change.
The technicians career path has to evolve into one that rewards being a technician for life. It has to compensate for the physical challenges that are going to come with age. It also has to account for the wear and tear on their bodies because life long techs really end up paying for the work that they did with their health in their senior years.
I still like my idea of offering the equivalent of a full college tuition to any repair facility that will take a train a young apprentice. Naturally a standard curriculum would have to be developed before either parents or gov't would bite on this, and this would be post-graduate apprenticeship, after technical school. You can't teach basics very easily at the repair facility---that would take too much time. This system would allow the repair shop to not assign newbies menial tasks, but rather work side by side with their most skilled technicians. The tuition would cover the newbie not carrying his own weight in the income stream of the shop.
What manufacturer builds light fixtures that fog up? Think of all the time wasted by consumers and techs, not to mention the unsafe nature of the problem. And a 20 minute test to tell if the job needs a twelve minute repair.
That's the problem, not the lack of techs. Lousy engineering.
I don't see how they could have written that TSB without bursting out laughing while doing it.
TSB's like that are normal. They expect the techs to sell gravy work (aka flushes) to make up the time.
If the techs don't do that, then he/she has a couple choices. Quit. Work at an insane pace and risk making mistakes. Or they can just do the best that they can, honestly, and wait until someone else decides to do something about a lack of production.
my van was in the shop for 8 days for rain in the headlamps. That's just absurd, IMHO.
So, doc, I know what you are saying about the techs, but what about the service dept? What does FCA pay the service dept for having my van that long and spending what seems like a ridiculous amount of time on it? Do they just get paid for the final fix and whatever the book says it should take to replace both headlights?
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
So, doc, I know what you are saying about the techs, but what about the service dept? What does FCA pay the service dept for having my van that long and spending what seems like a ridiculous amount of time on it? Do they just get paid for the final fix and whatever the book says it should take to replace both headlights?
They get paid what the tech gets paid, except for the occasions where an administration allowance applies. Then the shop can be paid more labor (not a lot) than the tech. That's why there is pressure for the tech to have to sell. The store will lose dollars per bay per hour. BTW, the store also makes a profit off of the parts, and most of the time that is more than the labor.
Sure. Depending on the vehicle and how the lamp is controlled it "could be" a wiring issue between the PCM and cluster. It could be the cluster itself losing the ability to control the lamp. It could also be a loss of communication between the cluster and the PCM.
I was sent a 2001 Yukon 6.0l that isn't ready for its emissions test. The codes were cleared several times during the past year only to turn the light back on within a few trips.
The codes that were setting are P0171, P0174, P0420 and P0430. Here is the freeze frame data from the P0171.
Driving the vehicle and taking a snap shot allowed the following captures to be generated.
this would be post-graduate apprenticeship, after technical school. You can't teach basics very easily at the repair facility---that would take too much time.
You can't teach them in a classroom setting unless the student is fully engaged. You'd be surprised how many people have no idea just what the basics really are today. The Yukon above is an example of some of the basics, and that car is fifteen years old.
This system would allow the repair shop to not assign newbies menial tasks, but rather work side by side with their most skilled technicians.
Techs have been asked to do this since before I ever started in the trade and having had several mentors in my early years helped tremendously. But look above at the pay for the headlights. Today the top techs have to work hard enough to be profitable, while they get paid like that for their efforts. How can they take time to guide someone else when he/she has to work on a number of cars simultaneously in order to minimize the potential for any lost seconds just to generate their own paycheck?.
The tuition would cover the newbie not carrying his own weight in the income stream of the shop.
The answer to what is needed would be found inside the creation of a formal guild. This would require every shop to contribute a percentage based on gross sales. The problems that would have to be addressed with such revenues would not just be basic education and apprenticeships, it would also need to address pensions, healthcare and retirement benefits since the trade has been driven to prevent most of the technicians from staying anywhere long enough to earn retirement benefits from any one employer.
Hmm. It's been almost 12 hours since the Yukon post, doesn't anyone have an idea or at least a question? It's not like its a tough one like these captures would be.
1995 Ford Taurus SHO. Customer reports vehicle bucks on light cruise. No Check Engine Light, no codes stored. Runs fine at heavy throttle. There have been previous repair attempts at three different shops and by the owner over a six month period of time.
The road test felt normal until the symptom occurred. The feel was a very harsh bucking. There was no way that it was engine related, it had to be the transmission applying a clutch incorrectly. The blue scope trace is shift solenoid #1. The red trace is shift solenoid #2. The green trace is shift solenoid #3. The yellow trace is the combined shift solenoid current (amperage).
