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First off let me say that Eric is Amazing ! His videos and everything he does is A+++ because it is authentic.
Now back to business. So many shops are losing and closing in Canada. Why ? Because the people are TRASH. LAZY PIECES OF GARBAGE that want money and seem to believe that people should sit back and be robbed. The Dealerships are fraud just like the Corner Shops. Lazy incompetent people who figure people owe them something. Today I am actually Excited to see these people go under. Robbing people has to come to an end. I’m at a stage where I will not let me Vehicle go into any shop period because NO ONE CAN BE TRUSTED. People don’t want to go over the work that they have done when it’s their fault. Like WTF are people to do ……
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I’m going to say this and you may not like it at all. So be it. You’re lumping all independent shops, chain shops, and dealerships into one large dumpster of crooks and this is very misguided thinking.
Are there problems at times? Sure there is. There are a comparatively small number of crooks out there. There are a number of incompetents and skilled people who are lumped in with the incompetents because a repair is not always right PDQ. Not all car problems are black and white issues. There’s a lot of gray area and especially in modern era cars with a mountain of wiring, sensors, relays, switches, and so on with anything at anytime being prone to an intermittent.
A lot of people seem to think that a mechanic can “hook up the computer” and voila! Problem right there on the screen. Not. It does not work that way and many problems can be traced to multiple causes. In many cases it’s like a line of dominos when one is tipped and it starts taking down the entire string.Now I’ll agree with you. The government should force the closing of all shops within a years time. This will give everyone including yourself time to buy tools (after selling the house) and become mechanically educated. Everyone can fix their own crap, the crooks are gone, and all problems are now history.
[quote=”Bluesnut” post=142043]I’m going to say this and you may not like it at all. So be it. You’re lumping all independent shops, chain shops, and dealerships into one large dumpster of crooks and this is very misguided thinking.
Are there problems at times? Sure there is. There are a comparatively small number of crooks out there. There are a number of incompetents and skilled people who are lumped in with the incompetents because a repair is not always right PDQ. Not all car problems are black and white issues. There’s a lot of gray area and especially in modern era cars with a mountain of wiring, sensors, relays, switches, and so on with anything at anytime being prone to an intermittent.
A lot of people seem to think that a mechanic can “hook up the computer” and voila! Problem right there on the screen. Not. It does not work that way and many problems can be traced to multiple causes. In many cases it’s like a line of dominos when one is tipped and it starts taking down the entire string.Now I’ll agree with you. The government should force the closing of all shops within a years time. This will give everyone including yourself time to buy tools (after selling the house) and become mechanically educated. Everyone can fix their own crap, the crooks are gone, and all problems are now history.[/quote]
You and Fopeano are my heros. I couldn’t have said it better.
A lot of shops fail because small business has a direct connection to economic climate, and people let their cars go until they don’t move or function. I can’t tell you the number of times people have had brakes at 2mm and then come back with a seized caliper. Then still refuse to pay for the repair. This affects many small shops because they can’t count on car sales to cover over head and cost of business.
The people I know that have had shops for decades have loyal customers that come to them for everything and anything, and often have spouses that are nurses, engineers (yes there are female engineers), have investors or business partners with really good jobs.
Plus many, and I mean many small business fail. Running a small business isn’t easy and it takes a lot of education. Not necessarily a business degree but education in life.
Yes we charge a lot for labor, but we buy our tools, we learn our trade, we are responsible for your safety when we fix your vehicle.
What I truly find fucking hilarious is people never complain how much a surgery cost. That surgeon has to pay the hospital to use their rooms, their equipment, their nurses , it’s his skills that make him money.
Next time you break your ankle, just duct tape some paint sticks to the side of your foot.
[quote=”Pitt” post=142045]Next time you break your ankle, just duct tape some paint sticks to the side of your foot.[/quote]
Awesome! I’m 😆[quote=”Pitt” post=142045]A lot of shops fail because small business has a direct connection to economic climate, and people let their cars go until they don’t move or function. I can’t tell you the number of times people have had brakes at 2mm and then come back with a seized caliper. Then still refuse to pay for the repair. This affects many small shops because they can’t count on car sales to cover over head and cost of business.
The people I know that have had shops for decades have loyal customers that come to them for everything and anything, and often have spouses that are nurses, engineers (yes there are female engineers), have investors or business partners with really good jobs.
Plus many, and I mean many small business fail. Running a small business isn’t easy and it takes a lot of education. Not necessarily a business degree but education in life.
Yes we charge a lot for labor, but we buy our tools, we learn our trade, we are responsible for your safety when we fix your vehicle.
What I truly find fucking hilarious is people never complain how much a surgery cost. That surgeon has to pay the hospital to use their rooms, their equipment, their nurses , it’s his skills that make him money.
Next time you break your ankle, just duct tape some paint sticks to the side of your foot.[/quote]
Who says we pay the hospital for the surgery? 😉
[quote=”Pitt” post=142045]
Next time you break your ankle, just duct tape some paint sticks to the side of your foot.[/quote]Water Ice popsicle sticks and masking tape is how I healed my one finger after I set it.
As for incompetence part of it is the customer and part of it is the industry. After all for ASE tests 70% is passing. The industry also does very little hands on training for new technology. The give you videos, manuals, diagrams, but rarely tell you how the ecm interprets the signals or how they are calculated. (this is mainly because they are still figuring it out themselves) I have had to fix 2 major systems without any documentation because “nothing had broken yet” on those systems. AKA they released products without testing them.
