In my own experience, a very quick way to determine this is if they have the following:
1. A vehicle used specifically for carrying their tools to various jobs. 2. That vehicle has an Air Compressor permanently or semi-permanently installed in it (Craftsman-style "portable" compressors do not count) 3. Check what brand tools they have. Shadetrees aren't willing to put out the money for quality tools. If most of what they are using are Craftsman or Home Depot specials, look elsewhere.
If games are the only thing holding you back, let me recommend GOG.com or if you're really old school Dos Box.
Both are awesome suggestions, but I still like having a top-of-the-line PC circa the year 2000 with Windows 98 installed on it laying around. It's like using an NES emulator vs. playing a game on NES hardware. Sure, you technically are playing the same game...but the experience isn't quite the same:-)
In my experience (both from using their services and from knowing people who have gone on to do this after they quit the car service industry), you can generally trust the peopel who run their own business and come to your home or place of business and work on your car right there in the street.
You can (usually) trust them because A. no one wants to be laying on freakin' asphalt, using floor jacks, working on a car, B. because they are self-employed, they rely on good word-of-mouth to survice, and C. they can't hide in a shop. It's in front of your house, you can do whatever the hell you want as far as watching them is concerned.
Like anything, you shouldn't blindly trust all of them...but it's generally a safe bet to go with an "at home" mechanic service. They're generally good, hardworking people.
Shop was in MD? Still in business? I'd be curious to give it a shot the next time I need someone other than my brother or I to do some work on a car.
It was a series of Midas franchises all owned by the same guy. We were beholden to the standard Midas Corporate bullshit (guilt by association, and all that), but this guy did his absolute damndest to make sure that his shops ran in tip-top shape. Having to fight name association didn't help, but the people that knew us knew that if they took their car into one of our locations, they would get treated right.
I'm not sure what kind of condition the shops are in now (or if the same guy even owns them), but you can check out the one in Bethesda or Rockville or Germantown. If you go to Germantown, ask to have Vin Doo (wrong spelling, right pronunciation) work on your car. If you go to Bethesda, ask Sam Doppler to put your sales ticket together. Tell either of them that Adam sent you:-) (They were both, at one point, my shop foreman.)
(A post or two back, you were commenting on how cars aren't as difficult as people imagine. My brother runs into this. He did a resto of a 1985 Porsche 928. He constantly has people amazed that he pulled it off with nothing but a typical garage and tools. More than once on Rennlist, he's had to tell someone "it's a Porsche, not a Faberge egg. You actually *can* work on it.")
Unless it's a clutch for a mid-80's 944. Screw that noise. Once was too many times.
With your reasoned response to my post, I must admit being somewhat ashamed at my ah... rather inflamed rant (too many years of frustration but still...).
No need to feel ashamed. I was always wary of people that weren't at least a little suspicious...a 100% trusting customer is a bad customer when it comes to cars, in my opinion. I always liked it when even our loyal customers questioned our diagnosis or decisions...it meant they wanted to make damn sure they weren't getting the run-around, which if more people worried about, I think there would be less problems in the industry.
Thanks for understanding. That shop you worked in wouldn't be in NorCal by any chance would it? I need a good, honest shop now more than ever. =]
Sorry, other side of the country...the shop was in Maryland:-)
"I'll show you politics in America, right here: I think the puppet on the left is correct. I think the puppet on the right shares more of my beliefs. Wait a minute...there's one guy holding both puppets!" -Bill Hicks
My point was that taking the car to the dealer has become such an expensive time-consuming ordeal with no assurance of an actual fix that it's cheaper for me to take a half hour and toss in $50 worth of parts at home than it is to take it in for service.
I just maintain that the mechanics' horseshit has reached the point where I'd trust a lawyer before I trust a fucking mechanic to be honest with me. Fucking crooks the lot of them and the honest ones are usually just honest 'with people they know'. They make up their margins with customers off the street.