Take your time and analyze the captures. I'll add details later.
A known issue with these. How do you prove it? Would you want to just replace it if you find it failed right now, or should there be a few more checks first?
The Taurus captures are output commands from the computer to the transmission shift solenoids. What do they show?
A known issue or the right diagnosis on the Yukon?
Let's see, run a bunch of tests, let the car get tied up in the shop 8 or 9 days and then fix the issue. With that much time you could replace the headlights too.
Or just snap a different engine in there and have the customer on their way in two hours. Three, if the robots are down for their Tuesday update and virus check.
Doc---a listener in Cincinnati wants to know: (I just made that part up)
He asks:
RE: A Ford 500 AWD: My car was driven over 40 miles with the transmission unplugged from the computer. Did this cause damage?
I didn't respond because I wasn't sure if this transmission could even operate with it being disconnected from the computer---unless it goes into some kind of default with only reverse and 2nd gear active?
My first question on the transmission bucking is *when* was it occurring during those captures? If I had to take a guess, I would say that between five and seven seconds on the second capture is what "normal" should look like, and solenoid #1 is going all sorts of crazy in there everywhere else. At the time of these captures, I'm assuming that the car was being driven at a steady rate and the speed was not at a transitional point in the gearing (example, setting cruise at 35mph is a bad idea in my car because it will frequently shift from third to fourth and back, though not nearly this fast!).
I have no idea what each voltage means or how they interact with one another, but that is probably the easy part to know since it is likely in the source materials for this hardware.
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
A known issue or the right diagnosis on the Yukon?
It's nothing yet, whether its right or wrong this time. Other known issues are fuel pump failures, fuel pump circuit failures. The wrong fuel (too much alcohol aka E85). Restricted injectors, failing MAF. The question was, what is the next step?
BTW, and what about the catalyst efficiency codes?
A Ford 500 AWD: My car was driven over 40 miles with the transmission unplugged from the computer. Did this cause damage?
I didn't respond because I wasn't sure if this transmission could even operate with it being disconnected from the computer---unless it goes into some kind of default with only reverse and 2nd gear active?
There are some transmissions now that need control module input to go into gear, but the fact that it did run suggests this one did go into failsafe. It should survive that, it could stress the engine a lot more depending on how fast they drove.
If I had to take a guess, I would say that between five and seven seconds on the second capture is what "normal" should look like, and solenoid #1 is going all sorts of crazy in there everywhere else.
Shift solenoid #3 in green is the one that has the issue, however you are looking at a part of one of the captures that shows a very important detail. The scope is set to take a million samples per screen which is why the traces look so noisy. With problems like this one the scope is set to display more of everything that is going on.
The way the solenoid circuits work is all three share the same power input to the transaxle, and then the PCM controls the ground command to turn them on. So system voltage is "OFF", and low voltage is "ON". Look at the second capture at 6.5 seconds, see the cursor? Note the green trace before the cursor and after it.
Now look at capture #1 and compare the green trace to the yellow current trace at the bottom. You will clearly see the current flow rising when the solenoid is turned on. (When the green trace goes down, the yellow trace goes up) That's a false command of that shift solenoid, the question is where is this happening, and what is it about these captures that indicates what is possible and what is ruled out?
At the time of these captures, I'm assuming that the car was being driven at a steady rate and the speed was not at a transitional point in the gearing (example, setting cruise at 35mph is a bad idea in my car because it will frequently shift from third to fourth and back, though not nearly this fast!).
I have no idea what each voltage means or how they interact with one another, but that is probably the easy part to know since it is likely in the source materials for this hardware.
The manufacturers don't write service information to support testing like this. Trouble trees aren't written to support diagnostics with random failures, in truth they can't be written to do that. If a circuit fails and stays failed for what ever reason, then a trouble tree can guide someone to the failure. These captures show that this car is only noticeably "broken" for as little as 5ms-20ms at a time (sometimes longer) and then just under very specific driving conditions. The failure itself happens a lot as can be seen in the captures, but it does not always result in a symptom.
This is the right way to efficiently do diagnostics with the electronics and computer controls on any car. It requires that the tech has the experience and patience to take every piece of information from the circuit schematic, trouble code description and code enable criteria, TSB's, and any and all service information and then apply that to figure out how to set up the testing. There have been times when I have used routines like this to analyze a failure that didn't occur but one time for a few seconds during fifty plus miles of driving.
