A Mechanic's Life - Tales From Under the Hood

Mr_Shiftright

Well then luckily Doc has one of those wrench to cope with the massive influx of Citroen SMs that come into his shop every week. :P

isellhondas

Yeah, he probably knows how to fix the air ride suspension on Citreons too!

stickguy

It looked pretty easy when Ed China did it on Wheeler Dealers.

thecardoc3

What's a Citreon? :P

thecardoc3

Lots of things look easy. I can make repairing air suspension systems on Lincolns look easy, but that doesn't mean that it is.

roadburner

In my opinion, the Citroen suspension is much like a Q-jet carburetor in that they both differ in significant ways from their conventional counterparts. However, repairing and maintaining either one isn't so bad once you understand how and why they are designed and how and why they function the way they do.

Mr_Shiftright

True enough...I find the same is true say of SU carburetors. Once you know how to do them, they are pretty straightforward. With the Citroen, much of the battle is not the car itself but a) sourcing parts and b) getting the customer to pay for the repair.

roadburner

Exactly; another carburetor that got a bad rap was the 2V Zenith found on the early BMW sixes. Again, they were quite complex- especially compared to the 32/36 downdraft Webers that usually replaced them. Rebuild kits were expensive and no one wanted to spend the time learning how in any event.

zaken1

The problem with Citroen suspensions is not only the differences between their design and other company's designs; but it is also their sometimes bizarre choice of materials. I was told by owners that they used household grade garden hose in their hydraulic suspension.

thecardoc3

Early last week we had a van come in to us sent by one of the parts chains. It was supposedly setting a misfire code for cylinder #2, the owner replaced the plugs and wires but the misfire was still occurring. Driving the vehicle with the scan tool connected and monitoring live misfire data the missfiring present was on cylinder #5. Historical misfire data showed 14,000 misfires were on cyl #2 and 6000 were on #5 which are both driven by the same coil pack. When opening the hood to start testing the new wires were visible, to the front three cylinders but the rear three were still older. #5 is on the rear bank, rear (lh) of the engine. Reaching around and removing the wire and testing for spark, there was none. Substituting a test wire restored spark. Since he has his other three wires and plugs he will repair the car himself.

Friday. A used car dealer calls, they have a 2006 Cobalt that won't start. When it was sold everything was fine, three days later it wouldn't start so it got towed back. They put plugs in it, and it was fine, then the next day, it wouldn't start again. They reported once they got it going it would be fine all day but getting it started was difficult. They had sent it to a shop near them and they couldn't find anything wrong with it.

Testing was straight forward, there were no engine performance codes or security system issues. Fuel pressure was good, and IAT, ECT were within range. The engine would occasionally "pop" during cranking which indicates some fuel and spark at times, but would otherwise simply crank. Removing the ignition cassette and testing for spark, proved that we had good spark. The engine was clearly displaying signs that it was flooded. Pulled the plugs and they were infact soaked. But it wan't fuel, it was water. Taking a fuel sample with the pressure gage water was found in the fuel, not a lot but some. Clearing the liquid from the cylinders and installing the correct spark plugs the engine started easily. But it was clear we weren't at the final answer quite yet. Checking the coolant level revealed it to be very low, and the pressure in the system was quite high for an engine that had not warmed up yet. A few more checks and sure enough, the head gasket is seeping and that is what is fouling the plugs. They will have their regular shop fix it.

Saturday. Customer calls and wants a price to reprogram the computer on a 1999 Chevrolet truck. We have been reccomended by someone else, well that's nice anyway. One of the questions that must be asked is why does he feel the computer needs re-programmed? His answer is that the truck keeps setting a code for "the crank sensor" and they can't get the truck to pass the emissions test because four of the monitors won't complete. After talking with him a few minutes he doesn't need a computer, he needs this thing diagnosed and repaired. Certain codes will prevent specific tests from running, which can explain monitors not completing. Towards the end of the conversation he tells me they have had three friends "who used to be mechanics" trying to help them with this and two shops known to me to be the bottom of the barrel cheap (aka no-schools, no tools, cheap prices) who have been throwing parts at it. Meanwhile he is angry with his daughter for buying it, and upset with the guy that sold it to her. But once he finally has this inspected, then he will have to figure out why the heater doesn't work. FWIW, low engine temperature say from a stuck open thermostat will also block specific monitors from running. :sick:

An hour later the phone rings again. This time the vehicle is a 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee. The owner reports that the vehicle is "skipping", and that a mechanic has been working on it but can't figure it out. Well he doesn't work at a shop, he works out of his garage so he's not a real mechanic he just pretends to be one on the weekends. She has paid him more than $1000 to buy parts since July to try and repair her car and now she's broke. Someone reccomended us, well that's nice, :sick: So she wants him to talk to me and tries to make a three way call work, but he's not availalble. All I need to kow is what is the car doing right now and I'll go find the problem. Telling me a lot of what has already been done is actually wasted time, sort of like three of the other stories here. Just because someone say's that they did something doesn't mean that what they did can not be the problem anymore.