Sadly, I must agree with you. The shop I worked in prided itself in being honest with its customers (the first time a manager caught a mechanic trying to cheat a customer, they were fired on the spot. No second chances.) Despite our reputation and huge numbers of loyal customers, it was always very difficult to get new customers to trust us for the very reasons you outlined.
The point, as always, is that service departments in dealerships (and other shops as well) need to be hella regulated by at least 3 different agencies, with monthly audits, starting with the assumption that every single one is a den of thieves. Douchenozzles. Now, they don't even let you into the work area anymore (unless they "know" you) using some convenient OSHA rule and insurance crap and concerns for your "safety", unless you insist and threaten to take your car elsewhere.
This was something else we prided ourselves on. It's your car we were working on, and as such you had every right to see the problem yourself and, if you promised to not get in our way, even watch us do the work start to finish should you wish to. ("not get in our way" means not standing right next to us. Questions, conversations, all of that was fine...but if we had to work around you, back in the waiting room you went.)
So, tell me this. How is it suddenly ok, just for this one profession, to blame the victim for not being sufficiently observant and knowledgeable. The response always is, "well, if you don't know your car well, you can't blame them for robbing you blind." Though it's not stated that way, that's the essence of it isn't it?
We would always explain to people that when you bring your car into our shop, you aren't paying us to fix your car/replace your parts for you. You are paying for our knowledge of how to do those two things properly. Anyone can use a torch, or resurface a rotor, or make a custom exhaust out of straight pipe. Not everyone can do it properly. We always tried using simple analogies so that people had a better understanding of what was happening (my favorite being our description for drum brakes, describing the "drum" as a salad spinner and the shoes as "hands" or "the little lever you pull to stop it from spinning".), but sadly many new customers would accuse us of talking stupid to them, and acting like they were morons. It's a very fine line you walk, for sure.
I have tremendous respect for mechanics' troubleshooting skills, but zero respect for their sense of ethics.
Sadly, many people are under the impression that cars are more difficult to understand than they really are. As a result, few people take the time to famillirize themselves with even simple procedures, which in turn allows mechanics to prey on the ignorant with reckless abandon. Again, it was for this reason that we always took the time to try to explain to people how something functioned, why it went bad on their car, and what steps are required to prevent it. The way we saw it was if we could pique the interest of a consumer and make them realize that hey, these things really aren't so complicated, they might take some time to learn about them and reduce the chance they would get ripped off should they go somewhere else. Regardless, we had a zero-tolerance policy regarding ripping off customers. The owners of our shop would rather we turn away work (i.e. "Ma'am, I could fix this, but it would cost more than this car is worth. I wouldn't suggest putting any money into this thing) instead of taking money from people that we shouldn't.
While what you are saying is technically correct, if you had a head gasket that was leaking that badly, you would certainly have more than a single misfire code being tripped in the ECU:-)
Sure, maybe cosmic rays are causing a false reading, but oddly enough, quite often when it says "O2 sensor is reading incorrectly", the O2 sensor is bad.
Often, yes, the sensor itself is bad...but in my experience, trusting the OBD II code without any further investigation is a quick way to ensure that customer comes back. Bad gas, a bad catalytic converter (depending on where the sensor is, of course), a clogged intake manifold or throttle body...hell, even an air filter can cause an O2 sensor code to trip, if it's old and dirty enough.
Fast-working mechanics would just replace the O2 sensor. Good mechanics make sure the O2 sensor really is the problem before they replace it. Like I said, OBD II codes provide a starting point for a diagnosis, not an end point.
We used to get a commission based on total parts and labor for the work ticket. One would think this would encourage us to be parts swappers and not actual mechanics, since parts make up more of the cost of a total ticket...and normally, I would agree with them. However, the culture of the shop I worked at was such that people who had a higher labor-to-parts ratio generally earned more, because they were granted higher commissions on labor, thus raising their base pay. The owners understood that not only was diagnosing and fixing the problem a better solution than just parts swapping, it was also more profitable for them because labor has no inherent upfront cost, unlike parts.
