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I told him that from day one this engine went down on power when the weather got hot. He suspects the timing could have been off from day one but is exhibiting worse symptoms due to chain stretch.
I understand that Yamaha build the top end of this engine. I am not happy! I drove this car in a reasonable manner and did not abuse it.
I have to decide between continue to drive it as is, get it fixed, or get rid of it. The frequency of repairs is the biggest problem, as my wife is busy but has to provide me a ride.
Granted, he should have got "4 or 5 more good years" in writing, with a warranty of some kind, but still, I can understand his frustration.
That mechanic should learn not to say such things if he doesn't want pissed off customers.
I do agree that promises like that shouldn't be made but do you know how some vehicle owners react when they are not? That is often treated as being wrong too. But I do have to laugh at the idea because usually when we think a car is really on its last legs there are times we still see it limping around several years later and then the opposite can often be true. There may be no signs of trouble obvious today and tomorrow it just dies. That's just cars doing what they do, break when ever they darn well want to.
No codes are set! The tech/owner made a comment that the newer cars would report something, but this one is not reporting anything.
Could it be just the VVT actuator? I'm guessing that would be a great find...?
I think I will fix it, keep it as a backup, and on the wish list is a Subaru (Outback or Forester) which my one mechanic seems to love the most today. In Dave Ramsey fashion I have avoided such a transaction for as long as possible. Not good to have cash tied up in a car, BAH!
I can say that I have given vendors all the work / boat payments they could possibly want. The TCO for all these years has still been far lower than a new car! Huzzah for the techs!
1) The loud humming sound goes completely away when I turn the tone knob below 7 or 8. YES! Bad pot, but still usable.
2) I inspected underneath the circuit. The guitar connections are merely open dipoles, and input #2, the spring-loaded pole that presses on the guitar chord's 1/4" jack was bent from movement and being mounted too close to the base. I bent it back.
3) The speaker, oh the speaker. Parts of the cone are actually flapping in the wind, dry-rotted. Now don't get me wrong, "You Really Got Me" sounds just like the amp that Dave Davies used where he cut his cone up with a razer blade LOL. But most other music is a problem.
So I was originally going to repair it but with a speaker change it seems a bit counter-productive to make changes that will change the original sound and hardware. So I guess I will accept this as a collector's item, just play the Kinks on it when friends are over, and appreciate what I get from fans of old stuff like my guitar buddy who spotted it and exclaimed how supremely cool it is.
And thus ends the 19 year history. Wow, that was a long time. I was downsized a week after buying that car. It was well worth it to keep it so long. It did prepare us well financially, despite the yearly repairs!
I apologize that we will never know the extend of the engine problem!
https://www.autonews.com/video/its-more-humane-why-one-dealer-pays-service-techs-hour
Is this some sort of witchcraft?!
I do find it interesting how the owner admits that flat rate acts as "an invisible manager." At the same time, he also recognizes that "fast" is not "better."
https://www.autonews.com/best-practices/amid-technician-shortage-group-hiring-now
A shortage of service technicians is among the top concerns at dealerships across the country, and one is taking a unique approach to solve the problem.
Warren Henry Auto Group, headquartered in Miami, last month began holding job fairs promising to hire qualified technicians on the spot.
Instead of following the usual protocol that would take weeks to pick someone for a sorely needed job, the company brought its dealer principal, service director and human resources staff to the fair at Florida International University. It essentially amounted to a professional game of speed dating among dozens of candidates.
By the end of the day, the company had made verbal offers to five candidates, most of whom will start this week.
"We're trying everything," Barbara Exposito, Warren Henry's human resources director, told Automotive News. "We have to make decisions pretty quickly, especially because of the need in the business."
‘Dangerous shortage'
According to the National Automobile Dealers Association, the industry is facing a shortage of 76,000 technicians each year through 2026. In addition, 30,000 per year will be retiring.
NADA Chairman Charlie Gilchrist addressed the issue at his inaugural address in January, saying the "dangerous shortage" threatens dealer profitability. The NADA Foundation launched a work force initiative this year to connect prospective technicians with open jobs.
"This is not an issue we can afford to kick down the road," Gilchrist said.
Exposito said the Warren Henry group, which operates 13 franchises at six locations in Florida, thought a hire-on-the-spot event would stand out and draw attention to its needs. Many dealerships have offered on-the-spot gimmicks for trade-ins or buyback programs.
"We felt confident our service director would be able to meet with all of the candidates," she said. "It worked out well."