The scope was connected at the transmission connector, the current probe was connected to all three solenoid command wires, at the transmission connector as well. Is the problem inside the transaxle, the harness, or the PCM? Explain your choice if possible.
A known issue or the right diagnosis on the Yukon?
Let's see, run a bunch of tests, let the car get tied up in the shop 8 or 9 days and then fix the issue. With that much time you could replace the headlights too.
Or just snap a different engine in there and have the customer on their way in two hours. Three, if the robots are down for their Tuesday update and virus check.
"If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, try to baffle them with BS".
Wouldn't it have been easier to just admit that you don't know how to prove if that is a correct guess or not beyond replacing the seals and then seeing if that fixed the car? You have one chance to be the hero and five to be the goat if the only thing you can do is google guess. Do you feel lucky?
this is why I only work on the vehicles I own. I do often "google guess" and I have yet to have to take it to a shop after I fail... because I always get it right, but it may take many guesses. I wouldn't do that with someone else's time and money.
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
Exactly - you can often find how others fixed an issue and do it yourself simply by doing a little reading and tinkering. Or you can take it to the local high priestess and get an answer in 8 days. And sometimes it's the right answer. Brilliant system.
Oh, and if it does take you many guesses, well, you're in good company with a lot of mechanics.
Don't forget the nitrogen and the transmission flush when you head to the shop to get that miss fixed.
Don't get me wrong, Stever. I'm not complaining about what mechanics do... I was a fledgling one myself once upon a time, which is why I can even do what I do for my own fleet. I have alot of respect for those who do it with as much thought as Doc does. But those are a very very rare and dying breed, and the clueless and proliferate, which is why mechanics, as a whole, generally get a bad name.
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
Comments
Those cost exist for conventional vehicles too and it is something that does need to be addressed. Is there something special about that?
Anything that allows me to avoid going to the dealer is "special". How about a mobile mechanic? (pehub.com)
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
I say generally because some things may be better being diffused. Individual septic may be better than sewage systems, for example. I don't think that way about tailpipe emissions.
Vehicles will always need service centers of some kind, again, because they are not closed systems---outside air, rain, obstacles, accidents, shock, abuse, neglect and vibration---all of these assault your vehicle in a way that does not exist in static computer systems.
Instead of messing around a week or two, just go ahead and swap the "system" out. Diagnosis and repair just isn't efficient or cost effective any more.
You know it's pretty convenient how it all works out too. The big money is in selling high dollar parts assemblies that take very little talent in the scope of installing them. So labor costs drop even as their price to the consumer goes ever higher, all while the career as a technician becomes even less desirable which serves to make it even more prohibitive to push one's self to become the tech that would have made easy work of a more normal repair. I hope you do enjoy spending $1000 to save the $20 that could have gone to a technician for the same end result.
What Steve said "Instead of messing around a week or two, just go ahead and swap the "system" out. Diagnosis and repair just isn't efficient or cost effective any more" amounts to the same reason why the 2016 Honda repair went sideways just like qbrozens headlight issue did. http://forums.edmunds.com/discussion/39864/honda/pilot/repairs-complete-back-to-operational-2016-honda-pilot-long-term-road-test#latest
Proper diagnosis and repair is way more cost effective than complete assembly replacement. But this actually isn't about that cost. It's about what can they do to have greater profits while at the same time have people they have much greater control over. When anyone starts to rise to an elite level, they become the ones who should be gaining control of the job and that doesn't sit well with management that can't competently do the work, let alone do it at an elite level. Steve is preaching what they actually want at the consumers expense. They acknowledge that there is a significant shortage of qualified technicians, and that is only going to get worse especially since they really don't have any interest in addressing the issues that drive people who could have been great techs out of the bays.
No dealer is cheap in their labor charges. You can't blame the consumer for trying to "chisel" on auto repairs at the dealership level because the dealer won't let them. What happens is the consumer pays through the nose AND doesn't get the best work.
So the responsibility here falls directly on the head of dealer management.
FCA dealers are warned of 'bubble' in service work
So what I'm seeing is poorly trained, or if not that, inexperienced techs, being put into a "sure to fail" system that only the best and brightest survive in---and then, the survivors leave anyway to start their own businesses.
My only experience with a tech's life at a big dealership is through the techs who post on YouTube (like "The Humble Mechanic" and he's pretty forthright in his pros and cons). I've learned a lot about the hassles of dealership employment through his video discussions.