Because of this upfront cost, we were also encouraged to tell people to buy parts themselves when possible, especially on high-ticket items like BMW exhaust parts, engines, or anything else that we would charge for their first-born after markup. This made customers happy due to a reduced bill, it made the owners happy due to less money spent on their part, and it made mechanics happy because it raised their labor-to-parts ratios.
It really was a well balanced system. If you could find a way to fix a car using the same parts it came into the shop with, you were thought of very highly. If you exhausted that possibility to its fullest extent before changing parts out, but still fixed the problem, you were equally well regarded. Granted, because of this, it took us a little longer than most places to fix your car due to the extra diagnosis time...but we made damn sure it was fixed right the first time.
Feh. ASE certified doesn't really mean anything..back in the day, I had 5 active ASE certifications, and ALL of them were "written" tests; none of them required hands on work. That means if you have the capacity to study for a test, literally anyone can become ASE certified.
One of them I got because it was required by law to work on air conditioning (ASE Refrigerant and Recycling), the others I got because the shop I worked at paid an extra 1% commission for each active certification you had.
Same thing with an O2 sensor. Just because it says "O2 Sensor Three is reading incorrectly" doesn't necessarily mean the O2 Sensor is bad. You could have bad wiring, the air/fuel mixture could be throwing off the reading, the person could have just put bad gas in it, or again many other possibilities.
I'm a former mechanic because 5 years ago, I fractured my left and right ulna, as well as navicular fractures in both wrists. If you can tell me how to work on cars with injuries that won't fully heal for years in both wrists, I'll be glad to do it.
To the AC, I didn't want cars returned to me, which is why I always fixed what was wrong and not what I was told was wrong by a computer.
Mechanics are often not even mechanics any more. They plug in the diagnostic and whatever it says is wrong, is what is wrong.
Speaking as a former mechanic, fuck you very much. OBD II codes serve to provide you a place to look, nothing more.
Say for example the code is a misfire on Cylinder 3. Great. Do you have any idea how many different things can cause a misfire? It could be the ignition coil...or the spark plug...or the throttle body being clogged...or it could be a freak-one time thing that can't be replicated...or it could be something entirely different. Same thing with an O2 sensor. Just because it says "O2 Sensor Three is reading incorrectly" doesn't necessarily mean the O2 Sensor is bad. You could have bad wiring, the air/fuel mixture could be throwing off the reading, the person could have just put bad gas in it, or again many other possibilities. Have fun diagnosing that electrical problem that keeps causing the ECU to think that your Crank Positioning Sensor is bad (causing it to throw a code and making the check engine light come on), when in fact the sensor itself is perfectly fine.
It's not as simple as just "this is broken, please replace it." Many dealerships do this, but real shops do not.
Because no matter how educated the average person gets about the way a vehicle works, a clever desk manager can always tell you the mechanic in the back plugged in a diagnostic and it said the "[techspeak] board indicated the [techspeak] [techspeak] has failed which [techspeaks] your ignition, and this is caused by road salt erosion of your [techspeak] which is obviously not covered under the warranty".
If you go somewhere in which the guy up front tells you that, you demand that they put your car back together, take it off the rack, and go somewhere else. You didn't take your car to a shop, you took it to a lie.
Great points, all. Thank you for your insight, as I've not yet had a chance to play the third one yet. From what you have said, I haven't really missed much:/
Slashdot Mirror
I don't always download torrents, but when I do, I reach for Demonoid.
Stay downloading, my friends.
What? The post or the score? ::rimshot::
I would just like to point out that not only is there a three-digit UID in our midst, but one that is really, really close to being under 500.
Show some respect, fellow slashdotters.
In my own experience, a very quick way to determine this is if they have the following:
1. A vehicle used specifically for carrying their tools to various jobs.
2. That vehicle has an Air Compressor permanently or semi-permanently installed in it (Craftsman-style "portable" compressors do not count)
3. Check what brand tools they have. Shadetrees aren't willing to put out the money for quality tools. If most of what they are using are Craftsman or Home Depot specials, look elsewhere.