She calls back 1/2 an hour later and explains that everything is set and the car is on it's way. Four O'clock that afternoon the car isn't at the shop yet so we call her and inquire. Oh he' says that the car is "skipping" and he can't drive it there. Where is it I ask, I have a flat bed and I can pick it up.

It's in Ohio she explains, some sixty miles away. Do I have AAA she asks? No I don't .
Well she has AAA Plus and she will have them tow it to me.

OK we'll see. One of the two no-tools, no-schools shops I mentioned earlier does almost all of the AAA work around here and they are known for hi-jacking tow-ins. The tow itself doesn't pay enough when your doing it for AAA, getting the repairs subsidizes the towing, so I can't blame them for that. Maybe they can fix it, and maybe two weeks from now my phone will ring once again.....

Mr_Shiftright

Well this nasty business won't change until mechanics are licensed by the state, like contractors. Once again, industry "self-policing" is a big flop.

As far as I know, what would prevent a 12 year old from having his Dad rent a shop for him and opening up "Billy's Brake Repair"?

thecardoc3

As far as I know, what would prevent a 12 year old from having his Dad rent a shop for him and opening up "Billy's Brake Repair"?

Prevent it? Wouldn't it be news and he get raised up on a pedestal?

isellhondas

I really fear the future as guys like cardoc finally reach the end of their rope and quit.

Who will ever replace them? I know several veteran mechanics who are either retired or close to it and they do whatever they can to talk young guys out of the business.

In my garage te other day I found a 1972 Motor's Repair Manual. Anyone remember those? They used to come out with a new book every year and the books would cover everything from the latest model to cars about 15 years old.

I'll bet they haven't printed these in many years! Who can work on their wn cars today? How can Sears sell tool sets anymore?

andre1969

In my garage te other day I found a 1972 Motot's Repair Manual. Any remember those? They used to come out with a new book every year and the books would cover everything from the latest model to cars about 15 years old.

My Granddad used to get those, and has most of the years from 1960 (which goes back to 1953) on up through 1976. He never got a 1977, because with downsizing and all the emissions and computer crap that was starting to creep into cars, they were just getting too annoying for him to work on.

Those books are great when it comes to torque specs and all sorts of other data, they're definitely NOT a how-to guide for dummies! Repairs are often listed as "remove engine from car" "rebuild engine", "re-install engine into car"...okay, so that's over-simplifying a bit, but you get the idea.

isellhondas

No, these weren't for dummies and I remember getting too scared to attempt a repair myself after reading the required procedure.

A guy named John Muir put out an excellent book on repairing VW's. I think it was called " How to keep your Volkswagen Alive" and it really helped us
work on our VW's. It assumed you were broke, had few tools and it told us how to jerry rig things if necessary. Great illustrations too.

stever

I learned to adjust my Bug's valves every 3,000 miles with that book.

My feeling is that it's gotta go modular. The built in code system will tell you that some component is bad and that you'll need to swap it with a new one, and return the old one for a core charge credit.

Hopefully the components will be a bit smaller and cheaper than "engine, transmission, platform", but the days of replacing a starter bendix instead of the entire starter may be dying, if they aren't gone already.

Back in the Bug days, you really could drop the engine and fit a new one in pretty fast (or so I always heard).

Mr_Shiftright

John Muir's book was great, but he was a bit of a luddite.

isellhondas

Yes, he certainly was but he managed to take the fear out of doing a job.

And he did manage to sell a lot of books.

Can you imagine someone writing a book today?

fezo

In the early days when a Honda Accord was considered something of an odd car he put out a book that did the same thing for Accords. Somewhere in the house my copy likely still exists.

srs_49

My feeling is that it's gotta go modular. The built in code system will tell you that some component is bad and that you'll need to swap it with a new one, and return the old one for a core charge credit.

