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A Mechanic's Life - Tales From Under the Hood

2934 messages,  Last post on May 24, 2013 at 8:10 AM

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Messages Page 76 of 294

#748 of 2934 Re: He listened to the do not change your oil stories. [thecardoc3] by fezo

Jan 05, 2013 (12:43 pm)

Replying to: thecardoc3 (Jan 05, 2013 11:27 am)
I know I'll hate myself for asking, but did you ever hear again from the guy who took the $200 he owed you because he needed it to register the car?
 
I know - silly to ask.

#749 of 2934 Re: He listened to the do not change your oil stories. [thecardoc3] by steve_ HOST

Jan 05, 2013 (12:55 pm)

Replying to: thecardoc3 (Jan 05, 2013 8:49 am)
Seems to me that you could have disconnected the remote start back on Jan. 3 and told the owner to do a "come-back" if that didn't fix it. You did it the "right" way, had the SUV on your lot for 3 days and spent a bunch of hours, some likely unbillable, to diagnose every last thing.
 
Meanwhile a poor slob like me could have "fixed" it in ten minutes, been right 80% of the time, and have been a hero.
 
There's a lot of variations on the fix it "fast, good or cheap" method. Pick any two.

#750 of 2934 Re: He listened to the do not change your oil stories. [fezo] by thecardoc3

Jan 05, 2013 (1:12 pm)

Replying to: fezo (Jan 05, 2013 12:43 pm)
I don't even recall what you are referring to.

#751 of 2934 Re: He listened to the do not change your oil stories. [thecardoc3] by steve_ HOST

Jan 05, 2013 (1:34 pm)

Replying to: thecardoc3 (Jan 05, 2013 1:12 pm)
Fezo is talking about the guy who couldn't pass IM and didn't have enough gas in the tank for you to even properly test his car.

#752 of 2934 Re: He listened to the do not change your oil stories. [steve_] by thecardoc3

Jan 05, 2013 (1:25 pm)

Replying to: steve_ (Jan 05, 2013 12:55 pm)
Seems to me that you could have disconnected the remote start back on Jan. 3 and told the owner to do a "come-back" if that didn't fix it.
 
That of course say's that you have no idea how to test and prove what was wrong and why you shouldn't be touching the guys car nor giving him advice.
 
You did it the "right" way, had the SUV on your lot for 3 days and spent a bunch of hours, some likely unbillable, to diagnose every last thing.
 
If you take the time to read it, you'll see that it wasn't "diagnose every last thing" it was a direct patient approach that went straight at the problem. Part of the intention of this whole thread is to expose what amounts to pressure to take an unprofessional approach which does lead to consumer dissastisfaction more often than not.
  
What you seem to fail to realize is that in practice, you'd fail so often that you wouldn't be able to hold a job as a technician/mechanic by trying to rely on you disconnect it and see if it fixes it's approach. Part of what you are failing to recognize is that there was no guesswork applied to this repair, and there didn't need to be. This was a straight in and straight back out approach and we did in fact bill all of the time allotted towards this car. 2.5hrs.
 
Meanwhile a poor slob like me could have "fixed" it in ten minutes, been right 80% of the time, and have been a hero
 
Actually, you likely would have only succeeded in ping-ponging the guy when the accessory store had proof that you had guessed like this in the past and been wrong.

#753 of 2934 Re: He listened to the do not change your oil stories. [steve_] by thecardoc3

Jan 05, 2013 (1:27 pm)

Replying to: steve_ (Jan 05, 2013 1:34 pm)
Ahh, got you. When he said $200 he lost me. It wasn't that much and the other shop sent us a check and made good on the job.

#754 of 2934 Re: He listened to the do not change your oil stories. [thecardoc3] by fezo

Jan 05, 2013 (1:31 pm)

Replying to: thecardoc3 (Jan 05, 2013 1:27 pm)
Oh, happy to hear it! I was going to try and locate the post but couldn't find it.

#755 of 2934 Re: He listened to the do not change your oil stories. [thecardoc3] by steve_ HOST

Jan 05, 2013 (1:33 pm)

Replying to: thecardoc3 (Jan 05, 2013 1:25 pm)
succeeded in ping-ponging the guy
 
That sounds exactly like what your competitors are doing to you. They crank out the easy work, make a lot of money, and save the hard stuff for you when they screw up and need bailing out. And I bet most of their customers are just as happy with them as yours are with you.
 
Nice to hear you didn't take it in the shorts with the empty gas tank guy. Would have guessed otherwise.
 
