I think this thread just took a major step forward into helping consumers better understand techs and the work we have to do. You nailed it with this one.
Doc is good at what he does because he is a rationalist. He does not speculate in the face of the unknown (unless I'm reading him all wrong). He falls back on what is known to discover what is unknown.
There are so many conversations with new customers that start with "How Much Is..." and I have to tell them that I don't know. I can guess if they insist, but the only gurantee about me guessing is that it will be wrong. Every repair event is unique, and quite often may be the one and only time in my life that I'll see a given failure. When we train techs today, that's what we have to prepare them to be able to do. Now sure there are the common things but in general even two brake jobs can have their own specific requirements, and we have to be ever alert to not let some detail slip by unattended. Today, three out of five repair events are one time deals and won't be repeated. Some of the things that are repeats may have several years pass inbetween them, so they might as well be one and only's too.
The guy may well have been excellent with all of the normal things that techs had seen up to that point, but there was/is always something new right around the corner to challenge us.
Well, this guy has been in business for ages, and supposedly specializes in old cars. Of course, I realize that my New Yorker falls into that era of automotive history, from roughly 1973 (when the Rube-Goldberg emissions controls were all the rage) to 1985 (when fuel injection started to clean things up a bit) that many people would rather forget.
I suggested to him that maybe it was the Lean Burn crapping out at random, and wanted to look into just swapping the whole mess out for regular carb and distributor, but his response was that it's so rare to see one of these cars in such nice original condition. Original. Please. I paid $500 for it. I'm not that concerned about originality. I'll sacrifice originality for not leaving me stranded, any day!
Of course there is no way to diagnose what your car did now, but those kinds of events are something techs like myself have had to deal with for our entire career and it's been a thank-less effort for the most part in overcoming them.
Sure there is. It never got fixed, so it still pulls that stunt from time to time. Tends to get worse on hot days. But now, I think it has the added "bonus" of a slowly failing starter. Come spring time, I'm going to send it off to another mechanic, one who's always done great work at a good price. The only down-sides are that he's about a half-hour away, and closes fairly early, so I often have to leave work a bit early. But, it's worth it to have the car fixed right.
Oh, and why this other guy screwed up? To put it simply, he rushes. He doesn't have a lot of storage space, so he tries to get a car in and out as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, that means he often does shoddy work. I had to take the New Yorker back twice because, on the same visit where he supposedly cured the stalling problem, he also muffed up, er, I mean, worked on, the back brakes. This guy used to do great work, but then it seemed like he started slipping up.
My use of the term wasn't a slam at real technicians; I have the utmost respect for the professionals who provide excellent service and take pride in their work. The quotation marks were intended to show that I didn't think he actually was a true mechanic in any sense of the term. What annoyed me the most was the fact that the guy had no knowledge of BMWs but plowed blindly ahead- and was then surprised when issues cropped up. A local independent shop I use for my Wrangler specializes in domestic and Asian cars. Every now and then they do get a customer with a BMW and they will not hesitate to refer them to a BMW tech or the local dealer if they don't feel competent to tackle the problem.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
Once a new battery was installed, without losing memories BTW
The $20 9-volt battery gizmo that fits into a power port?
Today's newer cars will one day be your older car.....
The next one will be new and will see the dealer. It may not see a good tech but at least there will be a couple of outfits with deep pockets employing the techs taking care of it.
but my dad 'cleaned out the carborator' back in the day regularly.
I have a question about the water as carbon cleaner, which I remember. Now in a modern engine (4.6 ford modular, COP) are the seafoam-like cleaners (c20) as thorough (poured into the intake) or is it still useful to do the water trick?
I suggested to him that maybe it was the Lean Burn crapping out at random, and wanted to look into just swapping the whole mess out for regular carb and distributor, but his response was that it's so rare to see one of these cars in such nice original condition. Original. Please. I paid $500 for it. I'm not that concerned about originality. I'll sacrifice originality for not leaving me stranded, any day!
Eliminating the lean burn is in fact Chryslers way of dealing with their own system. However, just throwing parts for the sake of doing something has more often than not blown up in a techs face.
Your car is very diagnosible since you still have it. The toys we have available to us today didn't exist only a decade ago and all someone would need is for it to act up in a reasonably consistent basis.
Well, this guy has been in business for ages, and supposedly specializes in old cars
That suggests that he hasn't been to training, and hasn't spent the money to handle the electronics like we have to.
Oh, and why this other guy screwed up? To put it simply, he rushes. He doesn't have a lot of storage space, so he tries to get a car in and out as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, that means he often does shoddy work. I had to take the New Yorker back twice because, on the same visit where he supposedly cured the stalling problem, he also muffed up, er, I mean, worked on, the back brakes. This guy used to do great work, but then it seemed like he started slipping up.
Wonder if he's still charging like it's the 70's......
Then your not considering that the perception of the next person walking down the street is, "It's just a battery, what's the big deal?"
I follow the old pilot's adage "If you don't know, don't go!" If a friend called and said, "I'm having a problem with my Audi/Buick/Chevrolet/Ford/Honda/Toyota/Volvo/whatever" I wouldn't touch it. I DO know most BMWs(or I know where to find the information)- ditto for Wrangler TJs and the 1st Generation Mazdaspeed 3. But I'm not going to "learn by doing" on a vehicle that I don't own or am not extensively familiar with.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
Working in a garage for 40 years doesn't necessarily make you smarter than a younger person, in the same way that working in a library for 40 years won't either, just because you're surrounded by books.
Your car is very diagnosible since you still have it. The toys we have available to us today didn't exist only a decade ago and all someone would need is for it to act up in a reasonably consistent basis.
Well, when it finally goes off to the current mechanic, if he can fix it, I'll let you know what the issue is! At least with this guy, if he can't fix it, or he thinks it's horribly cost-prohibitive, he'll let me know, rather than trying to tear into it, telling me it's fixed, and then having it break again a couple minutes later.
That suggests that he hasn't been to training, and hasn't spent the money to handle the electronics like we have to.
