Off to spoon feeding school again... - Auto-Trend Repairs and Service Information Forums

PowerStroker · UNSTOPPABLE!

Off to spoon feeding school again...

Rastus · UNSTOPPABLE!

Revision is a must !

Rastus · UNSTOPPABLE!

Oh, & while you're on vacation, LITTLE FEAT just happen to be playing at "your"Minneapolis State Theater on the 7th of next month, on their 50th Anniversary tour...They still rock pretty hard, & tickets are not too expensive...

And yes, they're in Detroit too SELLC, at the Fillmore on the 12th October.

Check them out lol !

Shawnee_B · FAR BEYOND DRIVEN

"waiting for columbus" "dixie chicken" :)

SELLC · CERTIFIED POST WHORE

Rastus wrote:
Oh, & while you're on vacation, LITTLE FEAT just happen to be playing at "your"Minneapolis State Theater on the 7th of next month, on their 50th Anniversary tour...They still rock pretty hard, & tickets are not too expensive...

And yes, they're in Detroit too SELLC, at the Fillmore on the 12th October.

Check them out lol !

The Fillmore used to be known as the State Theater back in the days when I went there... it's very goth-like inside, very grand - which is to say it was a great pre-rave club to visit.

SELLC · CERTIFIED POST WHORE

PowerStroker wrote:
It's a way of taking an extra little paid vacation every year. I've already taken this class, but my boss doesn't need to know that :)

Where was this paid vacation? Did you get to fly there with free hotel accommodations like last time? Guess I am a little late to the party.

Nothing wrong with spoon-feeding school! I always said most dealership mechanics really need all the help they can get because they lack the ability to figure anything out on their own, or outside their own brand.

What I do day in and day out would break 90% of dealership hamsters.. The other 10% are probably guys like me who supply your school with all the known issues they have found so the dealerships aren't having to load up the parts cannon as often.

Rastus · UNSTOPPABLE!

I may as well post it here, rather than start a new thread, but...

RIP Paul Barrere, guitarist, singer, song-writer, & "front-man" for Little Feat ( after Lowell George passed away in 1979 ). He passed on the 26th October, & was sincerely up-there with the all-time modern greats, at least as far as an all-round musician goes IMO. And you always knew "who was playing what" on any Little Feat album, regardless of Lowell or Fred being the other guitarist. They all had their own ID & sound that came through. Great players.

Better to let the music speak for itself.

www.youtube.com/watch

*And it's dealership mechanics that leak data out to regular mechanics about the "new" cars, & what you're going to need to repair them...But it works both-ways too, & we all help each other out, "cause we all suffer the same each day" lol !

PowerStroker · UNSTOPPABLE!

SELLC wrote:
Where was this paid vacation? Did you get to fly there with free hotel accommodations like last time? Guess I am a little late to the party.
It was in Ankeny Iowa 3.5 hours away so I drove. Since there is also a training center in Minneapolis they didn't cover my hotel, but I do get my regular wages when at school.
Nothing wrong with spoon-feeding school! I always said most dealership mechanics really need all the help they can get because they lack the ability to figure anything out on their own, or outside their own brand.
Oh don't even go there dude.
What I do day in and day out would break 90% of dealership hamsters.. The other 10% are probably guys like me who supply your school with all the known issues they have found so the dealerships aren't having to load up the parts cannon as often.
With the technician shortage nationwide, your experience would get you a job at my dealership. But I guarantee you would quickly become a heavy line tech, front end tech, or used car tech. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but the diagnostic end of things these days would take you years to learn well enough to do on your own. Furthermore, most of the other specialty areas require you to be trained and certified by the manufacturer in order to do warranty work, this would also take years to accomplish. You'd be much better off staying in the little niche you've carved out for yourself as a youtube trained generalist.