READY TO GO
Warren Henry Auto Group is holding job fairs for service technicians where it makes on-the-spot offers in respone to a shortage of qualified candidates.
New HQ
Aside from the industrywide tech shortage, the Warren Henry group has another incentive to hire as quickly as possible: It's set to open an 800,000-square-foot headquarters in North Miami this fall.
The site, which will feature 82 service bays in a climate-controlled shop, will allow the company to double in size and hire 150 to 200 workers, about 40 of which will be service technicians.
As part of the interview process, prospective employees got to tour the construction site. The seven-story building will sell Jaguar, Land Rover, Infiniti and Koenigsegg vehicles out of a glass-paneled showroom. Officials say it will include the nation's largest electric vehicle charging facility.
It also will have a cafe, rooftop event space, gym for employees and other amenities.
The Warren Henry group, which has had stores on Automotive News' list of the Best Dealerships To Work For in each of the past five years, sold more than 4,300 new and used vehicles last year.
The company plans to host another hire-on-the-spot job fair at the end of August, Exposito said. The group also is attempting to recruit techs at colleges and universities.
It offers relocation assistance and housing opportunities for out-of-state workers. It's also attempting to raise the profile of its service technicians, occasionally allowing individual workers to "take over" its social media channels for a day.
"We like to think of recruiting as more of a guerrilla marketing approach," Exposito said. "If everyone's talking about what we're doing, there's more buzz around it."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoB_mdZxNlY
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-2021 Sahara 4xe-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
Frankly, I think the idea of having "safety critical systems" completely isolated from the IoT functions is a non-starter (mostly due to the efficiency of over-the-air updates, of which the intent of many is to modify the software functions in such systems), it makes so much sense to offer fail safes.
The issues often surrounding dealer service are well documented. Dealers get credit for having technicians specialize not just in a limited number of makes and models, but often work only with specific systems such as a transmission technician, an electronics specialist etc. They also get plenty of bad press for the tendency to "wallet flush" which when called on it typically try and place all of the blame the technicians and service advisers and pretend to be victims.
Here are a couple quotes from the Forum.
BTW. There are no quotes from any technicians in this forum. Accident?
https://www.autonews.com/fixed-ops-journal/automotive-news-fixed-ops-journal-forum-improving-returns
Mark Hargreaves, service manager, Gator Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge
"Why is it important to train technicians to properly write an estimate? An organized estimate will increase the adviser's close ratio. It will decrease the time it takes to get authorization. And it will increase your hours per repair order — it's going to make it easy for the writer to sell the job; the customer's going to buy more."
Tully Williams, fixed operations director, Niello Co.
"Do we sell dollars? Not really. We sell hours, and I want to track hours through my store. We look at three key performance indicators.
"First, how are my hours being tracked — by writer, by technician, by store? Next, how do we get more hours? Are our techs doing the great-quality recommendations that we would sell to our family members?
"Last but not least, are we selling these recommendations to all of our customers?"
Lee Harkins, owner, M5 Management Services
"Take a look at why I should go to work for you. That should be the point that you advertise in your ads. Not what you want. But, what does a technician want?"
Max Lowenbaum, vice president of sales, Hireology
"There are people in the market. The issue is that those people are not considering retail automotive, or being a technician, as the place that they would consider working."
L O L
"An organized estimate will increase the adviser's close ratio. It will decrease the time it takes to get authorization. "
That required repairs, written by someone who is supposed to understand the vehicle, need some business guy to approve them, that says a whole lot about the people involved and the system.
https://mercedcountytimes.com/skilled-auto-mechanics-are-close-to-rocket-scientists/?fbclid=IwAR2gj9TeRPOBCrJcfSF1-FE0fSgbb9A9f7R1l-bp0JMLDkRCJoSUZzJ3kMo
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-2021 Sahara 4xe-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
If one collects facts for two weeks one can prove any false narrative. If one collects facts over 100 years, it can support the concise opposite point of the prior set of facts. The longer facts are collected the closer to the truth one gets. Facts, like a tech having a problem with a particular job, have zero inherent value in themselves.
Just had a great laugh at work. A coworker is trying to integrate systems and he is given data that is an utter mess. I took a look at it and told him to try decoding it using a certain Latin character encoding. I thought he ignored me as he said, "Who would think that this German file would have a Latin encoding, that makes no sense." He worked on this for days and came back and said that he was successful with Latin ISO 8859-1. I said, "Hrm, I specified Latin but had no idea to use ISO 8859-1." In his sarcastic manner he said, "I bet you'll never make THAT mistake again." I hung my head low in false shame and said, "Well back to the drawing board with my skills." I slumped backed to my cube as he laughed behind me.