Funny you'd say that, because recently, in a totally unrelated conversation, he did say that electricity wasn't his specialty. We were talking about home renovation and simple electric stuff, and I asked him, with alternating current, what happens if you hook the two wires back up the wrong way. He said he didn't know, but that it could be "bad", and that's why nowadays they make plugs with one prong bigger than the other. BTW, what DOES happen, if you hook the wires back up wrong?
Wonder if he's still charging like it's the 70's......
Dunno...would the going rate in 1979 have been $31.23 per hour? Because, adjusting for inflation, that comes out to about what his $98.75/hr rate is today. And, this guy isn't all that old; he just turned 50. So he's not some out-of-touch-with-the-modern-world fossil. Unless you bring up electrical issues, I guess. :P
Honestly, I don't have a problem paying a higher hourly rate, IF I feel like I'm getting some value out of it. But, if shop B does better work AND has a lower hourly rate than shop A, guess where I'm going?
I follow the old pilot's adage "If you don't know, don't go!"
But yet, without having been in professional level training, and in the possession of a fully functional scan tool and and information system.......... You didn't know it, but you went anyway.
Funny you'd say that, because recently, in a totally unrelated conversation, he did say that electricity wasn't his specialty. We were talking about home renovation and simple electric stuff, and I asked him, with alternating current, what happens if you hook the two wires back up the wrong way. He said he didn't know, but that it could be "bad", and that's why nowadays they make plugs with one prong bigger than the other. BTW, what DOES happen, if you hook the wires back up wrong?
With AC, the plug is "keyed" so that the power is always supplied on the "switch" side of the circuit, .vs. the "load" side of the circuit.
It's a safety issue, but the laws of AC electricity don't really care. Once the switch is closed, the circuit is complete.
Technically speaking, it doesn't matter... Unless you enjoy taking the bulb out of your lamp and placing your finger inside the bulb socket...
For a while there 42 volt electrical system talk was all the rage.
You do know that we do have them, right? BAS Hybrids.
Low voltage harnesses and other advances have kept current 12 14 volt batteries around
To make that happen we ended up with more control modules on the data bus the result of which required techs to have even more advanced electronics training and tools with O.E. software.
With AC, the plug is "keyed" so that the power is always supplied on the "switch" side of the circuit, .vs. the "load" side of the circuit.
Would that mean, then, that if you had something wired in, such as an outside light, that was controlled by a switch, that if you simply turned off the switch, one of the two wires going out to the light would still be hot? I guess that's why they always tell you to turn it off at the circuit breaker?
If that's true, I guess I got off real lucky a few weeks ago, when I replaced a porch light. Guess someone was looking out for me that day!
Technically speaking, it doesn't matter... Unless you enjoy taking the bulb out of your lamp and placing your finger inside the bulb socket.
To expand a bit on busiris' light bulb example-
If the socket and lamp are wired correctly, then when the light switch is closed, the little silver button at the base of the socket is hot (115V), and the circular ring around the outside of the socket is neutral (basically, ground). So if you were to touch the outside ring, you would not get shocked, but would if you touched the inside center button.
But if the wires to the socket are reversed (and many times they can be because the wiring up through the lamp may not be color coded), reversing hot and neutral to the socket, then the outside ring would be at 115V when the switch is closed.
Like busiris said, the light bulb doesn't care, but you might !
I think the NEC (National Electrical Code) requires that the hot (or black) side always contain the switch, the that the neutral (white) be continuous all the way back to the circuit breaker panel.
I think srs_49 gave you the answer you were searching for...
If not, it's like this...
If the house is wired to "code" (and that's a big IF sometimes) and the switch is turned "off", the socket is powered "off" as well, because its on the "load" side of the switch.
The breaker advice is given simply because a lot of "so-call electricians", well, aren't really electricians, but "hacks". And, they wire the load side on the "hot" lead subsequently going to the switch, instead of the "switched" lead, coming from the switch.
Remember, the circuit is just one continuous loop, interrupted by the switch when in the "off" position.
Kinda like the joke about the 4 requirements needed to be a plumber...
Hot on the left, cold on the right, payday comes on Friday, and sewage doesn't "run" uphill...
So lets go full circle, and "who ultimately pays for that"?
You're just at 180° - keep going.
The manufacturers who can't keep their cars running under warranty will lose sales to the smarter companies who invest in the engineering to make their cars reliable and cheap enough to fix so that they don't have to dump a bunch of money into warranty reserves or lemon replacements.
You don't need a bunch more techs if you have a better "self-repairing" mousetrap (and it doesn't have to be this when it could be this).
That last link may not be safe for the lunch hour btw.
That second trap made me think of something kinda morbid I found a few years ago, when cleaning out an old storage building in my back yard. Now, this house has been in the family forever, so there's a good 70-80 years or more worth of crap in it. One of the things I found was an old wooden ballot box, in excellent condition. It was probably about a foot deep, and had a fairly large slot in the top. Well, I opened it, out of curiosity, and found about 10-15 little mouse skeletons in it! :surprise:
I don't know what had been in there that aroused their curiosity, but I guess one got in there, not knowing it couldn't get out, died, and then the smell of the decay lured the rest to their doom?
Oh, where was I going with this? Nowhere, really, but your post initially made me think of something. Traditionally, I pick up my cars used. Sometimes VERY used, and drive them till they drop dead. Or get wrecked. Well, with the Ram I recently bought, I've thought about trading it right around the 5 year mark. It has a 5/60K powertrain warranty, and 3/36K bumper to bumper. The dealer tried to push an extended warranty on me, but I declined, telling them that if it starts acting up on me, I'm just going to get pissed and dump it, buy something else, and probably not another Ram. As little as it's getting driven though, I doubt that it'll even have 30,000 miles on it by the time the 5 year mark comes around.
So, if I start doing this kind of stuff, buying new and trading a bit more often, it'll probably keep the mechanics almost out of the equation. In theory, I'd think all it would need in the first 30,000 miles is oil changes and tire rotations. And perhaps a coolant change, right at the 5 year mark. Maybe check the brakes and a general lookover here and there.