SELLC · CERTIFIED POST WHORE

PowerStroker wrote:
SELLC wrote:
Nothing wrong with spoon-feeding school! I always said most dealership mechanics really need all the help they can get because they lack the ability to figure anything out on their own, or outside their own brand.
Oh don't even go there dude.
Oh I went there! I'm even wearing the t-shirt! You know what the Ford dealerships are good for? RECALLS! If you have a problem outside the normal TSB's or Recall campaign you can expect to leave your car at the dealership for a month and even still end up getting it back claiming they could not duplicate the complaint. It's classic Dealership protocol! Maybe if Fords sent the people who work at the plants building this stuff to spoon feeding school there might not be so many problems. Fords just recalled most of the early model MKZ, Millan, and Fusion vehicles (2006-2010) for problems with the braking system, prior to that it was the airbags. I am sure recall and warranty work makes up a vast portion of yours and the dealerships paychecks.
What I do day in and day out would break 90% of dealership hamsters.. The other 10% are probably guys like me who supply your school with all the known issues they have found so the dealerships aren't having to load up the parts cannon as often.
With the technician shortage nationwide, your experience would get you a job at my dealership. But I guarantee you would quickly become a heavy line tech, front end tech, or used car tech. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but the diagnostic end of things these days would take you years to learn well enough to do on your own. Furthermore, most of the other specialty areas require you to be trained and certified by the manufacturer in order to do warranty work, this would also take years to accomplish. You'd be much better off staying in the little niche you've carved out for yourself as a youtube trained generalist.
That is pretty funny coming from a guy who is squatting in another mans bay to make a living. Safe to say you aren't $hit outside of work, and inside of work you're just another stooge for the man turning the wrench. Why? Because you lack the knowledge and ability to survive outside of a spoon-fed culture. All your special manufacture tools, electronics and other such toys are par for the course at the dealership, but they are not a product of YOUR skill, although they make any old guy look the part anyway!
As an independent who was born into the trade I often see things 10 years before Fords even copies it, and even still, locking the mechanic and the consumer out of software isn't a complexity that is inherent of the technological advances of the automobile, but rather a pathetic and self serving proprietary roadblock to allowing anyone else access to it. There is nothing fancy about that PowerStroker, that's just plain old crooked, which gets us back to the reason why many feel the way they do about dealerships in general. I never suggested that I would seek out a dealership position, although back in the 1990's I worked in the Dealership as a mechanic, new/used car sales, and even employed by one of the big three as a supervisor to labor-op dealership technicians such as yourself, I can tell you none of them were worth the hours spent away from the family/home. And that is just that.
I do have some stories to tell, like the one from back in the early 1990's when I went to work for VW as a new car salesman.. At the time I was told in the sales meetings that within 20 years there would be no more big three, and that only one would remain! I was also told of mergers, just crazy buyouts like the ones we see today! At the time, in the early 1990's this was unthinkable to many Americans! Many still don't even know that Chrysler is Fiat, or that so many common shares were sold under the new GM that some claim that Fiat secretly holds enough shares to perform a hostile takeover of GM, but they don't due to uncertainly about American Anti-Trust laws that would see them lose control or have to sell off parts of the company. That is also why we are probably seeing a lot of higher ups at the UAW getting charged with corruption. If you really keep up on this kind of thing, because you're more than just a monkey with a wrench, then you would know there have been some really big things going down with American labor and it's Unions being influenced overseas.
Don't get me wrong PowerStroker, I respect your work ethic and all... but your skill may be lacking.

SELLC · CERTIFIED POST WHORE

But at least you went to spoon feeding school to sharpen that skill and took a mini-vacation doing what you love!

I always did enjoy rattling a cage or two.. lol

-- Edited by SELLC on Saturday 21st of December 2019 12:48:14 AM

PowerStroker · UNSTOPPABLE!

I'm just going to set this here for a while beacause it's getting heavy.

SELLC · CERTIFIED POST WHORE

Okay rookie... I been certified since 1993

So I have been a licensed mechanic for 14 years longer than you kiddo... It's called seniority, and no fancy tool box or dealership plaque can compare.

I have also come to understand that I have been speciality certified for SIX years longer than your plaque even existed... 1999 was the first year they introduced that plaque.

-- Edited by SELLC on Saturday 21st of December 2019 04:00:51 PM

SELLC · CERTIFIED POST WHORE

I should also mention that plaque means absolutely nothing here in the State of Michigan! Not even at a Ford Dealership would it qualify you to work on automobiles here in Michigan.