At least two things have to happen for that to become a reality, IMM.

First, the OBD system has got to be good enough to identify the faulty module to say a 90% confidence level. None of this, replace A; if that doesn't work, replace B; if that doesn't fix it, try C.

Second, the price of the modules has got to better reflect the cost to produce them. What do ECU's go for today? $500, $700, $1,000??? I don't believe there's any way the parts, assembly, and test time for those things adds up to anywhere near those numbers. Even after you add on profit, handling, and shipping.

Mr_Shiftright

No you can't write a John Muir book today, since he was dealing with 1930s technology, and we've come a long way since then.

isellhondas

Yep, but that 1930's technology always seemed to get me where I was going.

I shudder to think I used to drive the freeways of So. California in my dad's old VW bug. All 40 HP. No airbags, no crumple zones, a flimsy lap belt. Ten gallons of gas in my lap.

No power anything. An AM radio and a heater (?) that took 20 minutes before anything lukewarm came out.

I miss that crude, primitive little car.

srs_49

Did you have one with the fuel gauge, or did you have the little reserve tank with the handle?

isellhondas

My dad's (later mine) VW was a 1962. That was thr first year for a gas guage.

The earlier ones had a lever on the floor that switched you to reserve PROVIDING you had remembered to turn it back when you got gas!

Trust me....I know ALL about that one.

fezo

A friend of mine had one of those pre-gas gauge VWs and shared it with a few siblings. You could run out (forgetting the reserve tank was easy) or, as happened more than once decide you didn't trust your siblings and go straight to the gas station and end up buying a dime's worth of gas to fill it.

thecardoc3

In my garage te other day I found a 1972 Motor's Repair Manual. Anyone remember those? They used to come out with a new book every year and the books would cover everything from the latest model to cars about 15 years old.

Yep, still got them and they cover from 1954 though 1976. Then I have a set of Mitchells that go from 82-96. After that it's all electronic so all we do is rent them to the tune of $180 a month.....

thecardoc3

My feeling is that it's gotta go modular. The built in code system will tell you that some component is bad and that you'll need to swap it with a new one, and return the old one for a core charge credit.

When you really understand just what it would take to have a self diagnosing car you'd want anything but that in your garage. Computers cannot diagnose a circuit beyond the computers connector. All the computer can tell is:

If the voltage on pin #1 should be high under a given circumstance, and it isn't then there is a problem with the circuit and it then generates a code.

To actually test the circuit for the failure, the computer would need to be able to measure voltages and current in a number of places along it, exactly as a technician must do. That means miles and miles more wire that are only there for it to run tests, and a greatly expanded computer to run those tests.

Hopefully the components will be a bit smaller and cheaper than "engine, transmission, platform", but the days of replacing a starter bendix instead of the entire starter may be dying, if they aren't gone already.

I remember those days, and still do starter drives (bendix) when I think it's appropriate. Do you know why those days are going away? It takes a less experienced technician (read that as cheaper labor and benefits) to replace a whole starter than it does to tear one apart and properlly repair it. Just throwing a bendix in one leaves the shop open to complaints like, "What do you mean my starter is bad, you just rebuilt it nine months ago?"
Except that it wasn't "rebuilt" it only got the bendix that it needed then but consumer pressure to be perfect and gurantee the rest of the assembly makes it a poor choice to try and do the repair. Oh, and they probably expect the shop to pay for the towing too.

Back in the Bug days, you really could drop the engine and fit a new one in pretty fast (or so I always heard).

VW Beetle? Out on the floor, replace the clutch and back in driving, just over one hour, consistently.

stever

The computer can find a bad circuit board though and you just replace that. Patents for stuff like "computer assisted fault isolation" have been around at least since the 80s; it's no fluke. (Well, at least one is a Fluke :shades: ).

Unlike starters, people rarely rebuild boards. Although I've done resistors on a dead monitor, it's not cost effective, any more than it makes sense to fix a $12 mixer or $49 DVD player that goes flaky.

thecardoc3

Stimulus pattern signals are applied to the circuit, and responses at the circuit nodes are made by a measurement probe under the hand of the technician

The computer is programmed to expedite the search for the source of the failure by displaying to the technician clues which define the circuit nodes most apt to be defective

They are talking about nodes on a circuit board and it doesn't make a good analog for what it will take for a vehicle diagnostic routine. Even so the have to do exactly what I described. They have to place additional circuits on the board to have another microprocessor monitor. In a vehicle that would result in a few miles of wires in addition to what the cars already have. In practice the more circuits you add to a car, the more likely one will fail. You could have MILs that would come on because of a diagnostic circuit fault when the rest of the car is working just fine, in otherwords the addition of the additional diagnostic system would directly result in more vehicle failures and would not make the job easier.

stever

It's not a stretch to have the computer program do what was assumed the tech would do back in '85 when the guy got the patent.