"It was all I could think of in one sitting!"
RIP, Mr. Carlin. You are missed :(
If games are the only thing holding you back, let me recommend GOG.com or if you're really old school Dos Box.
Both are awesome suggestions, but I still like having a top-of-the-line PC circa the year 2000 with Windows 98 installed on it laying around. It's like using an NES emulator vs. playing a game on NES hardware. Sure, you technically are playing the same game...but the experience isn't quite the same :-)
Then surely you agree that our Founding Fathers also advocated the usage of cannabis, yes?
"Some of my finest hours have been spent on my back veranda, smoking hemp and observing as far as my eye can see." -Thomas Jefferson
And that, my fellow Slashdotters, is the whole point :-)
That doesn't mean regulation failed, that means enforcement failed...which is a different problem altogether.
peopel
survice
Oh, and a good spell-checker wouldn't be a bad idea either -_-;; Geez...
In my experience (both from using their services and from knowing people who have gone on to do this after they quit the car service industry), you can generally trust the peopel who run their own business and come to your home or place of business and work on your car right there in the street.
You can (usually) trust them because A. no one wants to be laying on freakin' asphalt, using floor jacks, working on a car, B. because they are self-employed, they rely on good word-of-mouth to survice, and C. they can't hide in a shop. It's in front of your house, you can do whatever the hell you want as far as watching them is concerned.
Like anything, you shouldn't blindly trust all of them...but it's generally a safe bet to go with an "at home" mechanic service. They're generally good, hardworking people.
Shop was in MD? Still in business? I'd be curious to give it a shot the next time I need someone other than my brother or I to do some work on a car.
It was a series of Midas franchises all owned by the same guy. We were beholden to the standard Midas Corporate bullshit (guilt by association, and all that), but this guy did his absolute damndest to make sure that his shops ran in tip-top shape. Having to fight name association didn't help, but the people that knew us knew that if they took their car into one of our locations, they would get treated right.
I'm not sure what kind of condition the shops are in now (or if the same guy even owns them), but you can check out the one in Bethesda or Rockville or Germantown. If you go to Germantown, ask to have Vin Doo (wrong spelling, right pronunciation) work on your car. If you go to Bethesda, ask Sam Doppler to put your sales ticket together. Tell either of them that Adam sent you :-) (They were both, at one point, my shop foreman.)
(A post or two back, you were commenting on how cars aren't as difficult as people imagine. My brother runs into this. He did a resto of a 1985 Porsche 928. He constantly has people amazed that he pulled it off with nothing but a typical garage and tools. More than once on Rennlist, he's had to tell someone "it's a Porsche, not a Faberge egg. You actually *can* work on it.")
Unless it's a clutch for a mid-80's 944. Screw that noise. Once was too many times.
With your reasoned response to my post, I must admit being somewhat ashamed at my ah ... rather inflamed rant (too many years of frustration but still...).
No need to feel ashamed. I was always wary of people that weren't at least a little suspicious...a 100% trusting customer is a bad customer when it comes to cars, in my opinion. I always liked it when even our loyal customers questioned our diagnosis or decisions...it meant they wanted to make damn sure they weren't getting the run-around, which if more people worried about, I think there would be less problems in the industry.
Thanks for understanding. That shop you worked in wouldn't be in NorCal by any chance would it? I need a good, honest shop now more than ever. =]
Sorry, other side of the country...the shop was in Maryland :-)
"I'll show you politics in America, right here: I think the puppet on the left is correct. I think the puppet on the right shares more of my beliefs. Wait a minute...there's one guy holding both puppets!" -Bill Hicks
My point was that taking the car to the dealer has become such an expensive time-consuming ordeal with no assurance of an actual fix that it's cheaper for me to take a half hour and toss in $50 worth of parts at home than it is to take it in for service.
Ah. That I agree with.
