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A Mechanic's Life - Tales From Under the Hood

2811 messages,  Last post on May 19, 2013 at 7:34 PM

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Messages Page 7 of 282

#54 of 2811 Re: So much for this thread being about our successes! [steve_] by thecardoc3

Jun 24, 2012 (5:50 am)

Replying to: steve_ (Jun 20, 2012 10:08 am)
have you ever done piece work
  
Sort of - bid an individual job, do the work and then get stiffed by the client. Happened a few times. And lots of time I've had to do way more work on a job than I could justify billing for. Kind of goes with the territory in lots of jobs, in spite of your best efforts.
 
That really stinks when that happens to you when you are running your own business, but imagine being the employee and when it happens you get to bear the loss.
 
a great mechanic..... older shop owner...... three decades ago ..... My old wagon wasn't shifting higher than 2nd gear..... His tech told me the transmission was shot but his boss could look at it the next day........
 
Back then, straight mechanical controls were all you found. Depending on what you were driving, you may not of even had a torque convertor clutch. Now not getting out of second gear does of course suggest either the transmission governor pressure isn't raising to the level needed to shift, or the throttle valve (vacuum modulator on some) is signaling a wide throttle opening or heavy engine load and the governer pressure shouldn't be able to cause the transmission to shift. Both of which leave you in a lower gear until your going fast enough for the governer pressure to overcome TV pressure.
  
The shop owner looked at our car that evening and slept on it. The next day he figured out that the engine compression was so low that there wasn't enough vacuum being created to shift the transmission. (Something like that - details are getting fuzzy). Anyway, he did something simple like advance the timing and we got the last 600 miles home fine.
 
Then what was done? Was the timing chain stretching and need replaced? Did you just dump the car, simply go get another one and never did fix it?
  
All that and the bill, including the motel, was less than $150. Between fiddling around and a couple of road tests, I'm sure the mechanic spent 3 hours dinking with it.
 
Seriously, if I would have been working with that and not known what was wrong with that right from the first road test I could just hear the "You don't know what you're doing comments" I doubt that "repair" would have gotten me paid much more than one hour in 1980-1984 and as the employee that worked out to somewhere between $6.00 to $8.50 which was what I was making per hour back then. If I had spent three hours on it, I would have only made the one hour billed. Their logic was "We can't charge the customer for you to be learning on their car". We were litterally expected to just know what what wrong each and every time.
 
Come to think of it, that perception really hasn't changed even though the cars and what it takes to diagnose and repair them has. What are the oddds if he was still in business, and working as a technician that you would still think he was great when faced with a similar problem on one of today's cars? (Be careful about assuming that he would have tried to keep up with training and equipment for the electronics on the cars today)

#55 of 2811 Re: So much for this thread being about our successes! [thecardoc3] by steve_ HOST

Jun 24, 2012 (7:41 pm)

Replying to: thecardoc3 (Jun 24, 2012 5:50 am)
It was, iirc, an old Datsun wagon. We drove it around town for a while longer and sold it to a mechanically inclined friend who fixed it up for his kid and got a few more years out of it.
 
The mechanic advanced the timing and that let the engine build enough compression to generate enough vacuum. (Like I said, memory is fuzzy - this was the last clunker I owned before buying the '82 Tercel that only stranded me once in 17 years).
 
If the guy was still in business, I suspect the hotel room would still cost less than $50, but I'd hate to think what the hourly mechanic rate would be. I worked retail for a short while, so I know the flies and honey approach pretty good and haven't had many jerky mechanics. This guy did have certificates on the wall - seems like he even had something from the Canadian government.
 
Reading Edmunds Answers, I still see people talking about taking their car to the shop and happening on the one guy who knows exactly what the problem is just from a brief desciption. Those are fun.

#56 of 2811 Re: So much for this thread being about our successes! [steve_] by stickguy

Jun 24, 2012 (7:53 pm)

Replying to: steve_ (Jun 24, 2012 7:41 pm)
the knowing an obscure answer is a benefit of the internet. Between marque specific sites, and specialist shops, some things are easy to armchair diagnose.'
 
Plenty of common maladies on say an E46 3 series that if I described a symptom to roadburner, he would probably know immediately, sight unseen, what the problem is.

#57 of 2811 Re: So much for this thread being about our successes! [steve_] by thecardoc3

Jun 25, 2012 (9:10 am)

Replying to: steve_ (Jun 24, 2012 7:41 pm)
The mechanic advanced the timing and that let the engine build enough compression to generate enough vacuum. (Like I said, memory is fuzzy - this was the last clunker I owned before buying the '82 Tercel that only stranded me once in 17 years).
 
There is knowing, and there is everything else. I'm not really trying to pick on you here, but I'm going to challenge exactly what that paragraph states.
 
Please explain compression, how an engine produces it and what issues can cause a loss of compression. Now explain ignition timing and how it is controlled. Third, explain how an engine produces vacuum. What happens to intake manifold vacuum when a gasoline engine has to overcome a greater load?
 