My old 2000 Intrepid, the only other vehicle I ever bought new, didn't need anything until around 35,000 miles, when the power door lock started acting up. Well, other than oil changes and tire rotations. I was even impressed to get 39,000 miles out of the front brake pads, which shocked me, as I delivered pizzas part time in those days.
You keep pressuring for an unrealistic outcome, worse yet are the times when a manufacturer tries to promise what you want, when it isn't an achieveable goal. One of the greatest mistakes American auto makers made in the 80's was attempting to tell the vehicle owners about how much less maintanence the cars would need. All they managed to accomplish was to give the consumer an expectation that they couldn't meet and the result was justifiably a dissapointed customer.
So what is wrong with telling the consumers the truth?
Today cars are much more reliable than they have ever been, but that does not mean that they don't develop problems and now it takes an ever more competent group of technicians to deal with these problems when they occur. No matter how much of a selfish hissy fit you want to pitch your car's problem when it occurs is your problem.
If it was just you, and you (and others like you) weren't constantly trying to get consumers to adopt the same perspective, you could simply be told to "Have a nice day, and please go somewhere else". But you insist on trying to train consumers to have an unrealistic expectations, and while that may sell magazines it is a house of cards that will fail and the costs of the failure ultimately end up passed all the way back to the consumers.
Consumers who learn to purchase a car, pay it off. All the while having it serviced correctly and keep it for it's entire useable lifespan will save themselves an incredible amount of money over someone who is always leasing or buying a new one every three to five years.
Auto manufacturers and especially dealers actually benefit from the attitude that if a car needs a repair its a defective product. You simply produce more of an urge to buy another one if they get dissapointed with vehicle. You tell them if they are unhappy with vehicle "X" and it's manufacturer then they will need to take their business to manufacturer "Y". Except you never let on that manufacturer "Y" is dealing with the same perspectives as well as is every other manufacturer, so the consumers just keep moving around and around and walking away from the equity that their last new car could have provided them. There isn't a legitimate financial reason to replace a car that is less then fifteen years old, and under 250K-300K miles, no matter what broke and needed repaired along the way. Unless you really just want to keep them on the dealers cash treadmill.
If you want a card to fold in half, you have to bend it double first.
There isn't a legitimate financial reason to replace a car that is less then fifteen years old
My youngest (the van) will be 14 this year and I haven't had a car payment since '82. So I'm there. But I think it's better to say a car shouldn't be considered for scrapping until it reaches that age. People like shiny new things, even if those things are only new to them.
The last time I shopped I asked for owner's manuals so I could read about the vans and part of my reading was the maintenance requirements and intervals. That stuff is important to many of us.
Oh, and my '82 Tercel stranded me once in 17 years, was on a 5,000 mile oil change interval until the last decade when I would just change it once a year. The lifetime mpg was 27.6 and insurance costs ($2,800) were just a bit less than repair bills (my spreadsheet includes brakes, oil, tires and other consumables under repairs). Repairs were $2,933 over 114,000 miles.
When I look back on that 80s car, I don't see power windows or traction control or even airbags, but in some ways I don't see a lot of progress in the new cars either.
They don't explain what it takes to rise to the average wage, which is around ten years experience and some 30K-50K in your own tools. The top 10% can be very misleading as well. These are really the cream of the crop guys who work at a manic pace, and often are multi skilled so that they are self employ'ed.
Maybe it'll be like airline pilots were 20 years ago and we'll have to depend on the military to train the new crop of techs. Most commercial pilots come out of private schools now though.
It's a can of cake on that car---just buy a "memory saver" and plug it into your cig lighter, so that you don't lose radio presets, then R&R the battery, then read page 98 of your owner's manual which instructs you on how to re-program the window lifts and sunroof. As far as I can tell, otherwise you're good to go on that particular year and mode.
No idea...Hey, you can try that on your new truick and let us know what happened!
Umm...no. :P I have a fear of new technology, and with my luck, it would not only muff up the truck, but it would probably do something evil to me, in the process!
I used to have a 1969 Pontiac Bonneville that had a sticky solenoid, and if the car didn't successfully start, it would keep cranking and cranking, even after you turned the key off, and the only way to stop it was to get out an pull a cable off the battery, with an accompanying spark.
That would at least re-set the solenoid somehow, so when you put the cable back on, it wouldn't immediately try to start cranking again. It wouldn't have been a problem, if the car would successfully start on a regular basis. But, that wasn't the case. :sick:
Never did figure out what the problem was with that car. I replaced the starter and solenoid, and at least that cured the cranking thing, but then it kept eating starters. and solenoids. Eventually, it died in my grandmother's yard and I just left it, and a few months later, sold it for parts, at a low point in my life when divorce was looming on the horizon and I had to start cutting costs in any way necessary.
If I had the money, I would have taken it to my mechanic and just had him look at it. This was back in 1996, when I had a great mechanic...well, two of them, actually. But, I just didn't have the money, and let it go, instead.
All I know is that the car had been struck by lightning previously, which probably led to the electrical issues. And, in a vain attempt to save money, I put the starters and solenoids on myself. Since it kept eating them, either I was putting them on wrong, I guess, or there was some other issue shorting them out.
Shame those two mechanics aren't around anymore. They retired back in 2002 and sold their shop. New place went downhill fast. I think one of the guys is still alive, but the other passed away around 2005 I think. Real shame, as he was a great guy. And, I'm sure a lot of knowledge passed away with him.
I just replaced the battery in the '09 Escape a couple of months ago. Just took out the old one and connected the new one. The radio, including satellite, held all the the presets, the NAV was fine, security system didn't need to be reset. Basically, it was a 10 minute job.
2024 Ford F-150 STX, 2023 Ford Explorer ST, 91 Mustang GT vert
And when someone see's the question as the suggestion that it might be, then you have set the table for them to consider just getting rid of the car because they don't want to put that much into their old one, so they never even find out what it would really cost.
If the battery on this car is replaced and the electrical system is maintained at full power as we do (not just 9v) you don't have to do anything out of the ordinary. We replace the battery, for the price of the battery. No labor fee.