I just maintain that the mechanics' horseshit has reached the point where I'd trust a lawyer before I trust a fucking mechanic to be honest with me. Fucking crooks the lot of them and the honest ones are usually just honest 'with people they know'. They make up their margins with customers off the street.
Sadly, I must agree with you. The shop I worked in prided itself in being honest with its customers (the first time a manager caught a mechanic trying to cheat a customer, they were fired on the spot. No second chances.) Despite our reputation and huge numbers of loyal customers, it was always very difficult to get new customers to trust us for the very reasons you outlined.
The point, as always, is that service departments in dealerships (and other shops as well) need to be hella regulated by at least 3 different agencies, with monthly audits, starting with the assumption that every single one is a den of thieves. Douchenozzles. Now, they don't even let you into the work area anymore (unless they "know" you) using some convenient OSHA rule and insurance crap and concerns for your "safety", unless you insist and threaten to take your car elsewhere.
This was something else we prided ourselves on. It's your car we were working on, and as such you had every right to see the problem yourself and, if you promised to not get in our way, even watch us do the work start to finish should you wish to. ("not get in our way" means not standing right next to us. Questions, conversations, all of that was fine...but if we had to work around you, back in the waiting room you went.)
So, tell me this. How is it suddenly ok, just for this one profession, to blame the victim for not being sufficiently observant and knowledgeable. The response always is, "well, if you don't know your car well, you can't blame them for robbing you blind." Though it's not stated that way, that's the essence of it isn't it?
We would always explain to people that when you bring your car into our shop, you aren't paying us to fix your car/replace your parts for you. You are paying for our knowledge of how to do those two things properly. Anyone can use a torch, or resurface a rotor, or make a custom exhaust out of straight pipe. Not everyone can do it properly. We always tried using simple analogies so that people had a better understanding of what was happening (my favorite being our description for drum brakes, describing the "drum" as a salad spinner and the shoes as "hands" or "the little lever you pull to stop it from spinning".), but sadly many new customers would accuse us of talking stupid to them, and acting like they were morons. It's a very fine line you walk, for sure.
I have tremendous respect for mechanics' troubleshooting skills, but zero respect for their sense of ethics.
Sadly, many people are under the impression that cars are more difficult to understand than they really are. As a result, few people take the time to famillirize themselves with even simple procedures, which in turn allows mechanics to prey on the ignorant with reckless abandon. Again, it was for this reason that we always took the time to try to explain to people how something functioned, why it went bad on their car, and what steps are required to prevent it. The way we saw it was if we could pique the interest of a consumer and make them realize that hey, these things really aren't so complicated, they might take some time to learn about them and reduce the chance they would get ripped off should they go somewhere else. Regardless, we had a zero-tolerance policy regarding ripping off customers. The owners of our shop would rather we turn away work (i.e. "Ma'am, I could fix this, but it would cost more than this car is worth. I wouldn't suggest putting any money into this thing) instead of taking money from people that we shouldn't.
And before people jump
While what you are saying is technically correct, if you had a head gasket that was leaking that badly, you would certainly have more than a single misfire code being tripped in the ECU :-)
Sure, maybe cosmic rays are causing a false reading, but oddly enough, quite often when it says "O2 sensor is reading incorrectly", the O2 sensor is bad.
Often, yes, the sensor itself is bad...but in my experience, trusting the OBD II code without any further investigation is a quick way to ensure that customer comes back. Bad gas, a bad catalytic converter (depending on where the sensor is, of course), a clogged intake manifold or throttle body...hell, even an air filter can cause an O2 sensor code to trip, if it's old and dirty enough.
Fast-working mechanics would just replace the O2 sensor. Good mechanics make sure the O2 sensor really is the problem before they replace it. Like I said, OBD II codes provide a starting point for a diagnosis, not an end point.
