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Where do you guys stand on just doing straight diagnostics? I find that every so often I’m in a pickle, and while I can do, and enjoy doing my own automotive work, sometimes I need a little help diagnosing a problem that may be eluding me due to lack of diagnostic equipment, etc. I’m hesistant to bring it to any shop mainly due to not wanting to waste someone else’s time, because I understand the point that you are there to make moeny, not be a charity( this includes bringing my ride to a friend that does automotive work out of his garage professionally ). It’s not that I’d be against paying for the diagnosis, it’s just the stereotype I have that a shop isn’t going to want to mess with a guy like me because they aren’t going to get the larger repair bill for the diagnosis work.
How do you feel about that?
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Before I had some of the diagnostic equipment myself (mainly a scan tool with live data), and gained experience while I was in school, I had several ‘friends’ take their own cars to a shop and have it diagnosed. They would then call me and tell me the diagnosis, how much the quote was, and if I could do it for cheaper. Most of the time I could/would do it. If you take your car to (insert repair shop) and have to pay $90 to have it diagnosed because they charge a flat rate hour, and decide you can do the job yourself, then do it in my opinion. Personally, now that I am near the end of my classes, diagnostics have become my favorite part of working on a car, as I love putting the pieces of the puzzle together. But if I were to run across something I absolutely could not figure out, then I wouldn’t feel bad about doing this. The guy still got paid, and the shop still made money.
I guess the only thing I would feel guilty about would be if the tech had to obviously do more than an hour’s worth of work to diagnose a problem and then only charged for one hour. If that were to happen, which I find unlikely, I might ask to talk to the tech and slip him a twenty dollar bill, especially if he had to put stuff back together for the car to be driven away.
On the flipside of that coin though, before I started school, I had a ’95 Taurus that was running like dog crap, and I could NOT figure out the deal. I took it to a shop, and got a ‘diagnosis’. The quote basically said that a bad motor mount had caused the MAF to unclamp from the airtube or some crap. They wanted $500 to replace the motor mount and fix the ‘air leak’. I went out and looked at the car, and found that the bottom side of the airtube had slipped off the throttle body. I pulled a dime out of my pocket, and used it as a makeshift screwdriver, loosened the clamp, and re-attatched the piping. I had thought I had done a thorough visual inspection, but obviously not good enough. So, they will make their money back on some other sucker. That guy didn’t get a tip.
Just to make this ‘short’ story longer, there were no other cars in the lot, and nothing in the bays. They were obviously looking to make up for lack of other business. Since then, I only go to this spot for tires, because they offer decent cheap ones. It was a chain called Grismer’s. I hate dropping names like that, but I have heard so many horror stories from folks about them, I can’t help it this time.My personal thought on it for myself is that they won’t get my business any other way. I do my own auto repair, period. I may not like it sometimes as I have to do it all outside regardless of the weather ( repinned in a new computer into my Astro in the middle of a MN February over the course of 2 days, etc )
If I knew my local shop would be willing to say “hey, bring your van in, we’ll figure out exactly what that code is being triggered by and give a reasonable guarantee that the fix we suggest is going to take care of the problem, then they’ve got my business. If all they want to do is upsell me a bunch of extra work, then I walk. I take pride in maintaining my cars myself, and I’m not to the point where I’m done working on them. I want to have a good dialogue with the shop technician that is going to work on my vehicle.
The problem is going about creating a relationship like that. I suppose all a guy can do is ask and see what they have to say.
I am very blessed with the resources i have so those people are my ‘go to guys’ if i am stuck.
There is nothing wrong with asking for help, ever.
No one knows everything when it comes to this automotive field due to the ever changing technology. You need schooling and training these days to be a successful technician. You cant escape that.
Anyone can replace parts, but it takes skill and knowledge to be able to diagnose more advanced issues.
If you take it somewhere, just make sure there fully qualified or you may run into the issue Beefy had with a misdiagnosis from that shop. C8-)
Well, to be honest, they didn’t mis-diagnose anything. The tech probably saw that the intake tube had dipped off the bottom side of the throttle body. It would have taken him 30 seconds to fix with a screwdriver, as it took me a minute and a half with my makeshift screwdriver (a dime). They just wanted to sell something. On that note however, it’s amazing what you can fix with what you have in your pockets if you don’t have a tool set. I always carry a pocket knife and change for that very reason.
Haha.., I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used a pocket knife for a screw driver in a jam.
What ever you can use to get your self going again if fine as long as it does not cause more problems ( like people using a egg to fix a coolant leak).
My brother inlaw actually did that to his 96 dodge neon before and it worked for him for about a week then it started leaking again, and when i had to fix it (bad water pump) it was nasty having all that burnt egg everywhere..
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