Today's Automotive Technician

[rodslinger]

....The modern automotive technician.....

Is it just me or do all these guys really suck these days?

1) Went to a Sears two weeks ago for an alignment after installing suspension. Why Sears? I know they have the newest Hunter Hawkeye Elite which is supposed to be VERY accurate and more tolerant to idiots that can't compensate heads properly. I told them I wanted the rear toe at 0 which is within spec. Get the car back and it is at about .20 degrees.... Argh... These 5's eat rear tires and wanted the toe that way for a reason.

2) Few days later I took my new wheels/tires to a long standing local shop to get mounted up. Next day two of them are flat. They didn't install the TPMS sensors correctly!!!!

3) Aired them up on Sunday afternoon and drove over to local Firestone to get the TPMS sealed. Grape Ape with the impact wrench torqued the lugs so tight he sheared one off.

4) Driving to Tallahassee on Sunday night. Shimmy in the front. Shop that mounted tires didn't index the tires to the wheels correctly it seems. Force and or weight imbalance.



I honestly haven't even been able to get warranty work done at the dealer correctly in a single visit in many years. I took my 5 in a year ago for a rattle in the rear suspension. Dealer blamed it on a loose spare and tightened it up. Went for a ride with the service manager and the rattle came right back at the first bump in the parking lot. Ended up being rear brake pads and retainers. I seriously think a lot of these people have zero pride in their work and make no effort to do it right the first time.

I'm really thinking about getting back into auto repair just so there is somebody in this town fixing cars that gives a s***.

 

[Secondtyme]

Damn that is some run you have had! I feel your pain on the TPMS in particular, I had a guy mount and balance a set on my 08 Fit. They broke one in half on the install, and about a week later I started getting this weird sound on deceleration. When I next had tires mounted they found the remains of another sensor that had been bouncing around in the front tire for a year! This is why I DIY whenever possible.

 

[Silentnoise713]

Automotive Technician? HA! I’m guessing you are much more passionate about car repair and transpose the qualities/meaning onto the avg. Joe. Surprised you didn’t call them grease monkeys. Just b/c a guy/gal wrenches for a living does NOT mean he/she is passionate about cars. Even those who are, they get so consumed they ultimately lose the passion and do it for the Benjamin’s; we all have bills to pay and family to feed.

Here’s another problem. Most garages will have a senior/master tech but most of the work hands are relative newbies or graduates from some tech school b/c they are a cheap hire. Some shops don’t even have a master tech. They operate with connection to another local shop who does have a master tech where they simply pass it on and take a small cut. Also keep in mind all the “specialty” areas like AC, alignment, engine builder, electrical, etc.. No one person can do it all. When you take a car in for work, it’s luck of the draw but partly depending on the level of work you need done. Don’t expect the senior/master tech to do tire mount/rotation, oil changes, or simple things like that. They are always done by the newest guy on deck, which might partly explain the issues you ran into.

My cousin and brother’s close friend run a garage. I’ve seem them grow from a small 1-2 people shop (when people would drive from afar b/c they were honest and did good work b/c they were hands on) to now running the business with hired help (people still come b/c of the reputation). The working mechanics are not people who I’d trust to repair my car. I only go to them to for annual inspection or things I don’t have equipment for. I prefer to do my own work b/c I find it interesting but can understand how one would lose interest/passion if you did this as a living.

My suggestion is to look for shops that are self-own and run by 1-2 guys, at most. I also judge the tools and equipment they use to make sure they are not just middlemen. OR, find a performance/tuner shop. They charge more but you are move likely to do better work -speculation based on a few that I’ve spoken too but never actually went there b/c they’re too far. I recall from the Miata days there’s a shop in NJ (also too far) that advertise/promotes detail work to the point that they “tighten every bolt including lug nuts to sepc with torque wrenches”.

Setup a good business model, open shop in Phila, and I’ll be your first customer!

 

[rodslinger]

Well I usually do my own work with exception of things I can't do at home. (tires, alignments and body work) and have shops I trust. But the timing for things didn't work out the best. Lesson learned. Plan further ahead.

Shop 1 has been in the area for 30+ years and pretty much only do wheels tires and alignments. They also do wheel repair and have a good reputation. They are listed as a Tire Rack recommended installer too. Figured they could mount some tires and TPMS sensors without error.

To give Sears credit. Even though the alignment wasn't to MY spec it was still within factory spec. Steering wheel is perfectly centered and this thing plows dead straight. I'm guessing the service writer never told the alignment tech what I asked for.

Firestone wouldn't have been my first choice but on a Sunday at 4pm my options were limited. I had to hit the road for Tallahassee a few hours later. I should still expect their general service to know how to use Torq Sticks. The damn things were sitting on his work tray beside my car.

 

[Secondtyme]

It is bad there really seems to be little in the way of an acceptable standard anymore. It really sucks that if you are in a bind, or have little time to do research you are likely to get hosed, or get half-assed work done. I sometimes think that being a car-nut leaves me at a slight DISadvantage, because I have very high standards. I know how I would do the work, in other words. To reinforce Silentnoise' point, a very good friend of mine and one of the few people I really trust to mess with my cars has been a master tech for going on thirty years. HE HATES CARS! Doesn't own one, and doesn't really care to. Go figure...

 

[markuszoom5]

My TPMS cracked the other day, just before reaching 36k. Ran to the dealer and they replaced it and told me "the good news is, that it's under warranty" Well shoot it better be. i told them I did not disassemble the tire and rim so I can break the sensor. They did not find it funny, but were so flustered that they offered me a rear differential flush for my MZ5. I am not kidding. Awesome, yay. Good thing I was not some young lady, agreeing for them to flush a non-existing rear differential and charge me money for it. Also, they offered fuel injector cleaning. I told them, so you are saying that Mazda's fuel injectors are so poorly designed that they need a flush at 30k, and also that the gasoline (87 regular) that mazda recommends is real crap? Never even offered a tranny flush, which now I probably will not do until just before 60k, as that is when the warranty is out for powertrain. We shall see...

 

[cburrell]

All I can say is sad! I got a place like that near my house. In the past when my wife has went up there for small routine things, they lie to her out the teeth about work that doesn't need to be done. The last time she went up there for tire rotation because it came free with the purchase of the tires, they told her she need an alignment. The 5 was fine before she went, and when she got it home, it had the very recognizable front end bounce that you experience when the tires aren't balanced. So, when I looked at the tires, I had found that they had peel the old weights off, and had purposely put none back, so that she would think she needed an alignment. So, I had to take the 5 back up the next day and correct the problem with the manager. Threatening to call corporate on them, sure made them tow the line. Funny thing is, they didn't learn their lesson, because a month later my sister-in-law took her car up there and they told her she needed new rotors, and she had just got them replaced not even 4 months earlier. We persuaded her to go somewhere else, which she wisely did.