I just replaced the battery in the '09 Escape a couple of months ago. Just took out the old one and connected the new one.
Basically, it was a 10 minute job.
This is usually true. The most you had to do is re-train the automatic power windows and that's done by holding the window switch a few seconds after the window reaches it's maximum travel.
The radio, including satellite, held all the the presets, the NAV was fine, security system didn't need to be reset
The radio presets are loaded into NVRAM. (non volatile random access memory) and they won't clear with a depower. The clock can be and likely is set to learn the time from the satellite radio, that's why you didn't need to reset it. That is something that can be enabled/disabled by the owner in the personality menus.
Fords PATS (passive anti theft system) won't be affected by a depower, unless it was actually broke before you disconnected a battery and had one of several specific codes set in the memories of the PATS system modules. With certain codes, which would need to set once the car is already running, you can get a fail enabled result which means the car knows that it is broken and so the system shuts down and will allow a restart as long as those codes are in memory. But disconnect the battery and clear those codes and now you get your unexpected PATS failure blocking an engine start-up and now the system will need to be repaired.
we'll have to depend on the military to train the new crop of techs.
Only one problem, consumers won't tolerate the learning curve of the "new techs" when they leave the military life, and therefore shops usually don't either. Very few military mechanics end up staying in the trade as retail mechanics/technicians. Most of the time you'll find them going into heavy fleet work, or driving truck.
What happens nowadays if you pull a battery out of a modern car while it's running?
DONT DO IT!!!
Now of course we will get the obligartory "XXXXXX did it and nothing happened" but there are a number of reports where something did indeed happen by disconnecting the battery with the vehicle running. The battery has a number of jobs to do in the electrical system and providing the power to start everything is only one of them. By nature batteries are capacitors and able to absorb voltage spikes that naturally occur in the electrical system. When a battery is disconnected those spikes are capable of damaging some electronics, namely body computers, radios, HVAC control modules (heating/air conditoning) and of course PCM's.
There was a Mazda towed to my shop this week for just such an issue. The owner had a friend come over to help him install a battery, so they did it with the car running and halfway through the car quit. It got towed to one shop, and after they spent some time they have decided to pass on the repair and now I have it. The PCM is reported to be dead and to be replaced the shop has to be able to program the new one, and then re-train the PATS system. Basically it's a Ford, and up until September the Ford IDS scan tool worked on both Ford and Mazda. Now they are seperate subscriptions and it costs double what it used to for us to be able to do this work. At this point it is not known if anything else has also failed. There is no communication with any of the vehicle modules.
Years ago, I replaced the battery in my Granddad's '94 Taurus for him. The car was acting fine, but by this point I think it was about 6-7 years old, so it was becoming a bit of a gamble.
I was impressed that, even on that old car (well, it didn't seem old to me at the time), the radio held all of its presets, and the clock kept its time. It was a quick, 5-10 minute job, as well.
Now, my 2000 Intrepid was a different story. I changed its battery as a precaution, when it was about 5 1/2 years old, because I was about to take a trip to Florida. Well, the battery on that car was mounted in the front right fender, low, right in front of the tire. You can see it from under the hood...barely. I've heard that you can get to it by pulling out the box that holds the air filter, but I had a feeling that I'd end up breaking something wrestling around with all that plastic.
So, I ended up jacking it up, taking off the wheel, taking off an access panel, and getting to it through there. Overall, it took me about two hours. I think I only made it spark once, and my knuckles and wrists weren't *too* bruised up.
I swore that I would either trade that car in before it needed another battery, or pay the mechanic to do it the next time! But, in a cruel twist of fate I didn't have to do either, because that car got totaled at the 10 year mark, with about 4 1/2 years on the "new" battery.
And, before I bought my 2000 Park Ave replacement, one of the first things I looked for was the location of the battery! :P Thankfully, it's easy to get to.
I wonder what the "book" rate is on replacing an Intrepid battery? I doubt that it's a two hour job....maybe one hour?
When a battery is disconnected those spikes are capable of damaging some electronics, namely body computers, radios, HVAC control modules (heating/air conditoning) and of course PCM's.
So, it sounds like that advice would apply to older cars as well? Even though they have less electronics, they're still going to have radios and HVAC controls (unless you go way back, or have some stripper Gremlin)
And don't worry, pulling batteries out of cars, new or old, while they're running isn't something I do on a regular basis. In fact, I can't remember the last time I did it. Or *why* I did it, for that matter.
I wonder what the "book" rate is on replacing an Intrepid battery? I doubt that it's a two hour job....maybe one hour?
.6, and that includes testing. Then when we (I) do it faster than that people often think they are being taken advantage of. It takes around fifteen minutes to replace that battery on average.
And don't worry, pulling batteries out of cars, new or old, while they're running isn't something I do on a regular basis. In fact, I can't remember the last time I did it. Or *why* I did it, for that matter.
I'm sure you can find a youtube video that will tell you this is how you test to see if your alternator works or not. (If the car stalls it supposed to be "NOT")
.6, and that includes testing. Then when we (I) do it faster than that people often think they are being taken advantage of. It takes around fifteen minutes to replace that battery on average.
Wow, that's not bad at all. Even if a labor rate was, say, $100/hr (I'm sure they're higher in some places), IMO $60 plus the cost of the battery would have been worth saving me the aggravation with having to change that Intrepid's battery myself.
I'm sure you can find a youtube video that will tell you this is how you test to see if your alternator works or not. (If the car stalls it supposed to be "NOT")
If the alternator has failed, won't your lights also be dim? And, if your car has an actual gauge for the amps, wouldn't the needle gradually creep over toward the "D" side of the scale?
I think I've only had two alternators fail in all the cars I've had (might have been more, but I've had too many clunkers to count over the years, so I might forget a repair here and there). The last was in a 1968 Dart, back in 1996. And it did exactly what I described (dim lights and the amp gauge pointing steadily to "D"). I delivered pizzas back then, and one Friday night, as the evening progressed, the lights got dimmer and dimmer, the car got harder to start, and eventually it got too weak to start.