Now the tricky part. Explain how changing the timing had an impact on the engines compression. Explain how changing the timing had an impact on the vacuum the engine was producing for a given engine load.
 
Get help if you need it, finally explain how/why altering the base ignition timing allowed the transmission to shift to drive and not stay in second.
 
Reading Edmunds Answers, I still see people talking about taking their car to the shop and happening on the one guy who knows exactly what the problem is just from a brief desciption. Those are fun.
 
They are also the exception, and not the rule. Readers Digest ran around the country about twenty years ago doing a sting operation. They would unplug the MAF sensor and roll into a shop to see what they would do. Many of the old mechanics started trying to fix the car based solely on the description of the symptom and by when they drove it they could feel the engine starving for fuel under a load. So they replaced the fuel filter. Needless to say, they got it wrong and were portraited as crooks.
 
Given more than one chance at any of these miracle fixes any of the hero's would quickly get to be zero's unless they really learn how to diagnose and repair cars.

#58 of 2811 Here's the bad part... by isellhondas

Jun 25, 2012 (9:23 am)

Good people are leaving the trade and a lot of these guys will go to great lengths to talk others out of becoming auto techs.
 
I don't see this situation improving and shops are having trouble finding and retaining quality people.

#59 of 2811 Re: Here's the bad part... [isellhondas] by thecardoc3

Jun 25, 2012 (9:31 am)

Replying to: isellhondas (Jun 25, 2012 9:23 am)
I can't wait to see what happens when Shell Corporation opens the cracking plant that they are going to build because of all of the marcellis shale gas they are drilling for in this area. They will suck up all of the potential younger technicians that we have (and really there aren't that many to begin with) and create an even bigger vacuum for talent. Sadly my age is going to work against me directly benefitting, but it will make working right up to my last day be a guarantee. (Notice that does not say anything about retiring, that's not in the cards for me.)

#60 of 2811 Re: Here's the bad part... [isellhondas] by Mr_Shiftright HOST

Jun 25, 2012 (9:38 am)

Replying to: isellhondas (Jun 25, 2012 9:23 am)
Well that brings up the moral dilemma---when can you legitimately and fairly call a repair shop "crooked"?
 
Think about the actual possibilities when a "sting" operation trumpets its success:
 
1. The mechanic wasn't crooked, just incompetent. Chalk that up to poor training.
 
2. The mechanic was honest but the shop owner was crooked. We've all seen this.
 
3. The mechanic was neither crooked nor incompetent--he was working on a very complex problem and took his best shot. Even NASA engineers guess wrong.
 
4. The mechanic was both highly competent and crooked, making him an even better thief. (I know one shop like this. He is very very clever, and oversells beautifully. He is a virtual Hollywood movie with high production values).
 
I don't think 'sting' operations differentiate among all these possibilities. A "sting" is often a sucker punch, in the same way commentators make hay (and lots of money) reducing complex political issues to simple jingo-ism.

#61 of 2811 Re: Here's the bad part... [Mr_Shiftright] by thecardoc3

Jun 25, 2012 (10:56 am)

Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (Jun 25, 2012 9:38 am)
Now add some consumer pricing pressure on top of all of that and tell me why anyone should be surprised by our difficulty with retaining the talented people that we need.
 
Comparing the sting operation to a sucker punch is as accurate as anything I've ever seen. The shot gunned answers that the law of averages allows to happen to be right once in a while is simply another sucker punch that there is no answer for.

#62 of 2811 Re: So much for this thread being about our successes! [thecardoc3] by steve_ HOST

Jun 25, 2012 (1:28 pm)

Replying to: thecardoc3 (Jun 25, 2012 9:10 am)
I'm not really trying to pick on you here
 
Then give it a rest. That was ~31 years ago and that's my recollection. But I'm not sure what I had for breakfast two days ago. Plus I'm on vacation for a couple of days sitting in the middle of a campground enjoying the sunshine and the only compression I'm worried about is the de-compressing kind.
 
The point was the newby told me I needed a new transmission and the old pro fixed me up for cheap. There wasn't anything "wrong" with the transmission.

#63 of 2811 So much for this thread being about our successes by thecardoc3

Jun 25, 2012 (2:15 pm)

For the newbee, that was how they (we) learned. Even for the old pro, there was always something new to be discovered.
 
Basically changing the timing had no impact on the engines compression. But it could easily have made an impact on the amount of power the engine was producing at a given throttle opening. That would allow you to close the throttle some, and that in turn allowed for an increase in engine vacuum, and ultimately an earlier shift point.
 
Now for the timing to be that far off, plus we have to include the possibly that something also was having an impact on compression it screams that the timing belt (or chain but not likely) had jumped a tooth. That would in fact give you low power, and very late or no upshifts.
 
Anyway enjoy your vacation. Sorry for trying to make you have to think under such a condition.

Messages Page 7 of 282

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