Quote:
Originally Posted by NoBozo
ALL Excellent points. A good "Mechanic" doesn't need a torque wrench to FEEL how tight a nut or bolt should be. ( Building an engine is a different story). We are not building an engine here. We are changing a tire.
Unfortunately..We don't have any more "Mechanics". "Mechanics" could FIX things. Now we have "Technicians". They don't know HOW to FIX things. They know how to REPLACE things. In the old days you replaced the brushes in your cars generator. A few bucks. Now ...you Replace the entire Alternator. So why is this..? Two reasons: It's because labor rates at your local dealer are $98 per hour. They havn't got time to THINK about what might be the simple solution.  The other reason is..components today are NOT designed to be fixed. They are designed to be replaced. 
Back to your regularly schedualed program: NB |
NB.... your somewhat correct.
Stuff today is getting way more sophisticated than ever before, thank the Gov't and emissions/fuel economy standards for much of that. Some of it is simply advances in design which have made cars these days FAR more reliable than ever before. Finally there is the whole idea of reducing the amount of regular maintenance that needs to be done. I could go on and on about the good and bad of this, but let me get to my point. Your absolutely right the days of mechanics are pretty much over, techs as they call them now are armed with a computer and diagnostic software before ever picking up a wrench. In many cases this has really made troubleshooting problems much easier, however it is not uncommon for circumstances to exist where a problem arises and the computer does it's best to determine the problem but throws bogus codes, end result the techs who don't know any better can start throwing some very expensive darts (at your expense of course) by replacing parts or sensors that are not the root cause. That is a real serious problem and more prevalent than you might think.
There is also a reason why what used to be commonly repaired parts are no longer repaired at the dealer even though you can still get the parts to rebuild things that go bad such as alternators, starters, power steering pumps, brake calipers, etc.... The dealers do not want the liability of dealing with a rebuild gone bad AND it's far easier for them to hang new parts than risk unhappy customers spending big bucks and having to come back for further repairs. Take for example your typical brake job. used to be we'd replace the pads/shoes. resurface the rotors or drums and if need be rebuild the calipers. Today whether the car or truck needs it or not all those parts are replaced as a significant cost to the consumer even though some of those parts may still be serviceable. If all new parts are hung there is far less chance of any problems a year or two down the road. Even when it comes to big ticket items now, if an engine, tranny, axle whatever goes bad those no longer are rebuilt, they do a remove and replace.
Now for an independent shop the owner is the one to make those decisions and generally speaking since they have to come in at a price lower than the dealers they will not do this unless it's necessary. There is also a price spread on the cost of the parts too, although I'm a firm believer in avoiding aftermarket parts since they are usually substandard in quality.