The other car was a 1980 Malibu, in 1987. It just had idiot lights, and the one for the voltage would come on when you first started the car, as it's supposed to to let you know that it works, but then it wouldn't completely go off, but rather glow very faintly. My Granddad, who was a mechanic (but more of an old-school one...that's what he did during WWII) said that, the alternator was going bad and that, essentially, it didn't have enough power to turn that light completely off. At least, that's the way he explained it.
It took me 15 minutes just to figure out where the battery was in my friend's Olds Intrigue down in Port Huron, including the Bing search. After I found out what a hassle it was to replace (same fender well deal), I told her to have the shop do it.
So if it was easy, you would have done it and the moment it wasn't then she needed to go to a shop. That's pretty common today. That's basically "Death By One Thousand Cuts" for us. :sick:
Sure, Walmart was just a mile away; that's what I do with my cars. $85 vs paying your mark-up for a battery, although most shops would tack some labor on there too. Local garage charged my sister $140 a year ago for a new battery on her Forester.
Leaning over and lifting a battery out is a lot easier than taking the fender liner off and crawling around underneath.
The thousand cuts happen in a lot of professions. Lots of people get their initial medical advice from their pharmacist instead of their physician. People buy and sell houses without a Realtor all the time. People buy HR Block software and do their own taxes or use Quicken for their bookkeeping. Most people look to their builder for a new house and don't hire an architect. Sites like Flickr have hurt the income of a lot of professional photographers.
Is there any thing in the car that an average consumer can do to repair without taking the car to the shop? I thought replacing the battery was the least we can do but now found out that was a big deal replacing battery.... What's about car wash? :sick: :sick: :sick:
Comments
Today's newer cars will one day be your older car.....
so if and when we get a new one with all the bells and whistles, it'll see the dealer quite a bit more than our current ones.
I'm wondering what good that will do if we don't start getting young people into the trade and on the path to becoming the techs that you will need?
Doc is good at what he does because he is a rationalist. He does not speculate in the face of the unknown (unless I'm reading him all wrong). He falls back on what is known to discover what is unknown.
There are so many conversations with new customers that start with "How Much Is..." and I have to tell them that I don't know. I can guess if they insist, but the only gurantee about me guessing is that it will be wrong. Every repair event is unique, and quite often may be the one and only time in my life that I'll see a given failure. When we train techs today, that's what we have to prepare them to be able to do. Now sure there are the common things but in general even two brake jobs can have their own specific requirements, and we have to be ever alert to not let some detail slip by unattended. Today, three out of five repair events are one time deals and won't be repeated. Some of the things that are repeats may have several years pass inbetween them, so they might as well be one and only's too.
Well, this guy has been in business for ages, and supposedly specializes in old cars. Of course, I realize that my New Yorker falls into that era of automotive history, from roughly 1973 (when the Rube-Goldberg emissions controls were all the rage) to 1985 (when fuel injection started to clean things up a bit) that many people would rather forget.
I suggested to him that maybe it was the Lean Burn crapping out at random, and wanted to look into just swapping the whole mess out for regular carb and distributor, but his response was that it's so rare to see one of these cars in such nice original condition. Original. Please. I paid $500 for it. I'm not that concerned about originality. I'll sacrifice originality for not leaving me stranded, any day!
Of course there is no way to diagnose what your car did now, but those kinds of events are something techs like myself have had to deal with for our entire career and it's been a thank-less effort for the most part in overcoming them.
Sure there is. It never got fixed, so it still pulls that stunt from time to time. Tends to get worse on hot days. But now, I think it has the added "bonus" of a slowly failing starter. Come spring time, I'm going to send it off to another mechanic, one who's always done great work at a good price. The only down-sides are that he's about a half-hour away, and closes fairly early, so I often have to leave work a bit early. But, it's worth it to have the car fixed right.
Oh, and why this other guy screwed up? To put it simply, he rushes. He doesn't have a lot of storage space, so he tries to get a car in and out as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, that means he often does shoddy work. I had to take the New Yorker back twice because, on the same visit where he supposedly cured the stalling problem, he also muffed up, er, I mean, worked on, the back brakes. This guy used to do great work, but then it seemed like he started slipping up.
My use of the term wasn't a slam at real technicians; I have the utmost respect for the professionals who provide excellent service and take pride in their work. The quotation marks were intended to show that I didn't think he actually was a true mechanic in any sense of the term.
What annoyed me the most was the fact that the guy had no knowledge of BMWs but plowed blindly ahead- and was then surprised when issues cropped up. A local independent shop I use for my Wrangler specializes in domestic and Asian cars. Every now and then they do get a customer with a BMW and they will not hesitate to refer them to a BMW tech or the local dealer if they don't feel competent to tackle the problem.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
The $20 9-volt battery gizmo that fits into a power port?
Today's newer cars will one day be your older car.....
The next one will be new and will see the dealer. It may not see a good tech but at least there will be a couple of outfits with deep pockets employing the techs taking care of it.
I have a question about the water as carbon cleaner, which I remember. Now in a modern engine (4.6 ford modular, COP) are the seafoam-like cleaners (c20) as thorough (poured into the intake) or is it still useful to do the water trick?
Pete
Then your not considering that the perception of the next person walking down the street is, "It's just a battery, what's the big deal?"
And if someone would try and say to them how the BMW's are different, they'd be accused of just trying to pad the bill with BS.
Eliminating the lean burn is in fact Chryslers way of dealing with their own system. However, just throwing parts for the sake of doing something has more often than not blown up in a techs face.
Your car is very diagnosible since you still have it. The toys we have available to us today didn't exist only a decade ago and all someone would need is for it to act up in a reasonably consistent basis.
Well, this guy has been in business for ages, and supposedly specializes in old cars
That suggests that he hasn't been to training, and hasn't spent the money to handle the electronics like we have to.
