Todays @WordPress.org prompt was about confidence. It ties into working on cars perfectly. Confidence will get you through the job, it’s about having faith in yourself and your ability.
Author: Manrs Autos
A working tech sharing how cars actually get diagnosed and fixed as I start my new workshop. From Ireland to the USA. Follow along on socials and the website.
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Confidence
Getting a car into your service bay and carrying out any service or repairs requires confidence.
All the knowledge we’ve been gaining for years, the courses we do, the tools we invest in that’s the confidence we have in ourselves.
So who’s the most confident person? The person who gets up everyday and gets the job done. You.
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Don’t let it get you down
Being a mechanic courts negativity on a daily – no hourly – basis, you have to have a thick skin to just push past and ignore the noise. Everyone else knows more about cars than the next guy – YouTube has a lot to answer for!.
Negative comments can flood your email or socials when you’re running a repair shop.
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Getting lost in the moment
Sometimes when a car comes into the workshop that has intriguing problems and an owner who’s invested in getting the issues sorted, I can get involved to a level where nothing else matters. I’ll put on some music and just get totally emersed.
There’s just nothing better just for the pure satisfaction it brings.
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TV Shows or Movies On Repeat
That’s a tough one to answer straight out. I’ll have a lot of stuff I’ve previously watched on in the workshop as familiar background noise that doesn’t distract me but keeps me entertained without having to think about it.
its like an old friend keeping you company.
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Clean Cars Get Better Diagnosed?
Someone recently told me that clean cars get a better level of diagnosis and I laughed. But the comment stuck in my head and after a day or two of it rattling around in there it started to make sense to me.
I’m not superstitious myself but I have a very clear memory of a funeral hearse coming into my workshop for some brake line work quite a few years ago and other guys in the shop wouldn’t even look at it never mind work on it.
A friend of mine visited the workshop one evening when it was on the lift and upon realizing that he was standing beneath a hearse he told me he wasn’t going to hang around and quickly left the building.
A strange but true tale I had forgotten until I saw this prompt today.
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Why?: Animal Comparisons
We’ve a history of using the animal comparison to show how strong, smart or cute we are. Car makers have used this to great effect to sell us something we see as an extension of ourselves.
Im not even going to attempt to name them all but I’ll list a few that spring to mind, you can fill in the gaps yourself. Or better yet share them with me.
- Mustang
- Jaguar
- Pony
- Beetle
- Viper
- Cobra
- Cougar
- Raptor
- Hornet
- Rabbit
- Fox
- Puma
- Spider
- Stag
- Firebird
- Stingray
- Ram
- Colt
- Impala
- Tiger
Can you think of more?
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What does the future hold?
I can only imagine the level of technology that will exist in the automotive world 50 or so years from now. But my hope is I kept on top and at the forefront of whatever came my way.
I endeavor to do so now but with the necessity to up tool and avoid fads it can be an expensive business. And I imagine it will only get more so.
But the day you stop bettering yourself is the day you perish. If you want your 100 year old self to exist you have to keep on learning, stay open minded and don’t fear the unknown.
If you’ve ever been stuck on a job and feel all avenues have been exhausted its not failure to ask someone for a second opinion. In fact it’s probably the best move you can make.
Making assumptions about important decisions in life is something very few if any will do. But when it comes to cars some technicians seem to take this approach in the hope of getting to a fix quicker.
Mostly this ends in frustration and added costs. But why is this happening?
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Tools: How I’d blow a fortune.
I’m not one for spree’s but if I were given the opportunity I’d have to say it would be on tools and equipment even though that feels selfish and probably the main reason I’ve never done it.
I believe I get more pleasure watching others close to me enjoying a spree than I do being involved in one.
But if I were given the opportunity and I decided to just let go I know for sure it would be on tools and other equipment. Even though if you saw my collection which has been amassed over the last 30 years or so, you would think this guy has more than enough.
But this is the curse of being a mechanic, you never have enough. Constant introduction of new fasteners, new special tool requirements and advances in technology always keep you in a mode of upgrading and buying.
A wise man once told me nothing is sure in life except death, taxes and your tool truck bill.
So true.