I know you have a life out there and classes to prep for, but these problems you present are a lot of fun. We want more when you have time!

#756 of 2934 Re: He listened to the do not change your oil stories. [steve_] by thecardoc3

Jan 06, 2013 (4:00 am)

Replying to: steve_ (Jan 05, 2013 1:33 pm)
That sounds exactly like what your competitors are doing to you. They crank out the easy work, make a lot of money, and save the hard stuff for you when they screw up and need bailing out.
 
Think about that for a while. Virtually all of the advice that consumers ever get seems to fall under the catagories of, (1) Try to get the manufacturer to warranty it, (2) Call around for the cheapest price, (3) Google it and try to do it yourself
 
You never see anyone explain to the consumers that a shop will need to approach the problem their car is displaying like a detective, with a solid background in electronics, and with tens of thousands in equipment. The troubling part is this isn't new, it's been evolving for close to the last two decades but it is never explained to the consumers. The only fair explanation for that is the people who write and call themselves experts simply don't know what it really takes to do this work. Technicians like me have forged our way to where we are today in spite of the efforts of many of those writers.
 
And I bet most of their customers are just as happy with them as yours are with you.
 
Most of the time they are, and they should be. The problem however is there is no reward out there for them to turn it up and start getting more training, and start buying the O.E. tools. (remember the R2R issue). For them to start spending that money, they would have to charge more and with no information making it to the public as to why they go from being the good guy to someone with questionable motives. It would be like their prices suddenly stopped being "fair".
 
When people shop our prices, which you can see are cheap by the national averages, we lose the easier work. There is always someone who is going to be cheaper no matter how low you try to go. But today cheaper means a glass ceiling on capability, and you never know exactly where that ceiling is at. Inside the trade the top gun techs have been trying to raise the bar and get our peers to see why they need to invest more in themselves and their equipment. Your guess to simply disable the aftermarket system, with no testing or logical confirmation other than to add yet another few weeks for the customer to be in limbo reflects a dead end approach as a career technician. The technology in the automotive world keeps evolving and so the demands on technician competency are skyrocketing at an ever increasing pace. Techs need to learn how to analyze a system problem and create a sound diagnostic routine to solve it, and there has to be a reward for them to make that effort.
 
For us the situation can be summed up like this, "We shouldn't have to apologize for working harder and investing more than the next guy, and still needing to earn a living."

#757 of 2934 Re: He listened to the do not change your oil stories. [steve_] by thecardoc3

Jan 06, 2013 (6:45 am)

Replying to: steve_ (Jan 05, 2013 12:55 pm)
Meanwhile a poor slob like me could have "fixed" it in ten minutes, been right 80% of the time, and have been a hero.
 
What do hero's eat for lunch?
 
The idea that being a hero 80% of the time would make you successful is terribly flawed. First to be "the hero" you described, if you are to live up to some of your own expectations you'd have to provide "the service" for free. So maybe on that one day to that one customer that a blind guess worked for, you came through. That however doesn't instantly turn them into a loyal customer. In fact as you alluded in another response, they are likely still happy with their original shop. On top of that now there is the idea that they owe you something that you deserve to collect on the next time that they need you. That it turns out typically discourages the customer from coming back. What's worse, you play the hero to customer #1 who refers custmomer#2 to you, only this time you try and charge correctly and they walk away thinking they weren't treated fairly and go back and tell customer #1 how you treated them even of you again guessed correctly.
 
While all of this is going on, what about the 20% that your guessing failed to help? They have the loudest voice and will collectively use their voices to announce your incompetence to the world. When the car reveals that it wasn't fixed, they will quickly forget that it was a trial. They only know that you failed to solve it the first time. By not actually being in a business like this you don't have to deal with the results of the failures and so you haven't needed to make changes to try and eliminate them as much as it is humanly possible.
 
Our approach.....
By having and using a repeatable diagnostic routine, combined with training and experience the final outcome is a predictable rate of success that is quite high, (less than .5% failure). It takes a lot of hard work and years of experience to achieve that kind of precision and is one of the reasons that many of the so-called experts don't have any idea what it really takes to be a top technician today. They haven't made that kind of effort and gained the experience that would be required themselves.
 
There's a lot of variations on the fix it "fast, good or cheap" method. Pick any two
 
That of course isn't a very original quote. "The E-myth" is a great book and it is a must read for anyone who really wants to try and go into business for themselves.

Messages Page 76 of 294

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