Oh, and why this other guy screwed up? To put it simply, he rushes. He doesn't have a lot of storage space, so he tries to get a car in and out as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, that means he often does shoddy work. I had to take the New Yorker back twice because, on the same visit where he supposedly cured the stalling problem, he also muffed up, er, I mean, worked on, the back brakes. This guy used to do great work, but then it seemed like he started slipping up.
Wonder if he's still charging like it's the 70's......
I follow the old pilot's adage "If you don't know, don't go!" If a friend called and said, "I'm having a problem with my Audi/Buick/Chevrolet/Ford/Honda/Toyota/Volvo/whatever" I wouldn't touch it. I DO know most BMWs(or I know where to find the information)- ditto for Wrangler TJs and the 1st Generation Mazdaspeed 3. But I'm not going to "learn by doing" on a vehicle that I don't own or am not extensively familiar with.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
Well, when it finally goes off to the current mechanic, if he can fix it, I'll let you know what the issue is! At least with this guy, if he can't fix it, or he thinks it's horribly cost-prohibitive, he'll let me know, rather than trying to tear into it, telling me it's fixed, and then having it break again a couple minutes later.
That suggests that he hasn't been to training, and hasn't spent the money to handle the electronics like we have to.
Funny you'd say that, because recently, in a totally unrelated conversation, he did say that electricity wasn't his specialty. We were talking about home renovation and simple electric stuff, and I asked him, with alternating current, what happens if you hook the two wires back up the wrong way. He said he didn't know, but that it could be "bad", and that's why nowadays they make plugs with one prong bigger than the other. BTW, what DOES happen, if you hook the wires back up wrong?
Wonder if he's still charging like it's the 70's......
Dunno...would the going rate in 1979 have been $31.23 per hour? Because, adjusting for inflation, that comes out to about what his $98.75/hr rate is today. And, this guy isn't all that old; he just turned 50. So he's not some out-of-touch-with-the-modern-world fossil. Unless you bring up electrical issues, I guess. :P
Honestly, I don't have a problem paying a higher hourly rate, IF I feel like I'm getting some value out of it. But, if shop B does better work AND has a lower hourly rate than shop A, guess where I'm going?
But yet, without having been in professional level training, and in the possession of a fully functional scan tool and and information system..........
You didn't know it, but you went anyway.
With AC, the plug is "keyed" so that the power is always supplied on the "switch" side of the circuit, .vs. the "load" side of the circuit.
It's a safety issue, but the laws of AC electricity don't really care. Once the switch is closed, the circuit is complete.
Technically speaking, it doesn't matter... Unless you enjoy taking the bulb out of your lamp and placing your finger inside the bulb socket...
Ever hear of a good idea, that didn't work?
We power up the memories with a system that provides enough potential that it can handle the doors being opened, or the locks operated, etc.
outfits with deep pockets employing the techs taking care of it.
That still assumes people will become techs. So are you trying to talk your kids into a life repairing cars?
You do know that we do have them, right? BAS Hybrids.
Low voltage harnesses and other advances have kept current 12 14 volt batteries around
To make that happen we ended up with more control modules on the data bus the result of which required techs to have even more advanced electronics training and tools with O.E. software.
So lets go full circle, and "who ultimately pays for that"?
Next you'll say something about going to another manufacturer then. Do you really think it will be different?
The depth of the pockets in question will ultimately be yours.....
Would that mean, then, that if you had something wired in, such as an outside light, that was controlled by a switch, that if you simply turned off the switch, one of the two wires going out to the light would still be hot? I guess that's why they always tell you to turn it off at the circuit breaker?
If that's true, I guess I got off real lucky a few weeks ago, when I replaced a porch light.
To expand a bit on busiris' light bulb example-
If the socket and lamp are wired correctly, then when the light switch is closed, the little silver button at the base of the socket is hot (115V), and the circular ring around the outside of the socket is neutral (basically, ground). So if you were to touch the outside ring, you would not get shocked, but would if you touched the inside center button.
But if the wires to the socket are reversed (and many times they can be because the wiring up through the lamp may not be color coded), reversing hot and neutral to the socket, then the outside ring would be at 115V when the switch is closed.
Like busiris said, the light bulb doesn't care, but you might !
If not, it's like this...
If the house is wired to "code" (and that's a big IF sometimes) and the switch is turned "off", the socket is powered "off" as well, because its on the "load" side of the switch.
The breaker advice is given simply because a lot of "so-call electricians", well, aren't really electricians, but "hacks". And, they wire the load side on the "hot" lead subsequently going to the switch, instead of the "switched" lead, coming from the switch.
Remember, the circuit is just one continuous loop, interrupted by the switch when in the "off" position.
Kinda like the joke about the 4 requirements needed to be a plumber...
Hot on the left, cold on the right, payday comes on Friday, and sewage doesn't "run" uphill...
You're just at 180° - keep going.
The manufacturers who can't keep their cars running under warranty will lose sales to the smarter companies who invest in the engineering to make their cars reliable and cheap enough to fix so that they don't have to dump a bunch of money into warranty reserves or lemon replacements.
You don't need a bunch more techs if you have a better "self-repairing" mousetrap (and it doesn't have to be this when it could be this).
That last link may not be safe for the lunch hour btw.
I don't know what had been in there that aroused their curiosity, but I guess one got in there, not knowing it couldn't get out, died, and then the smell of the decay lured the rest to their doom?
Oh, where was I going with this? Nowhere, really, but your post initially made me think of something. Traditionally, I pick up my cars used. Sometimes VERY used, and drive them till they drop dead. Or get wrecked. Well, with the Ram I recently bought, I've thought about trading it right around the 5 year mark. It has a 5/60K powertrain warranty, and 3/36K bumper to bumper. The dealer tried to push an extended warranty on me, but I declined, telling them that if it starts acting up on me, I'm just going to get pissed and dump it, buy something else, and probably not another Ram. As little as it's getting driven though, I doubt that it'll even have 30,000 miles on it by the time the 5 year mark comes around.