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The only middle name you need
Daily writing prompt
What is your middle name? Does it carry any special meaning/significance?
Determination.
The failure is the man who stays down when he falls.
David Dunbar Buick
Never under estimate how long a simple diagnosis can take. That’s the latest thing I learned.
You’ve been there before, you set yourself up, go through the problem with the same meticulous strategy you always do.
But somewhere along the way it gets away from you, something’s different. Suddenly this simple routine job turns into a nightmare.
The lesson is you need to walk away. Take a break from the problem. It’s not wasted time. You’re just getting your thoughts together.
Sometimes you need to slow down to speed up.
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How Much?!
I think as a mechanic it has to be Can you do it any cheaper?
I realize these are tough times for many but cutting corners is more expensive in the long run.
Some places will advertise cheaper parts or low cost labor rates to get you in the door.
The reality is it can not be done cheaper anywhere else and car owners usually find this out the hard way when they get the call a few hours later to tell them it is in-fact going to cost a lot more.
I give the full price up front. All I can say is get a technician you can trust and stick with them.
Daily writing prompt
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?
It was somewhere in the early 2000’s I got my hands on a Sun Oscilloscope for the second time in my career but this time I was more grown up and had regrets about selling my first one without giving it a fair chance to become part of my everyday tools.
One of the first tests I learned was the relative compression test, if you don’t know, this a very fast way to identify loss of compression in a cylinder by reading how many amps the starter requires to turn each cylinder over. Used with a sync on a second channel it can pinpoint the exact cylinder or cylinders that are affected.
This, as good and easy as it sounds comes with a word of caution.
Firstly it does not tell you the actual compression it only tells you the stronger and weaker cylinders.
Second, a lot of factors can show incorrect readings. Such as a faulty starter motor.
But where it caught me out was with a condition called cylinder wash. This is where there is so much fuel flooding the cylinder that it washes the cylinder walls and thus it affects the compression in that cylinder.
In my case it was cylinder wash, coupled with an impatient customer who needed his car back ASAP. My problem started because I was not the first mechanic to look at this and it had been turned over so much that the cylinders were saturated with fuel.
I was keen to get this job done fast and to use my new found test with my scope.
I could see cylinder 4 was much lower than the others so I concentrated on that.
There is enough compression to start
This is where I wasted a lot of time. I needed to prove this loss of compression before I dismantled the top half of this engine.
I had spark, fuel pressure and some amount of compression on at least three cylinders. My head was into this low compression cylinder so much that I lost sight of where I was going with this diagnosis.
Eventually after walking away for a few hours I came back in a different state of mind and got to the bottom of this issue, which by the way was a failing fuel injector which was over fueling on that cylinder and a case of bad service history that the spark plugs had just given up.
I always remember this as one of my very near biggest mistakes, I was so close to taking the head of this engine it’s not even funny.
It was a lesson that taught me a lot about making assumptions and giving in to the pressure from a customer. Not quite a failure but it was so close, it creeps into my subconscious a lot.
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Wrong diagnosis sells more parts
I got a call a few days ago to diagnose a hard-start/long crank complaint on an Audi A6 3.2 V6 (C6). Nothing odd about that, these are the types of vehicle I mostly work on. Right up my street.
The complication here was going to be that others had looked at this and they all had their opinions. The diagnosis given by most, including two major car parts retailers who do the “free scan” and then sell you parts, was a crankshaft sensor.
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So much horrible advice out there
YouTube is a fantastic source of information. Whatever subject you can think of there’s a how-to on there. This is never truer than when it comes to car repairs.
There are literally thousands of videos out there for any problem you might encounter. I’ll consult a select few myself to see if the problem I’m having is covered. It’s a great way to see other people’s perspective.
What I notice is that a lot of customers will say they saw something about an issue they’re having on YouTube and the guy just did this or that and it fixed it. And always it’s the “quick fix” or the video with the guy pouring salt and toilet cleaner down the intake to clean out a turbo! Basically nonsense stuff.
My question is. How, with all the good information on there do people almost always find the nastiest way of doing something – and believe it – before finding the right way of doing it?
I’m guessing simple explanations are more emotionally satisfying than a proper diagnosis.