With the independent shops, I get to stick my nose under the tent because I'm pretty friendly with them--so I've witnessed a lot of hire, firing, training, successes and failures. I know "what it takes" to make it in an indy shop.
Even in the best shops, there's a struggle with monotony, the occasional dreaded comeback, and a continual and unrelenting learning curve that must be mastered. Working conditions are less than idea (too cold, too hot), break rooms are nasty or non-existent), the commute is often difficult, too. Pay is good, business is good, but man, you need stamina. It's a young man's world, that's for sure.
I do have to wonder if replacing the headlamps is all that needed to be done. Water shouldn't be getting in there, but were both truly defective? Or is there another reason why water is getting in?
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
Reference Number(s): 08-091-14, Date of Issue: October 24, 2014
CHRYSLER: All Models
GROUP: Electrical
Superceded Bulletin(s): 08-086-13,
Date of Issue: October 30, 2013
NOTE: THIS BULLETIN SUPERSEDES SERVICE BULLETIN 08-086-13, DATED OCTOBER 30, 2013, WHICH SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM YOUR FILES. ALL REVISIONS ARE HIGHLIGHTED WITH
**ASTERISKS** AND INCLUDE THE ADDITION OF TIME ALLOWANCE REIMBURSABLE WITHIN THE PROVISIONS OF THE WARRANTY.
SUBJECT
Exterior Lamp Condensation And Fogging
OVERVIEW
This bulletin involves evaluating lamp condensation and fogging condition.
DISCUSSION
Some customers may report that on occasion, vehicle exterior lamp assemblies are fogged with a light layer of condensation on the inside of the lenses. This may be reported after the lamps have been turned on and brought up to operating temperature, turned off, and then rapidly cooled by cold water (such as rain, or the water from a car wash). Lens fogging can also occur under certain atmospheric conditions after a vehicle has been parked outside overnight (i.e., a warm humid day followed by clear cool night). This will
usually clear as atmospheric conditions change to allow the condensation to change back into a vapor. Turning the lamps on will usually accelerate this process.
A lamp that exhibits condensation/fogging should be evaluated in a service bay environment by first drying all water from the outside surface of the lens and operating the lamp for 20 minutes.
If the condensation/fogging has begun to clear from the lamp lens after 20 minutes with the lamps operating, this indicates the lamp sealing has not been breached, and the lamp does not need to be replaced (Fig. 1).
G09606302
If the condensation/fogging has not begun to clear after 20 minutes with the lamps operating, or the lamp has large amounts of water droplets visible on most internal surfaces, this indicates an issue with the lamp sealing that has allowed water to enter the lamp. In this instance, the customer is also likely to report that moisture in the lamp is always present and never disappears. A lamp that exhibits internal moisture permanently should be replaced (Fig. 2).
G09606303
POLICY
**Reimbursable within the provisions of the warranty.**
TIME ALLOWANCE
TIME ALLOWANCE
Labor Operation No: Description Skill Category Amount
**08-50-31-96 Housing, headlamp inspect for condensation (0 - Low Skilled) 6 - Electrical and Body Systems 0.2 Hrs.**
FAILURE CODE
FAILURE CODE
**ZZ Service Action**
And they don't know where the techs that they hired went......
As far as the FCA dealers wanting to hire 5000 more techs, they want to sell more flushes and other high dollar services, and they want cheap labor (entry level people) to do that. Eventually the novice techs start to gain experience and the reward for that is they get subjected to more events like the above TSB, and get to do less of the gravy work and the cycle of needing to find yet another technician repeats.
If you watched that whole video (I did not, I only scanned certain sections) at a couple points they discussed the technicians career path. They suggested that the career path had the techs moving up the scale from an apprentice (funny, we don't have an apprenticeship program) to a journeyman, and then a master technician. From there the tech could be promoted to be a service advisor, to assistant service manager and eventually a service manager/fixed ops director.
That career path does not exist except for the rare exception. Audi hired in 600 techs each year to go into their @275 dealers. The techs that are already there have likely been made the same promise, that one day they could become the manager too, yet there is already someone sitting in that seat who probably isn't done working yet, nor anytime soon. Not to mention that it is very unlikely he/she came from the service bays anyway.
The service advisor has a better chance to become a service manager, and the majority of them have never been technicians. Even if a technician does manage to become a service advisor, that effectively suspends their career growth and learning that the technicians career demands. It's that aspect of the change that very quickly erodes their skills as a technician and in as little as two years, they would have a lot of hard work to do to try and just catch back up to where they were before the career change.