So, if I start doing this kind of stuff, buying new and trading a bit more often, it'll probably keep the mechanics almost out of the equation. In theory, I'd think all it would need in the first 30,000 miles is oil changes and tire rotations. And perhaps a coolant change, right at the 5 year mark. Maybe check the brakes and a general lookover here and there.
My old 2000 Intrepid, the only other vehicle I ever bought new, didn't need anything until around 35,000 miles, when the power door lock started acting up. Well, other than oil changes and tire rotations. I was even impressed to get 39,000 miles out of the front brake pads, which shocked me, as I delivered pizzas part time in those days.
So what is wrong with telling the consumers the truth?
Today cars are much more reliable than they have ever been, but that does not mean that they don't develop problems and now it takes an ever more competent group of technicians to deal with these problems when they occur. No matter how much of a selfish hissy fit you want to pitch your car's problem when it occurs is your problem.
If it was just you, and you (and others like you) weren't constantly trying to get consumers to adopt the same perspective, you could simply be told to "Have a nice day, and please go somewhere else". But you insist on trying to train consumers to have an unrealistic expectations, and while that may sell magazines it is a house of cards that will fail and the costs of the failure ultimately end up passed all the way back to the consumers.
Consumers who learn to purchase a car, pay it off. All the while having it serviced correctly and keep it for it's entire useable lifespan will save themselves an incredible amount of money over someone who is always leasing or buying a new one every three to five years.
Auto manufacturers and especially dealers actually benefit from the attitude that if a car needs a repair its a defective product. You simply produce more of an urge to buy another one if they get dissapointed with vehicle. You tell them if they are unhappy with vehicle "X" and it's manufacturer then they will need to take their business to manufacturer "Y". Except you never let on that manufacturer "Y" is dealing with the same perspectives as well as is every other manufacturer, so the consumers just keep moving around and around and walking away from the equity that their last new car could have provided them. There isn't a legitimate financial reason to replace a car that is less then fifteen years old, and under 250K-300K miles, no matter what broke and needed repaired along the way. Unless you really just want to keep them on the dealers cash treadmill.
If you want a card to fold in half, you have to bend it double first.
There isn't a legitimate financial reason to replace a car that is less then fifteen years old
My youngest (the van) will be 14 this year and I haven't had a car payment since '82. So I'm there. But I think it's better to say a car shouldn't be considered for scrapping until it reaches that age. People like shiny new things, even if those things are only new to them.
The last time I shopped I asked for owner's manuals so I could read about the vans and part of my reading was the maintenance requirements and intervals. That stuff is important to many of us.
Oh, and my '82 Tercel stranded me once in 17 years, was on a 5,000 mile oil change interval until the last decade when I would just change it once a year. The lifetime mpg was 27.6 and insurance costs ($2,800) were just a bit less than repair bills (my spreadsheet includes brakes, oil, tires and other consumables under repairs). Repairs were $2,933 over 114,000 miles.
When I look back on that 80s car, I don't see power windows or traction control or even airbags, but in some ways I don't see a lot of progress in the new cars either.
There are plenty of old cars running around that, after taking one look at them, I wouldn't even ride in as a passenger, much less drive on a freeway.
Half the cars people call "old reliable" are probably rolling death traps IMO. And of course, others of them are perfectly fine and safe.
My point is that there's a time when you don't stretch the rubber band any further--it's time to call it quits on a car when it ages enough.
They don't explain what it takes to rise to the average wage, which is around ten years experience and some 30K-50K in your own tools. The top 10% can be very misleading as well. These are really the cream of the crop guys who work at a manic pace, and often are multi skilled so that they are self employ'ed.
How can I change the battery in a 2005 Lexus ES 330 without causing damage on electric system? (Edmunds Answers)
Umm...no. :P I have a fear of new technology, and with my luck, it would not only muff up the truck, but it would probably do something evil to me, in the process!
I used to have a 1969 Pontiac Bonneville that had a sticky solenoid, and if the car didn't successfully start, it would keep cranking and cranking, even after you turned the key off, and the only way to stop it was to get out an pull a cable off the battery, with an accompanying spark.
That would at least re-set the solenoid somehow, so when you put the cable back on, it wouldn't immediately try to start cranking again. It wouldn't have been a problem, if the car would successfully start on a regular basis. But, that wasn't the case. :sick:
Never did figure out what the problem was with that car. I replaced the starter and solenoid, and at least that cured the cranking thing, but then it kept eating starters. and solenoids. Eventually, it died in my grandmother's yard and I just left it, and a few months later, sold it for parts, at a low point in my life when divorce was looming on the horizon and I had to start cutting costs in any way necessary.
If I had the money, I would have taken it to my mechanic and just had him look at it. This was back in 1996, when I had a great mechanic...well, two of them, actually. But, I just didn't have the money, and let it go, instead.
All I know is that the car had been struck by lightning previously, which probably led to the electrical issues. And, in a vain attempt to save money, I put the starters and solenoids on myself. Since it kept eating them, either I was putting them on wrong, I guess, or there was some other issue shorting them out.
Shame those two mechanics aren't around anymore. They retired back in 2002 and sold their shop. New place went downhill fast. I think one of the guys is still alive, but the other passed away around 2005 I think. Real shame, as he was a great guy. And, I'm sure a lot of knowledge passed away with him.
Just took out the old one and connected the new one.
The radio, including satellite, held all the the presets, the NAV was fine, security system didn't need to be reset.
Basically, it was a 10 minute job.
And when someone see's the question as the suggestion that it might be, then you have set the table for them to consider just getting rid of the car because they don't want to put that much into their old one, so they never even find out what it would really cost.
If the battery on this car is replaced and the electrical system is maintained at full power as we do (not just 9v) you don't have to do anything out of the ordinary. We replace the battery, for the price of the battery. No labor fee.
Just took out the old one and connected the new one.
Basically, it was a 10 minute job.
This is usually true. The most you had to do is re-train the automatic power windows and that's done by holding the window switch a few seconds after the window reaches it's maximum travel.
