Solid points on the diagnosis. I agree. Not to derail the thread and get into a pissing contest but any repair shop can pull the try stuff out and charge for it crap. It's not just dealerships. Sure as hell isn't the way the one I run does it. I know that's probably a statement that's in the minority among the industry. Bad shops like that give the industry a bad name. A quality tech at a dealer or independent garage would follow the correct diagnostic procedure to find the problem and correct it.
The issue is, qualified techs are leaving the industry faster than they are being replaced. Guys that knew TBI systems back in the day are retired or got out. Noobs coming into the industry look at TBI units like carbs and don't have the experience to understand the system enough to repair it. Hence the guesswork. Some of the young guns I've hired could not fix a sandwich. Despite passing all 9 ase tests and coming out of a school like wyotech. Been looking for two years to find a replacement for my ace who plans on retiring in a couple years. Nobody has applied worth hiring. It's sad since a good quality tech can make a very good living in my shop.
True words all. Those ASE Techs are just people who know how to take a test - that's all. They for the most part have no idea in what I call:
"Practical Factors" for the trade in which they got that ASE Cert in the first place.
[soapbox] When I started, alternators were just coming IN and disk brakes were a novelty. Can anyone set dwell on points any more? Can anyone make a generator work by adjusting the Field Points, if they even knew where they were?
Things move on and frankly, the horsepower coming out of new engines staggers the mind of old guys like me - and the reliability that they give is incredible.
In the days before electronic ignition and FI, there was a "Ring & Valve Job" instead of a tune-up. And mechanics took thermostats OUT to help the engine run cooler - a goal that was counterproductive as well as counter-intuitive.
The biggest problem as I see it - and reason #! why I retired is that there are no people who want to actually know what the parts do inside the engine or transmission.I hired a guy with an ASE Cert in Automatic Trans/Transaxle - and he had no idea how to get the thing out of the vehicle - seems that that part wasn't on the test.
Since I've moved to Montana, I've had offers to sit on a stool at an air conditioned desk to watch that the dealer's techs did the job right. I don't want to work any more, but this place is hungry for
"California Smog People" as they have no-one to do the thinking any more.
Most semi-intelligent people are sold a bill of goods about going to college and getting a higher education for a better job/career. What about Trade Schools? .
I've got quite a few recruiting request letters to work that same way in Arizona, Nevada and Colorado and I mean to say that it is very tempting. But I'd rather go trout fishing at almost 71 years of age.
I got out of the rat race when I saw that the rats were winning.
What I see is graduates in Anthropology and Doctorates of Fine Arts working for minimum wage asking: "Do you want to Supersize that order"? while another company here is dying to find people to work on construction equipment for $38/hour plus benefits.
All the old guys are retiring - and I was at the first wave of The Boomer Generation, so I'm already gone!
Nobody wants to get their hands dirty and come home super tired ---- yet it's one of those
'it feels so bad that it feels so good' type of dog tiredness from a successful day.
This problem I blame on school counselors who make big commissions selling some poor kid on a college education and a student loan that they'll NEVER pay off and keeps on growing interest-wise for the rest of their burger-flipping days.
[/soapbox]