It was a long and painful fix, as it was actually the second decoding he had to do to the same dataset, which is INSANE. We fixed it brainstorming together over several days. But we are lucky Doc. We are in a group where we manage our own fixes. I've never seen an IT group like my current role. If it takes X days, or X weeks, or whatever, the boss always says, "okay!". You techs have no luxury like that. Even I have never had this luxury before, which resulted in some extremely serious stress, and even caused me to simply walk away from my bread and butter.
I have hundreds ( thousands?) of similar but different diagnostic/repair events over 40 years of fixing cars plus countless ordinary services that experience as a tech made for unremarkable time on the job. Yet, if someone calls and I am not yet aware of some other cup of water in that ocean of possibilities, that lack of knowledge becomes the measure from which I would be judged.
"[the dealer] called me and told me the car was ready. I had mentioned some problem with the shifting of the transmission and they said they could not replicate it. I then asked if they did change the oil and he said "no, it's a sealed unit and does not require service" I told him it's right in the owners manual and he continued to argue. I had the VW website up and it shows it there..still argued. He then said he would go and talk to the mechanic. He called back thirty minutes later and said the same thing. Meanwhile I had VWOA on the phone and at first the gal said the same thing and I told her "look down further on your list" and sure enough, she found it. She said she would call the dealer. He called me later rather sheepish and told me they would take care of it and I can pick it up today. Just for fun I called the other dealer here in the Austin Tx area and I made sure to tell the guy the car had the DSG trans. He quoted me the same thing..I asked him if the transmission oil was included and he said "No, VW automatics normally don't require service"
"Of the 30 dealerships contacted, and two customer service reps at VWoA, ONE provided me with an answer that jives with the manual.
That's right folks, 1 out of 30. The golden star goes to John at Mirramar VW in San Diego, which, oddly is the only dealership I trust in so-cal to work on my car (as if this wasn't enough reason)."
One tech posted, "There is no such thing as perfection in this world. Most of us learn by doing things wrong the first time!"- I replied that I thought that must be the mission statement of VWoA.
So, what is the customer with a blown DSG to do when VWoA denies warranty coverage because the transmission was never serviced? I don't think telling VWoA, "The tech was the Einstein of VW service- except for a few bits of minutiae." is going to help...
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-2021 Sahara 4xe-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
What the DSG comments illustrate is that VWoA technical training appears to be woefully incompetent.
When only 1 out of 30(or in my case, 1 out of 4) dealers don't know the servicing requirement of a transaxle that is installed in upwards of 50% of their most popular model, something is wrong.
When a tech is 100% wrong and is convinced that he is 100% right, something is wrong.
When a tech doesn't know what a DSG is, something is wrong.
Twelve years later, I could not care less, I have a first-rate BMW dealer, an equally good Mini store, and a great indie shop for my TJ. Fortunately, the competence or incompetence of VWoA and their hapless employees is not my concern.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-2021 Sahara 4xe-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '08 Charger R/T Daytona; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '08 Maser QP; '11 Mini Cooper S
The Jetta didn't get a DSG until 2009.
I also just looked up VW's factory service interval information for their transmissions.
For the Beetle it says, even under the severe duty heading. "Frequency",,, "Maintainence Free Item".
The Jetta (2010) it only says the manufacturer does not specify an interval.
Hmmm.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-2021 Sahara 4xe-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
I looked at each model year from 2005 through 2015 and no where in the factory service information do they have a transaxle/transmission service interval. No where in any TSB's that I quickly looked at related to issues with the transaxles does it say anything more about the fluid beyond to check the level and check for leaks.
We should also take a little walk back in time where every consumer "expert" was running around telling vehicle owners about the shops selling services that were not specifically recommended in service information.
Technicians were well aware of the troubles being caused by painting us be rip-offs for recommending services that were not listed in service information while we also knew that servicing transaxles, even if they weren't a DSG significantly improved the service life.
Wow. I guess I sold VWoA short...
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-2021 Sahara 4xe-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
But I can understand your comment, VWoA service departments almost certainly have way too many customers who know more about their cars then the alleged "factory trained technicians."
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-2021 Sahara 4xe-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
I replaced the fluid on the ZF 8-speed automatic transmission in my Q7 this summer. With about 85,000 miles on it, the change was noticeable from the driver's seat. Though the fluid I removed "looked okay," (somewhat darker than the new fluid), there was a lot of metallic sediment built up around the pan magnet, and the car behaved smoother afterward, along with an annoying ticking noise going away at the same time.