The radio, including satellite, held all the the presets, the NAV was fine, security system didn't need to be reset
The radio presets are loaded into NVRAM. (non volatile random access memory) and they won't clear with a depower. The clock can be and likely is set to learn the time from the satellite radio, that's why you didn't need to reset it. That is something that can be enabled/disabled by the owner in the personality menus.
Fords PATS (passive anti theft system) won't be affected by a depower, unless it was actually broke before you disconnected a battery and had one of several specific codes set in the memories of the PATS system modules. With certain codes, which would need to set once the car is already running, you can get a fail enabled result which means the car knows that it is broken and so the system shuts down and will allow a restart as long as those codes are in memory. But disconnect the battery and clear those codes and now you get your unexpected PATS failure blocking an engine start-up and now the system will need to be repaired.
Only one problem, consumers won't tolerate the learning curve of the "new techs" when they leave the military life, and therefore shops usually don't either. Very few military mechanics end up staying in the trade as retail mechanics/technicians. Most of the time you'll find them going into heavy fleet work, or driving truck.
DONT DO IT!!!
Now of course we will get the obligartory "XXXXXX did it and nothing happened" but there are a number of reports where something did indeed happen by disconnecting the battery with the vehicle running. The battery has a number of jobs to do in the electrical system and providing the power to start everything is only one of them. By nature batteries are capacitors and able to absorb voltage spikes that naturally occur in the electrical system. When a battery is disconnected those spikes are capable of damaging some electronics, namely body computers, radios, HVAC control modules (heating/air conditoning) and of course PCM's.
There was a Mazda towed to my shop this week for just such an issue. The owner had a friend come over to help him install a battery, so they did it with the car running and halfway through the car quit. It got towed to one shop, and after they spent some time they have decided to pass on the repair and now I have it. The PCM is reported to be dead and to be replaced the shop has to be able to program the new one, and then re-train the PATS system. Basically it's a Ford, and up until September the Ford IDS scan tool worked on both Ford and Mazda. Now they are seperate subscriptions and it costs double what it used to for us to be able to do this work. At this point it is not known if anything else has also failed. There is no communication with any of the vehicle modules.
You'll be there for hours watching all of the related video's. Seems everyone thinks that being an electrician is simple too.
I was impressed that, even on that old car (well, it didn't seem old to me at the time), the radio held all of its presets, and the clock kept its time. It was a quick, 5-10 minute job, as well.
Now, my 2000 Intrepid was a different story. I changed its battery as a precaution, when it was about 5 1/2 years old, because I was about to take a trip to Florida. Well, the battery on that car was mounted in the front right fender, low, right in front of the tire. You can see it from under the hood...barely. I've heard that you can get to it by pulling out the box that holds the air filter, but I had a feeling that I'd end up breaking something wrestling around with all that plastic.
So, I ended up jacking it up, taking off the wheel, taking off an access panel, and getting to it through there. Overall, it took me about two hours. I think I only made it spark once, and my knuckles and wrists weren't *too* bruised up.
I swore that I would either trade that car in before it needed another battery, or pay the mechanic to do it the next time! But, in a cruel twist of fate I didn't have to do either, because that car got totaled at the 10 year mark, with about 4 1/2 years on the "new" battery.
And, before I bought my 2000 Park Ave replacement, one of the first things I looked for was the location of the battery! :P Thankfully, it's easy to get to.
I wonder what the "book" rate is on replacing an Intrepid battery? I doubt that it's a two hour job....maybe one hour?
So, it sounds like that advice would apply to older cars as well? Even though they have less electronics, they're still going to have radios and HVAC controls (unless you go way back, or have some stripper Gremlin)
And don't worry, pulling batteries out of cars, new or old, while they're running isn't something I do on a regular basis. In fact, I can't remember the last time I did it. Or *why* I did it, for that matter.
.6, and that includes testing. Then when we (I) do it faster than that people often think they are being taken advantage of. It takes around fifteen minutes to replace that battery on average.
I'm sure you can find a youtube video that will tell you this is how you test to see if your alternator works or not. (If the car stalls it supposed to be "NOT")
Wow, that's not bad at all. Even if a labor rate was, say, $100/hr (I'm sure they're higher in some places), IMO $60 plus the cost of the battery would have been worth saving me the aggravation with having to change that Intrepid's battery myself.
If the alternator has failed, won't your lights also be dim? And, if your car has an actual gauge for the amps, wouldn't the needle gradually creep over toward the "D" side of the scale?
I think I've only had two alternators fail in all the cars I've had (might have been more, but I've had too many clunkers to count over the years, so I might forget a repair here and there). The last was in a 1968 Dart, back in 1996. And it did exactly what I described (dim lights and the amp gauge pointing steadily to "D"). I delivered pizzas back then, and one Friday night, as the evening progressed, the lights got dimmer and dimmer, the car got harder to start, and eventually it got too weak to start.
The other car was a 1980 Malibu, in 1987. It just had idiot lights, and the one for the voltage would come on when you first started the car, as it's supposed to to let you know that it works, but then it wouldn't completely go off, but rather glow very faintly. My Granddad, who was a mechanic (but more of an old-school one...that's what he did during WWII) said that, the alternator was going bad and that, essentially, it didn't have enough power to turn that light completely off. At least, that's the way he explained it.
It took me 15 minutes just to figure out where the battery was in my friend's Olds Intrigue down in Port Huron, including the Bing search.
After I found out what a hassle it was to replace (same fender well deal), I told her to have the shop do it.
After I found out what a hassle it was to replace (same fender well deal), I told her to have the shop do it.
So if it was easy, you would have done it and the moment it wasn't then she needed to go to a shop. That's pretty common today. That's basically "Death By One Thousand Cuts" for us. :sick:
Leaning over and lifting a battery out is a lot easier than taking the fender liner off and crawling around underneath.
The thousand cuts happen in a lot of professions. Lots of people get their initial medical advice from their pharmacist instead of their physician. People buy and sell houses without a Realtor all the time. People buy HR Block software and do their own taxes or use Quicken for their bookkeeping. Most people look to their builder for a new house and don't hire an architect. Sites like Flickr have hurt the income of a lot of professional photographers.