There's probably a few miles of wire tracings in my fingernail sized memory stick, not to mention wireless sensors and all kinds of other fun stuff that's available as alternatives to reels of bell wire. And circuit boards are robust, or can be for not much expense. And you can even make the circuit traces self-healing if they do break.

Mr_Shiftright

Sure, old tech works just fine if you're willing to live with the shortcomings, just as no heat, no defrost, no brakes and a new engine every 40,000 miles or so. But in a mild climate, an old VW will do just about anything a new car will do---slower and more dangerously, but nonetheless.....

A mechanic who died in 1915 could be resurrected to work on American cars up to the early 1970s with very little additional training---a couple day's worth.

But a mechanic who died in 1966 would need to go to college to learn how to work on a 2012 car.

andre1969

But a mechanic who died in 1966 would need to go to college to learn how to work on a 2012 car.

I dunno about that. With my 2000 Intrepid, everything that ever broke on it, I have a feeling my Grandfather would have been able to fix if he was still alive. The only thing that was really hi-tech about it that failed was the camshaft position sensor (or crankshaft...both were replaced at the same time as a precaution), and honestly, I had to tell the mechanic to check into that, after getting advice here on Edmunds (I think it was the member 0patience who suggested those sensors). The mechanic was reluctant to replace them, because he said that there were no error codes in the computer for them. But, after he replaced them, the car never acted up again.

But other stuff that needed replacing, like the a/c compressor, stuff in the suspension, transmission cooling lines, etc, I'm sure hasn't changed all that much.

If it needed a new transmission, I'm sure my Granddad wouldn't have been able to rebuild it, but then, neither would the mechanic. He'd either put in a rebuilt unit, or send it to a transmission specialist. And yeah, there's still a lot of stuff my Granddad couldn't do to a modern car. But, there's still a lot he could. And yeah, there's a difference between a 2000 car and a 2012, but it's not *that* huge. The big technology jumps were made mainly in the 80's, with increased use of OHC, fuel injection, computers, FWD, transmissions with more gears, etc.

If anything, a lot of today's mechanics would need to take specialized courses to work on the older cars. Heck, one day years ago, I remember a mechanic couldn't figure out how to get the back tires off my '68 Dart! Because of the low-cut wheel opening, you had to raise the car by the subframe rather than the rear-end, so that the rear-end could hang down. Otherwise, there wasn't enough clearance to get the wheel off.

Oh, and try explaining a left-hand thread to some of today's mechanics. One time, I had the car in (Okay, it was NTB, so maybe calling them "mechanics" is a stretch :P ) and I even told the guy that some of the lugs had a left-hand thread, so that meant you have to reverse your air wrench and take them off like you were putting them on. He comes back to me a couple minutes later and says "I can't get your lug nuts off, they're on too tight". I asked him if he reversed his air wrench and he said "no".

And, one of my favorite lines, from the manager of a Firestone shop (so again, maybe we shouldn't call them "mechanics") was "Look, we don't have the time to memorize the oil weight requirements of EVERY car that comes in here!" :surprise:

fezo

Years ago I had the local "mechanic" take off my snow tires and put back the regular tires. He did the job. This was my 69 Volvo. Later for some reason a tire had to be attended to. Another guy was doing the work and starts asking about things. Turned out the first guy didn't just put back on the same nuts that he'd taken off. He put standard nuts in the metric lugs. Had to retap the lugs. :sick:

thecardoc3

Turned out the first guy didn't just put back on the same nuts that he'd taken off. He put standard nuts in the metric lugs. Had to retap the lugs.

These kinds of stories just kill me. The word "Implausible" comes to mind. Experience is required to understand why.......

andre1969

I had a vaguely similar incident last year with my '85 Silverado. I had to get some new lugnuts for it, the chrome acorn type. Well, I went to put the first one on, and it felt like it almost grabbed, but then kept spinning, like it was stripping. No way it could've stripped that easy, I thought.

So, I took the lug nuts back. Turns out the guy at the parts counter had accidentally typed in "1989" instead of "1985" for the year. And by that time, Chevy had gone to a slightly different size. Whereas the '85 took a size called a "half-twenty", I think the '89 was something like "9/16-twenty"?

thecardoc3

There's probably a few miles of wire tracings in my fingernail sized memory stick

Good luck getting any of them to carry .4Amps, to 2 Amps of current at some 14v.

No matter how hard you try here Steve, it all results in over-complicating the system. Commercial Jet Aircraft are manufactured with a lot of self diagnostic redundancy. If you get a trouble code on one of them that suggests a $150,000 pump isn't working right they don't blink before they simply replace it. If that doesn't fix the problem they replace the $500,000 controller for the pump. They only perform real troubleshooting when all else fails, and then it's a team of people who go to work on the problem.

Mr_Shiftright

"I have a feeling my Grandfather would have been able to fix if he was still alive."

Well perhaps not two years of college, but gramps would not have a clue about computers and how they work if he had passed away in 1966. Nor anything about overhead camshafts most likely (or little practical experience here in the USA), nor electric steering, ABS systems, air bags, multiplex wiring and 7 speed automatic transmissions, CVTs, manu-matics, etc.

stever

No matter how hard you try here Steve, it all results in over-complicating the system.

That's still simpler than trying to find a competent mechanic with the tools, skills, training and ability to work on your car. Not to mention being able to afford such a mechanic.

thecardoc3

That's still simpler than trying to find a competent mechanic with the tools, skills, training and ability to work on your car. Not to mention being able to afford such a mechanic.

No matter how hard everybody keeps trying to get rid of mechanics/technicians as long as there are cars, your going to need them and they will need to have the skills required to make the repairs to your car from time to time.

Dealers have been as guilty as anyone when it comes to properly supporting the repair trade. I posted about the three techs walking out of a dealer last week and that simple report here failed to earn any responses. The dealership mentioned is rebuilding the showroom. They have increased the stores labor rate a number of times during the last ten years, and the techs have only been seeing labor times cut, and cut, and cut. That dealer lost their top three talented techs in a single day and now only has the three junior techs remaining. Back in the days of the grand-pa's mentioned earlier just about anyone could be a mechanic. The career could be learned on the job, in about five to ten years. One could be reasonably competent at it in six months to a year just through repetition.

That dealer is getting to find out first hand just what the prolonged abuse of the people in the trade has wrought. Many stores who post help wanted adds today report that if they get any applications at all, the don't get any from people who are qualified to fill the position(s). That dealer can't effectively replace one tech, let alone three which was half of the shop.

BTW I often wonder just what Edmund's association with dealers truly is and this is as good of a time as any to finally ask that question.

If we bothered to count what is the percentage of stories that support technicians and accurately describe just how hard they really have to work as compared to the number of stories that are simply about taking shots at them, deservedly or not? Do you recall why I ever bothered to visit here in the first place? It was because of an employee of Edmunds taking part in a TV report. The report had some information correct but failed to explain why these things were occurring. Later the TV network posted a follow-up to try and make things better for the dealers they hurt (no doubt they wanted some advertising money back) and in the end almost nothing actually changed other than some peoples jobs. (allegedly)

The TV station told a story that by now most have forgotten. Technicians guilty of doing something wrong lost their jobs, ( for which they might easily be better off now) while technicians not guilty got to be treated like they were, once again. The trade took a hit while the dealers got off the hook with the TV networks blessing.

When are you the consumer going to finally step back, take a good look at the whole picture and realize just how much that is all costing you? Steve said it's hard to find good techs, what you should be wondering is why you deserve to have any to find at all.

stever

Edmund's association with dealers truly is

Bit of a love/hate one I'd say since we started out to enable consumers. Dealers who are in it just to pad their profits hate the Confessions Series. Most love the quality of the leads that they get when people use the quote service.

Lots of dealers are unhappy with manufacturer pressure to rebuild showrooms btw. Not a lot of evidence that the investment translates to more sales or more profit. (Detroit News)

Got a new profit model for you - sell your skills on YouTube. If that WSJ link doesn't work, it's a story about good teachers making good money loading instructional videos on the net and then selling one-on-one instruction on-line.

srs_49

Big difference.

That 200 passenger jet is not producing any revenues while it's on the ground or in the repair hangar. So the push is to get the plane back into the air ASAP.

But those $150K pumps or $500K controllers are not thrown away. They are returned to a depot or the manufacturer for troubleshooting and repair.

thecardoc3

Big difference.