If I were a dealership vying to preserve the integrity of my brand, when a customer complained about one of the most expensive systems in the car, if we could not fix it via other means, the electronics or such, it would get maintenance.
Sorry Doc, the risk-reward situation on the transmission for the consumer is huge. And almost always the transmission is far out of warranty when it completely fails. Dealerships perpetually demonstrate that they are fine pushing off operational flaws if, "Well it still works." That is BOGUS with respect to the transmission.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-2021 Sahara 4xe-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
I have been asked to do hands on classes in California to help techs improve their skills related to the diagnostics, repair and setup/calibration of these systems. The tooling alone sets the shop back around $20,000 and then they start finding the traps. One example of a repeat calibration failure on a radar cruise had the system detecting the steel wall studs inside the wall in front of the car. That resulted in a lot of lost time for that shop plus the expense related to having a specialist come in and figure out what exactly was going on.
When I worked at BMW we often dealt with cars that had the windshield replaced by an independent shop and now were having issues with rain sensors and/or automated cruise and collision avoidance systems. The indie shops weren’t necessarily inept so much as they weren’t familiar with how all of those systems were integrated.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-2021 Sahara 4xe-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '08 Charger R/T Daytona; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '08 Maser QP; '11 Mini Cooper S
To try and put this to a different analogy imagine trying to fill a football field with darts. Each dart is a lesson learned, new task completed with or without any mistakes. The football field represents a finite amount of knowledge that one can gain through his/her entire career. You start off throwing darts as fast as you can and imagine just trying to fill one end zone and not leave a single gap between any darts. Meanwhile you still have to start making your way towards the opposite end of the field throwing as many darts as you can each year. By the time you start reaching the ten yard line imagine how much you would know, but when you look at the field what stands out isn't how many darts you have thrown but where holes remain that a dart hasn't landed yet. So you keep throwing darts every day, in every direction gaining more and more knowledge and experience as you slowly move across the field towards the fifty yard line . But still what stands out isn't the millions of darts one has already thrown, it's the holes where no darts have landed yet. Some of the holes are still in that first end zone where you started and you may never need to know those pieces of information, or you might need to learn one of them today. Some of those might be memory tricks that you need to teach yourself so that you don't do something dumb like connect a battery backwards, or put a tire on inside out, or forget to install or tighten a bolt. Some of them are traps where someone who is aware of it will use it to criticize you as if that it is the whole measure of your knowledge and experience. Years have now passed and you now have darts scattered over the majority of half of the football field but there are still holes, spots where no darts have landed. Those holes may never be filled and you may never know that you didn't know what those darts represented. Now you turn and look at the other half of the field where you have yet to throw any darts and what really stands out isn't that vast space in front of you, its the jokers who are moving the goal post further away.
The lack of knowledge about the vehicle from both service AND sales(the salesman insisted that the GTI had Brembo brakes because the calipers were painted red) caused me to remove the GTI from consideration.
At my dealer the sales/product specialists as well as the techs received special training on the M and i(BEV and PHEV) vehicles. I was qualified to sell and/or deliver both and staff that didn’t know the answer to a question about a vehicle called me or another qualified individual- as opposed to faking an answer on the fly.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-2021 Sahara 4xe-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
As RB suggested, these 2 things are nowhere near the same ballpark. Just as a GTI shopper in 2007, I immediately became aware of what this new gearbox meant, how it worked, and the servicing needs. In my profession, I work on a large number of pharmaceutical products, and I HAVE to know everything about them. When I get a new product in my queue, I have to study up on it, scour the data, etc, etc. If I were a mechanic dedicated to a specific brand, I sure as heck would want to know all there is to know about this newfangled doohicky that will shortly be in my customers' hands. To reiterate, this is NOT directed at an indy mechanic, but at a brand-specific mechanic AND the brand-specific service writers.
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '08 Charger R/T Daytona; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '08 Maser QP; '11 Mini Cooper S
I don't see why I should pay a shop, even a reputable one, my money when they don't even want to do the work. Hahaha I saved a lot just doing it myself (about $300 for the aforementioned kit), but it sure was a pain to get it sorted out. To top it off, I accidentally broke the pan heater I installed, so I had to scrape it off the pan and install a new one once the job was done.
Doc: Wow! Those are impressive miles on the Escape. What year is it? My grandmother had a 2012, and I really liked the overall package of that generation.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-2021 Sahara 4xe-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive