Something Everyone Should Read

[Fat Charlie]

Just like in any field, there are good and bad. It's easier to be bad than good, and two years of job experience doesn't have any bearing on it.

[mwebb]

Originally Posted by Soichiro

I do hope you realize that 2 years of on-the-job experience is required to get an AES certification, right?

ASE testing is a pretty good idea / concept and
i am in favor of it
but
there are cliff notes type preparation pamphlets available - many techs take the tests after studying the cliff notes - and squeak through the multiple guess questions -

this does not mean the test taker can actually fix broken cars ,
you can not really teach critical thinking and you can not get the needed experience
from a multiple guess test or a cliff notes pamphlet-

new systems and new tools are being released
always -
the learning never stops
it never ends
it does not slow down or take a rest
ever .
study and learn , or fade away .

[drmiller100]

From the inside.

Many customers lie. I cynic would start treating customers as the enemy after a while.

Most mechanic shops lie. I see it a LOT. Customers EXPECT mechanics to lie, so they treat all of us like crap.

Like the old lawyer joke goes - 99 percent of the lawyers and mechanics give the rest a bad reputation.

I'm an honest mechanic. I work on anything. I don't know everything. Sometimes it takes me a couple of times to figure things out.

Some customers don't care what it costs, they want it FIXED. Many of us money is important and precious, and patience is needed.

Time. Quality. Price.

Choose two.

Recommendations: :Stay away from chains and dealers. Dealers are getting BAD here locally. I can normally hard price things at half the dealer or chain price, and feel guilty, and make 75 an hour.

Ask for hard estimates when the repair is straight forward. I can ALWAYS give estimates, hard ones, and when surprises come up, cell phones work great to explain the situation and make a decision.

EXPECT to be offered the used parts taken off the car.

I am a professional. If you treat me like crap, it is a sign I'm not charging enough to be happy to see you.

[user removed]

Oh boy, what do you do when two dealers couldn't fix the problem, the same dealers that sold the car new.

Following all the factory service bulletins, you clean every ground connection and put three fuel pumps in the same car. Your friend who has just rebuilt the car is ready to tear it to pieces and use it for parts after he spent a considerable amount of time fixing it and the gentleman who bought it can't get it to start cold.

$5000 car torn apart for scrap or can you fix it?

Another one comes in your shop, the engine is liquid locked with gasoline, full of gas to the filler cap. Even with the key not in the ignition switch it empties the gas tank into the block and cylinders.
(leaking replacement windshield got water in the ecu and opened the injectors even with the key out of the switch, we put the ecu in a bag until he could get the glass properly sealed)

If you came into my shop with the "I don't believe you" attitude, you were invited to find another shop that could live up to your standards. I once called the cops to keep me from disassembling a full bird Colonel who told me I had wrecked his car and I was lying about everything I told him was wrong with the car, when his worthless KID who jump started the car backwards and fried the injectors and computer, and wrecked it, then pushed it to 40 MPH and dropped the clutch in 3rd gear trying to start the liquid locked engine and bent 3 connecting rods (60 PSI compression with no appreciable leak down).

The KID called me the next day and told me he had done it and apologised, but his worthless coward of a father didn't have the cohones to tell me he was sorry.

I'm not going to try to tell you how to tell an honest person from one who is dishonest, but most reputable shops are always busy and have a loyal clientelle, and every one of the shops in the small town where mine was were good honest people.

regards
Mech

[California98Civic]

Originally Posted by Old Mechanic

every one of the shops in the small town where mine was were good honest people.

regards
Mech

Mech, I wonder if you knew the shop I went to when I lived in Williamsburg. Between 1996 and 2004, I took my van and then this black Civic to an Amoco at Merrimac Trail and Penniman. Stock car racers out front. 60s or 70s era gas pumps. Liked that place and those mechanics a lot. I think they sold the place years ago.

[user removed]

Originally Posted by California98Civic

Mech, I wonder if you knew the shop I went to when I lived in Williamsburg. Between 1996 and 2004, I took my van and then this black Civic to an Amoco at Merrimac Trail and Penniman. Stock car racers out front. 60s or 70s era gas pumps. Liked that place and those mechanics a lot. I think they sold the place years ago.

That station is about 2 miles from my house. Could still be the same people there. I eat regularly at Tequila Rose, a restaurant a short distance east of Penniman, and get Chinese take out and Subway's from the shopping center just west of Penniman. I live just east of the 199 overpass next to Williamsburg Country Club a couple of miles east of the Penniman intersection.

On the corner you are talking about there is a school on the northwest corner, a gas station on both the south and northeast corners, and a new WaWa on the southwest corner, so it's possible that the station you are talking about could have been where the WaWa is now, but I would guess that the two existing stations were probably one of the ones you are referring to, probably the southeast one, since they still have the older 60S and 70s cars there most of the time.

regards
Mech

[user removed]

Recently there was a sting operation by some publication looking for unscrupulous mechanics. They took a Ford Taurus and disconnected the air flow sensor which put the car in a failsafe mode with a check engine light illuminated.

They drove into shops all across the country and recorded the responses they got from the various shops where they stopped for help.

Since the problem will absolutely never occur under any normal circumstances, many "Mechanics" spent some time figuring out what was wrong. Of course a code reading would point them in the general direction but the problem was sometines difficult for some to figure out, which could be attributed to the fact they had never seen it before, or becasue they were just not that good at diagnostics.

About 25% of the techs who looked at the car.
Fixed it for free in less than two minutes.

That doesn't pay their bills people.

Show me a doctor that would do that, or any other business on the planet, for a person they have never seen before in their life. Most of those who did it for free knew that the whole situation had been created, and smelled a rat.

regards
Mech

[California98Civic]

Originally Posted by Old Mechanic

That station is about 2 miles from my house. Could still be the same people there. I eat regularly at Tequila Rose, a restaurant a short distance east of Penniman, and get Chinese take out and Subway's from the shopping center just west of Penniman. I live just east of the 199 overpass next to Williamsburg Country Club a couple of miles east of the Penniman intersection.

On the corner you are talking about there is a school on the northwest corner, a gas station on both the south and northeast corners, and a new WaWa on the southwest corner, so it's possible that the station you are talking about could have been where the WaWa is now, but I would guess that the two existing stations were probably one of the ones you are referring to, probably the southeast one, since they still have the older 60S and 70s cars there most of the time.

regards
Mech

Glad to hear they're maybe still running the place. I remember on a visit I noticed the station had changed to BP or something. Maybe somebody told me something, maybe I assumed. Don't recall anymore. I lived a block away, on Jackson Drive, across from that school on Penniman.

[user removed]

Very few Amoco stations here anymore. They closed the refinery in York County (Amoco), probably sold off any franchises about the same time. I have probably driven past your house Cal Civic. I ride my 1971 Honda bike around there on occasion just to keep it running good. It's on antique plates with a 1971 Va 4 digit original license plate that was never issued until I bought it for the same year bike.

Oh yes that's some great mileage your are getting in your car. Drove to the Outer Banks this weekend. Put 320 miles on the Fiesta on 6.75 gallons of Wally World el cheapo regular at $3.409 a gallon. $23.18 in fuel.

regards
Mech

[user removed]

Originally Posted by drmiller100

From the inside.

Many customers lie. I cynic would start treating customers as the enemy after a while.

Most mechanic shops lie. I see it a LOT. Customers EXPECT mechanics to lie, so they treat all of us like crap.

Like the old lawyer joke goes - 99 percent of the lawyers and mechanics give the rest a bad reputation.

I'm an honest mechanic. I work on anything. I don't know everything. Sometimes it takes me a couple of times to figure things out.

Some customers don't care what it costs, they want it FIXED. Many of us money is important and precious, and patience is needed.

Time. Quality. Price.

Choose two.

Recommendations: :Stay away from chains and dealers. Dealers are getting BAD here locally. I can normally hard price things at half the dealer or chain price, and feel guilty, and make 75 an hour.

Ask for hard estimates when the repair is straight forward. I can ALWAYS give estimates, hard ones, and when surprises come up, cell phones work great to explain the situation and make a decision.

EXPECT to be offered the used parts taken off the car.

I am a professional. If you treat me like crap, it is a sign I'm not charging enough to be happy to see you.

Miller, I had the luxury of working on a single model line, mostly Nissan Z cars as well as other Nissans. Makes diagnostics about 100 times easier when you have been there 100 times before. Low fuel level and brake warning lights on, you have a bad alternator, after test plugging in a single relay. Total diagnostice time 45 seconds.

No charge for the diagnostics as long as you let me replace the alternator for .5 hour on the early ones and 1 hour on the later ones, all work guaranteed for a year regardless of the mileage.

Had a guy come in with a dead replacement we had installed. He jump started another car with his engine revved up and melted the power wire about 2 inches from the alternator. I stripped the ends and put a butt connector where the wire was fried and everything was working OK, but I told him he just used up his warranty, but did not charge him for the diagnostics or repair. I think he still had that Nissan factory rebuilt alternator several years later. Anything else would have not survived that abuse.

regards
Mech