We used to get a commission based on total parts and labor for the work ticket. One would think this would encourage us to be parts swappers and not actual mechanics, since parts make up more of the cost of a total ticket...and normally, I would agree with them. However, the culture of the shop I worked at was such that people who had a higher labor-to-parts ratio generally earned more, because they were granted higher commissions on labor, thus raising their base pay. The owners understood that not only was diagnosing and fixing the problem a better solution than just parts swapping, it was also more profitable for them because labor has no inherent upfront cost, unlike parts.
Because of this upfront cost, we were also encouraged to tell people to buy parts themselves when possible, especially on high-ticket items like BMW exhaust parts, engines, or anything else that we would charge for their first-born after markup. This made customers happy due to a reduced bill, it made the owners happy due to less money spent on their part, and it made mechanics happy because it raised their labor-to-parts ratios.
It really was a well balanced system. If you could find a way to fix a car using the same parts it came into the shop with, you were thought of very highly. If you exhausted that possibility to its fullest extent before changing parts out, but still fixed the problem, you were equally well regarded. Granted, because of this, it took us a little longer than most places to fix your car due to the extra diagnosis time...but we made damn sure it was fixed right the first time.
Feh. ASE certified doesn't really mean anything..back in the day, I had 5 active ASE certifications, and ALL of them were "written" tests; none of them required hands on work. That means if you have the capacity to study for a test, literally anyone can become ASE certified.
One of them I got because it was required by law to work on air conditioning (ASE Refrigerant and Recycling), the others I got because the shop I worked at paid an extra 1% commission for each active certification you had.
http://orthopedics.about.com/cs/otherfractures/a/scaphoid.htm
Sorry, I had heard of it referred to as a navicular bone.
That being said, I wish I could stick to cars :/
From my original post:
Same thing with an O2 sensor. Just because it says "O2 Sensor Three is reading incorrectly" doesn't necessarily mean the O2 Sensor is bad. You could have bad wiring, the air/fuel mixture could be throwing off the reading, the person could have just put bad gas in it, or again many other possibilities.
Have a nice day!
You're both wrong.
I'm a former mechanic because 5 years ago, I fractured my left and right ulna, as well as navicular fractures in both wrists. If you can tell me how to work on cars with injuries that won't fully heal for years in both wrists, I'll be glad to do it.
To the AC, I didn't want cars returned to me, which is why I always fixed what was wrong and not what I was told was wrong by a computer.
Mechanics are often not even mechanics any more. They plug in the diagnostic and whatever it says is wrong, is what is wrong.
Speaking as a former mechanic, fuck you very much. OBD II codes serve to provide you a place to look, nothing more.
Say for example the code is a misfire on Cylinder 3. Great. Do you have any idea how many different things can cause a misfire? It could be the ignition coil...or the spark plug...or the throttle body being clogged...or it could be a freak-one time thing that can't be replicated...or it could be something entirely different. Same thing with an O2 sensor. Just because it says "O2 Sensor Three is reading incorrectly" doesn't necessarily mean the O2 Sensor is bad. You could have bad wiring, the air/fuel mixture could be throwing off the reading, the person could have just put bad gas in it, or again many other possibilities. Have fun diagnosing that electrical problem that keeps causing the ECU to think that your Crank Positioning Sensor is bad (causing it to throw a code and making the check engine light come on), when in fact the sensor itself is perfectly fine.
It's not as simple as just "this is broken, please replace it." Many dealerships do this, but real shops do not.
Because no matter how educated the average person gets about the way a vehicle works, a clever desk manager can always tell you the mechanic in the back plugged in a diagnostic and it said the "[techspeak] board indicated the [techspeak] [techspeak] has failed which [techspeaks] your ignition, and this is caused by road salt erosion of your [techspeak] which is obviously not covered under the warranty".
If you go somewhere in which the guy up front tells you that, you demand that they put your car back together, take it off the rack, and go somewhere else. You didn't take your car to a shop, you took it to a lie.
Great points, all. Thank you for your insight, as I've not yet had a chance to play the third one yet. From what you have said, I haven't really missed much :/