Be sure to post a photo of your Timex watch the dealership will give you after 30 years as well!

By the way PowerStroker, isn't your Daily-Driver a Honda? hmm

SELLC · CERTIFIED POST WHORE

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SELLC · CERTIFIED POST WHORE

PowerStroker · UNSTOPPABLE!

First off, I should say the plaque is not a "dealership plaque" but issued by Ford Motor Company. Furthermore, it is not a measure of how long I have been a technician, it is a measure of how long I have been a Ford Senior Master Technician. In my case, I started that endeavor in 2001 so it took 6 years for me to achieve. But I was actually working on cars in an independent shop since 1996.

While you may well be certified by the state of Michigan to fix cars, that alone does not qualify you to perform warranty repairs for a car manufacturer. Ford for example requires technicians to be trained and certified by Ford Motor Company to perform just about all warranty repairs in order for the dealership to be reimbursed, regardless of what state you live in. There is even an automated claims editing system that will automatically reject payment on any claims for which a valid technician is not clocked on the repair. This is why I stated that if you were hired by my dealership you would likely end up as a used car technician. Not that there's anything wrong with that, and you may very well shine in that capacity.

Though it is notable that among technicians at a dealership, there is a hierarchy... A used car technician is pretty low on the totem pole, although higher than quick lube tech, so there's that.

To my knowledge, the only thing one needs to be certified by the state of Minnesota to perform is DOT inspections.

-- Edited by PowerStroker on Sunday 22nd of December 2019 10:49:55 AM

SELLC · CERTIFIED POST WHORE

When I say "dealership plaque" you know that would = Fords, but whatever.... Potato/Patato... Fords did not start the Senior Master Technician plaque thingy until 1999 is all I'm saying.

I was certified at the ripe age of 18 in 1993, but I worked in a shop since 1985 at the young age of 10... Sorting nuts and bolts, cleaning, tires, oil changes.. Worked my way up.

I don't perform warranty work on new cars, obviously because there is an expectation of the manufacture to take care of them warranties... HOWEVER, should a repair that I perform on a car later turn into a recall then Fords has to reimburse my customer. Why on earth would I perform warranty work? It's the very definition of line-mechanic and the labor rate is often extremely discounted due to the bulk nature since the manufacture is being billed. You probably shine very well in that capacity, not that there is anything wrong with that.

I'd like to know where I claimed to perform warranty work? confuse

In other words, anyone can work as a mechanic in your state... they could literally have no experience or qualifications what-so-ever! That's pretty crazy!

SELLC · CERTIFIED POST WHORE

So while trying to see who could pee furthest, I forgot to ask - what did you learn in spoon feeding school?

Anything eventful on the trip?

PowerStroker · UNSTOPPABLE!

It was the class for network diagnostics... Like when you have multiple modules that won't communicate with each other or the scan tool and how to trouble shoot that kind of problem. I've already taken that class twice, but it's good to keep that one fresh in my mind. I had a bad experience with a 2013 Edge once that kicked my ass for weeks with an INTERMITTENT network short on HSCAN1 which is the comm for the really important modules ie: pcm abs, bcm, ic. It would be fine for about 300 miles at a time, and then just for a couple seconds that entire network would stop communicating. This caused a lot of bad symptoms: trans didn't know what gear to be in, all idiot lights came on, eng barely ran. But it happened so briefly that by shutting off the key and restarting everything went back to normal for another 300 miles or so. Obviously while doing the circuit testing all results passed because the short wasn't happening at the time the test was being performed. Our regional field service engineer came out on that one, and spent a day with me pulling out the entire vehicle interior to wiggle test the wiring harnesses with the live network monitor tool hooked up, but he couldn't make heads or tails of it either. He ended up giving me approval to just start replacing modules until the problem stopped. I think I ended up putting in a new PCM, PAM, IC, APIM, and ABS module before it stopped acting up, and to this day I'm not sure which one fixed it. That is the worst problem I have ever experienced with a vehicle and the experience haunts me to this day. That's why I like to take the network class every couple years, even though it really doesn't provide a solution for a network short as intermittent as the one I experienced.