Though if they do make changes to improve these things the customers needs to understand that it will cost more. Which most people complain about. A good tech that knows his stuff and is at the top of his field normally maxes out at $35/hr. If we did that training we would be looking at making what surgeons make, approx 120/hr Which means customers would be paying $220/hr for labor.
What makes it tough is that so many people ignore maintenance on the tool they use every day; their car. As long as starts and moves they’re content. At some point it has to go to the shop and they think that one price cures all of the ills.
I can say this without hesitation. I’ve done a lot of engine work and almost none of them were just flat worn out due to miles.
It was all due to lack of regular oil changes, not realizing that the temp gauge pegged on HOT means STOP NOW, never checking the oil level, not ever considering a transmission fluid change until near the bitter end, and so on.It’s amazing to me over the last few decades how many people, including men, never take 5-10 minutes on the weekend to go out in the drive to check fluid levels, eyeball the tires, or learn what a flaky serpentine accessory belt looks like.
My daughter (all 100 pounds of her) wanted to know about cars when she first turned 16. She spends time every other weekend looking her 2005 Mustang over and has even done maintenance and repairs under my guidance. She’s even done a full brake job on her own while i watched including rotor replacement. She was visiting today and her Mustang at 206K miles uses no noticeable oil at all between changes while the car still runs and drives like new.
Five quarts of old oil out and five in; all verified by filling the empty jug with the old for recycling.
Now surely if she can do this others can also.Rant over….. 🙂
[quote=”Bluesnut” post=142112]What makes it tough is that so many people ignore maintenance on the tool they use every day; their car. As long as starts and moves they’re content. At some point it has to go to the shop and they think that one price cures all of the ills.
I can say this without hesitation. I’ve done a lot of engine work and almost none of them were just flat worn out due to miles.
It was all due to lack of regular oil changes, not realizing that the temp gauge pegged on HOT means STOP NOW, never checking the oil level, not ever considering a transmission fluid change until near the bitter end, and so on.It’s amazing to me over the last few decades how many people, including men, never take 5-10 minutes on the weekend to go out in the drive to check fluid levels, eyeball the tires, or learn what a flaky serpentine accessory belt looks like.
My daughter (all 100 pounds of her) wanted to know about cars when she first turned 16. She spends time every other weekend looking her 2005 Mustang over and has even done maintenance and repairs under my guidance. She’s even done a full brake job on her own while i watched including rotor replacement. She was visiting today and her Mustang at 206K miles uses no noticeable oil at all between changes while the car still runs and drives like new.
Five quarts of old oil out and five in; all verified by filling the empty jug with the old for recycling.
Now surely if she can do this others can also.Rant over….. :-)[/quote]
The no preventative maintenance thing makes me NUTS!
I have been a mechanic in many different fields, I have worked automotive, medium and heavy truck as well a heavy and industrial equipment and 110% across the board the most common cause of expensive repairs I see is pure and simple neglect. I would say 75% of the time or better most big money failures are because people did not maintain their equipment or failed to get it fixed when a problem started.
The always enjoyable part is that when that car comes in with brakes ground to nothing or a machine needs a new hydrostatic pump because they never changed the hydraulic oil or filters the customer is always made at the shop/mechanic about the cost to repair the damage they did…
Very true. I can’t even count how many engines or transmissions I’ve seen that were damaged or wiped out because someone never changed the oil or fluid or never even checked it.
About 6 years ago a guy bought a top of the line F250 4WD pickup with every option you can think of. The truck was something like 50-60 grand. He brought it to the Ford dealer for an oil change at 3k miles.
The next time the Ford dealer saw the truck it was on the back of a flat bed being hauled in with a blown engine.The truck had 25k miles on it and the engine was scrap metal. The truck owner never changed the oil or even raised the hood to check the oil level after that first 3k miles oil change. Warranty of course correctly turned him down on a new engine and the guy went ballistic; screaming and cursing Ford, Ford dealers, mechanics, and the rest of the world over something that was entirely his fault.
In another case a guy bought a brand new car from the dealer where I worked and never changed the oil one time. The car had 25k miles on the original oil when the engine froze clean up. The oil was so gunked up it would not even run out of the oil pan once it was removed from the block.
This guy said it was our fault because “no one told him he had to change the oil”.He even sicced the manufacturer on us while not telling the story behind it. They told him to go away. His next step was to sic a lawyer on us and when I filled the lawyer in on the reason the lawyer also dropped him.
2 shops I worked for that failed, and now that I work at a dealer, I can see why.
They were franchises of a tire brand but we did everything. Major stuff, but minor factors as well. For one thing, the owners were not involved enough. Hiring incompetent managers that cooked the books and ended up robbing the place or the owner didn’t know how bad it was until it was too late. Always digging out of the hole. Some of these managers all out robbed the place. Hiring incompetent technicians and not holding them accountable for their mistakes. People were hired and paid more on who they were and who they knew than their actual abilities.Some techs just guess and throw parts at the car, it just means a larger repair bill so more money for the shop, right? Trying to suck people dry with crazy upsells. Attitudes galore. Guys smoking while working on people’s cars, even smoking in the customer’s cars. Dirty, filthy shop. Failure to adapt to changing trends. I worked for these chains from the late 90’s to about 2011 and during that time they never really let me advance, but most of all, the business model never changed.
A service manager I knew said once “It take a lot of hard work and time to build up a customer base, it takes a short time to lose it”
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