Yea, in their "repair shops" doing work like that isn't considered a rip-off.


But those $150K pumps or $500K controllers are not thrown away. They are returned to a depot or the manufacturer for troubleshooting and repair

So are you saying that the automotive repair world doesn't used reconditioned components?

Would you be happy having your car serviced the same way that aircraft are approached?

srs_49

So are you saying that the automotive repair world doesn't used reconditioned components?

No, didn't say that. But the automotive world (and most consumer products) work on a different business model than commercial airlines.

Would you be happy having your car serviced the same way that aircraft are approached?

Sure, I think I would be happy, but don't think I could afford it. Like I said, it's a different business model.

And to some extent, my vehicles DO get that kind of attention. See. I design airborn radar and satellite systems. There is a lot of attention, detail, and discipline that goes into building a system that will work and survive in the rigors of space for five ten, fifteen, or more years. So I like to think that, at least to some extent, I bring that same level of detail and attention to the repairs I do on my own vehicles. Since I have "extra" cars I can drive, it's not a problem for me to tie a vehicle up in the garage for a week or two to work on a problem. I am not trying to make a repair at the flat rate or less.

thecardoc3

So I like to think that, at least to some extent, I bring that same level of detail and attention to the repairs I do on my own vehicles.

Thinking that and having it be reality are not the same. I posted about the dealership that lost three technicians and the fact that when trying to fill technician positions today most shops don't get any qualified responses. With everything you can do, you would not be a qualified candidate. If given a chance to try and become a technician you would not live up to your own consumer expectations. That's not meant to be derrogatory, that's just how high the demands and expectations really are.

Mr_Shiftright

Oh I think he could make the grade. You don't have to be a certified genius to fix a car (or a plane)---you just have to be smart, be willing to learn and have excellent work habits. You don't need 2 years of computer programming to use a scanner, nor do you have to know how a scanner even works. You have to know how to read it and what the information means.

The reason there may be a shortage of qualified technicians is not because there's a shortage of people smart enough---it's because they don't want to do that kind of work for that kind of money.

thecardoc3

Oh I think he could make the grade. You don't have to be a certified genius to fix a car (or a plane)---you just have to be smart, be willing to learn and have excellent work habits.

Yea, he probably could make for an excellent candidate, he might even cruise right through the unoffical apprentice phase of becoming a technician. But if you simply stuck him out on the flat rate floor with the typical swim or sink strategy the odds are greatly in favor of failure. It would take him five years to be competent, and still fifteen to twenty to replace a current master technician.

The reason there may be a shortage of qualified technicians is not because there's a shortage of people smart enough---it's because they don't want to do that kind of work for that kind of money.

I wonder how many readers are going to really grasp just what you said here. It's spot on.

srs_49

But if you simply stuck him out on the flat rate floor with the typical swim or sink strategy the odds are greatly in favor of failure. It would take him five years to be competent, and still fifteen to twenty to replace a current master technician

You and Shifty are both right, at least in my case. I can take my time and work at my own pace because I'm not trying to do auto repairs for a living. I can take an afternoon to replace pads, check rotors, etc on the front of a car, taking a break to have a cold one or even go off and putt around on something else. But I would go broke if I tried to do that for living. My hourly compensation would probably come out to be 5$/hour or less.

Same thing is true for things I do around the house. I can hang drywall, put in a central AC system (including duct work), redo a kitchen, etc. But I could never do that stuff for a living and make any money.

stever

Doing that sort of stuff is (usually) fun and besides the cost savings, gives people a lot of satisfaction.

And you can find out how to do all those jobs simply by reading the net. Back in the day, you'd go track down a Popular Mechanics or Fine Homebuilding magazine or check out a library book.

isellhondas

That is exactly right! They just don't want to do that kind of work for the money. They listen to the disgruntled veterans and they decide to do something else.

Three good techs walked out of a dealership last week. Nothing new there. They simply made a decision to work elsewhere or do something different.

I can tell you that I would do my best to talk a would be mechanic/technician out of starting a career working on cars and that is a very sad thing.

I'm afraid that most of the guys in the business would dispense the same advice.

Mr_Shiftright

The only techs that I know that seem pretty happy are those working in independent shops on specialty foreign makes. (I have friends who own shops that work on Porsche, Rolls Bentley and Ferrari) But if you work at a dealership, or work for, or own, one of those "come one, come all" type of shops, well----it can be a grind.