SELLC · CERTIFIED POST WHORE

Intermittent issues are always the worst... especially the modern day High Speed Computer/Controller Area Networks with all of their separate modules!

Now days you have 10 modules or more feeding into the PCM and try as you may to ensure all the connections are good there is still the fact many of the modules are basically little computer circuit boards and who knows what could be wrong inside them little bastards! I have to tell people all the time that I am just the mechanic, I do not make the parts - nor do I get into electronic circuit board repairs..

Sounds like maybe one of them five modules had a bad circuit, but WTF could any mechanic do when it comes to these solid state circuit boards with components and circuits barely visible to the human eye? And that doesn't take into consideration that most automotive modules are also coated with an epoxy like film to prevent condensation damage.

I will say this, it's rare to see Ford load the parts cannon like that! But what else could be done? At least Ford was footing the bill because that was probably $5k+ worth of modules, if not more!

-- Edited by SELLC on Monday 23rd of December 2019 03:28:17 PM

PowerStroker · UNSTOPPABLE!

Actually, due to gross incompetence - the fact that the adviser lost the hard copy with my time stamps on the back, and the parts department didn't hang on to the old ones long enough (Ford called them back) we didn't get paid for it, and neither did I.

10 modules, those were the good times. A base model Escape these days has around 30 modules on 4 or 5 different networks now. I don't even want to imagine what a Lincoln Continental has going on.

SELLC · CERTIFIED POST WHORE

I been reading that some manufactures are having to move to fiberoptic harnesses due to the complexity of the systems and very high speed data transfer rates! I am sure not everything will run on fiber, but they were saying some of the modern systems require so much bandwidth that a loop of fiber may become the norm between the networked modules! That is just crazy if you ask me! At least in the sense that they are going to be moving data across fiber!

GM used fiberoptic back in the 1970's but that was just for the illumination of various switches. You have to wonder how cost effective using fiber to transfer data really is because something has to send, receive and then decode any fiber signals... often times I was always under the impression fiber was only good for very long distances, but now some are saying that fiber has a massive bandwidth advantage over copper, and the fact that fiber does not have the issues with outside interference.

Sucks you didn't get paid on that job! I would have been pissing in someones cereal for sure on that one! That is one thing I don't miss about the dealerships, the constant attempts for them to reduce labor for warranty work as if the base rate for warranty repairs wasn't bad enough. In most labor guides they list regular labor time and then also warranty labor time. Worst part about the warranty labor rate is the fact you really do need to do a dozen or so before you can ever get close to doing it that quickly and some jobs there is absolutely no way to beat labor time, so you know you'll be working for an hour or more free whenever that particular job comes in and there is nothing more frustrating than starting a job that you know you'll be losing your ass on.

PowerStroker · UNSTOPPABLE!

Fiber would be GREAT, no more intermittent shorts to ground. I find it unlikely that it would ever find a short to "light" and if it did it shouldn't be too hard to figure out where. I suppose you could have broken fiber-optic cables, but that would generally cause a constant problem that would also be a lot easier to diagnose than an intermittent short to ground.

As far as not getting paid on that deal, I'm actually ok with it because that was when we had a real asshole for a service manager, and it just about made his head explode when he found out the dealership wasn't getting reimbursed for that repair, I rather enjoyed that.

SELLC · CERTIFIED POST WHORE

I never really understood what use Fiber would be in a small distance setup, the latency in converting the signal to a light pulse, then decoding it and processing it seems like it would be slower from end to end... but maybe not.. especially considering they can bundle up 100 strands in the size of a 14 gauge wire.

With modern day road sensing cameras feeding to computers and processing real time driving conditions you can somewhat understand the massive bandwidth needed. With self driving cars they probably want to be rid of shorts to ground and run with sealed and insulated fiber modules. Maybe I should read up more on Fiber.

SELLC · CERTIFIED POST WHORE

A lot of older ignition systems run off optical sensors also, including my 1996 Corvette's Opti-Spark distributor.

Rastus · UNSTOPPABLE!

Great reading guys !!!

And Happy Christmas to everyone too !!!