The technicians career path has to evolve into one that rewards being a technician for life. It has to compensate for the physical challenges that are going to come with age. It also has to account for the wear and tear on their bodies because life long techs really end up paying for the work that they did with their health in their senior years.
That's the problem, not the lack of techs. Lousy engineering.
If the techs don't do that, then he/she has a couple choices. Quit. Work at an insane pace and risk making mistakes. Or they can just do the best that they can, honestly, and wait until someone else decides to do something about a lack of production.
So, doc, I know what you are saying about the techs, but what about the service dept? What does FCA pay the service dept for having my van that long and spending what seems like a ridiculous amount of time on it? Do they just get paid for the final fix and whatever the book says it should take to replace both headlights?
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
The codes that were setting are P0171, P0174, P0420 and P0430. Here is the freeze frame data from the P0171.
Driving the vehicle and taking a snap shot allowed the following captures to be generated.
What is the next step and why?
It's not like its a tough one like these captures would be.
1995 Ford Taurus SHO. Customer reports vehicle bucks on light cruise. No Check Engine Light, no codes stored. Runs fine at heavy throttle. There have been previous repair attempts at three different shops and by the owner over a six month period of time.
The road test felt normal until the symptom occurred. The feel was a very harsh bucking. There was no way that it was engine related, it had to be the transmission applying a clutch incorrectly.
The blue scope trace is shift solenoid #1. The red trace is shift solenoid #2. The green trace is shift solenoid #3. The yellow trace is the combined shift solenoid current (amperage).
Take your time and analyze the captures. I'll add details later.
Any ideas?
Camshaft synchronizer assembly?
On the Yukon, leaking intake gasket?
The Taurus captures are output commands from the computer to the transmission shift solenoids. What do they show?
Let's see, run a bunch of tests, let the car get tied up in the shop 8 or 9 days and then fix the issue. With that much time you could replace the headlights too.
Or just snap a different engine in there and have the customer on their way in two hours. Three, if the robots are down for their Tuesday update and virus check.
He asks:
RE: A Ford 500 AWD: My car was driven over 40 miles with the transmission unplugged from the computer. Did this cause damage?
I didn't respond because I wasn't sure if this transmission could even operate with it being disconnected from the computer---unless it goes into some kind of default with only reverse and 2nd gear active?
I have no idea what each voltage means or how they interact with one another, but that is probably the easy part to know since it is likely in the source materials for this hardware.
BTW, and what about the catalyst efficiency codes?
The way the solenoid circuits work is all three share the same power input to the transaxle, and then the PCM controls the ground command to turn them on. So system voltage is "OFF", and low voltage is "ON". Look at the second capture at 6.5 seconds, see the cursor? Note the green trace before the cursor and after it.
Now look at capture #1 and compare the green trace to the yellow current trace at the bottom. You will clearly see the current flow rising when the solenoid is turned on. (When the green trace goes down, the yellow trace goes up) That's a false command of that shift solenoid, the question is where is this happening, and what is it about these captures that indicates what is possible and what is ruled out? The manufacturers don't write service information to support testing like this. Trouble trees aren't written to support diagnostics with random failures, in truth they can't be written to do that. If a circuit fails and stays failed for what ever reason, then a trouble tree can guide someone to the failure. These captures show that this car is only noticeably "broken" for as little as 5ms-20ms at a time (sometimes longer) and then just under very specific driving conditions. The failure itself happens a lot as can be seen in the captures, but it does not always result in a symptom.
This is the right way to efficiently do diagnostics with the electronics and computer controls on any car. It requires that the tech has the experience and patience to take every piece of information from the circuit schematic, trouble code description and code enable criteria, TSB's, and any and all service information and then apply that to figure out how to set up the testing. There have been times when I have used routines like this to analyze a failure that didn't occur but one time for a few seconds during fifty plus miles of driving.
The scope was connected at the transmission connector, the current probe was connected to all three solenoid command wires, at the transmission connector as well. Is the problem inside the transaxle, the harness, or the PCM? Explain your choice if possible.
Wouldn't it have been easier to just admit that you don't know how to prove if that is a correct guess or not beyond replacing the seals and then seeing if that fixed the car? You have one chance to be the hero and five to be the goat if the only thing you can do is google guess. Do you feel lucky?
And, what about those catalyst efficiency codes?
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
Oh, and if it does take you many guesses, well, you're in good company with a lot of mechanics.
Don't forget the nitrogen and the transmission flush when you head to the shop to get that miss fixed.
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S