Forum Replies Created
-
Replies
-
[quote=”jmf269″ post=146572]So i switched around the coil packs…No difference. Did another diagnostic on it and cylinder 3 is still misfiring.[/quote]
The plug looks ok? Need to make sure you have proper spark at that cylinder. Need to make sure that your fuel system is ok. You said you replaced o-rings but have checked the actual injector? From a quick search, on a cold engine, you should have 14-18 ohms of resistance across the injector. Any more, its bad. If you took off the intake, make sure the gasket is seated properly. Make sure you have proper power and grounds for those items. If all the basics are good (fuel, spark, air) and there are no electrical problems, next would be mechanical. do a leak down test or compression test.
I am not a toyota expert nor do I have extensive knowledge of that particular vehicle. Maybe someone on here does. But for the most part, diagnostics are the same from vehicle to vehicle. If you have access to a service manual, it should tell you how to do those things. Or google it. There is a wealth of info on the internet. It can be something really simple or something complicated.
I thing that I like to do every oil change, whether at home or at the shop on a customers car, is a quick inspection. Make sure the tire pressures are set correctly and the tires are in good condition. Shake down the suspension to make sure nothing is a safety issue. Visually look under the hood to make sure fluids are good, belts/hoses are ok, and that there are no leaks. And visually look under the car to make sure everything is in good shape. Only takes a couple minutes and most of it can be done while the oil is draining. Just some cheap insurance to make sure the vehicle is safe.
[quote=”Bluesnut” post=146250]Let that used belt break in the near future and guess which innocent party will get the blame if not the legal liability. Word of mouth will be the mechanic botched it and anyone hearing the tale will not hear the “refused service” part of it…..[/quote]
Isnt that the truth! It’s so frustrating that people will blame the tech for everything. It’s our fault the prices of parts and labor are too high. It’s our fault that parts go bad (like we go out back and make them on the spot lol). It’s our fault that we did an oil change and now you have brake noise that wasn’t there before we did the oil change.
And we all know what’s going to happen. That timing belt is going to break at 106000 miles and the warranty company will say sorry it wasn’t done at the proper interval. Unfortunately, I have seen this happen a couple of times.
[quote=”MDK22″ post=144884]I am not trying to down play the time and what you wrote up here there is just a lot more to it then what you wrote. It is fine to work on it as long as you have a shop pull down the system properly and give you the oil amount and refrigerant amounts they recovered. Then you can go through and do what you need to but, you really have to know what you are doing or get a guiding hand from someone who does as it is a very delicate process to fixing them correctly. They are extremely temperamental.[/quote]
So true!! I cringe when I do an A/C check on someone’s vehicle and the customer states that they try to charge it and fix it at home. I am all about the DIY person learning to work on their cars and fix it themselves to save money. But A/C work is one of the very few things that a reputable shop needs to do. Yes, it will probably be expensive. But these systems can be so picky and can be greatly affected by small changes made. These “A/C Pro” commercials get me all riled up. They try to make it look all easy when in fact 9 times out of 10 they are doing more harm than good. Those sealers that are advertise on the can for helping to stop leaks can destroy a professional machine when you do take it to a shop because it still doesn’t work.
Not trying to discourage anyone wanting to try this themselves or the OP for writing the article. It does have some good info for a person that doesn’t really understand A/C work. But please, find a good shop that does this work and have them do it.
This engine has the 3 coils which has a ignition wire running from it to another cylinder correct? You could always swap the coil around with another one. If the misfire moves to the cylinder you swapped the coil to then you know its bad. So for instance, take the coil off of cylinder 3 and move it to cylinder 1. If 1 starts to misfire, its a bad coil. Also pull a plug out when the coils are removed to make sure they look good and not causing your problem.
[quote=”DaFirnz” post=145569]Hopefully to the scrap yard.
You raise and interesting point though. If someone who is educated or certified deems the vehicle unfit to the point where it is towed out of the shop. Is the owner not taking a huge amount of liability if they ever choose to drive the car again without correcting issues that made it not roadworthy?[/quote]
Absolutely. They are taking all of the liability. It was documented extensively the car shouldn’t be driven. Have a copy of the tow bill to prove it was indeed towed. As far as the company is concerned, it cannot come back to hurt us as far as a lawsuit if its not fixed. If they drive it and something bad happens, it’s 100% on them. We cannot make anyone pay for repairs they do not want performed. And there is no state inspection to fail so the car cannot be driven or a way to get the police involved. We tried to work with them on price. They simply did not have the money to get it fixed.
It’s very unfortunate. I wish the state had a strict set of laws involving vehicle safety. We see a few vehicles a month that we have to give the owners the right speech. Im not into selling people things they don’t need to make sales goals. But if they make the choice to drive an unsafe vehicle and not only endanger their family lives but those of everyone else around them, we have to step in and give them a reality check. If they still choose to leave, we cannot force them to stay.
We don’t have a state inspection in Indiana. Which is a good thing and a bad thing. Good in a way that customers don’t think technicians/shops are out to fail a car just to scare someone into buying parts. Bad because some of these vehicles that come in absolutely do not belong on the road. Like seriously, some of them are down right scary. But what we do have is a gray area “company policy”. If one of us tell the manager that this car is absolutely unsafe to drive, we will not give the keys back to the customer unless it’s towed away. And we will pay for the tow. Looked at a car couple of days ago. Needed 2 steel brake lines, rear calipers, and pads/rotors all the way around. Had no brake pedal and e-brake didn’t work. Took me 20 feet to stop from 5mph. Had to push it Into my bay. They didn’t want to pay for it. They said give me my keys and I’ll drive away. Got mad when we said no. They wanted to speak to the technician (me) and ask why I doomed the vehicle. I told them that if they were sharing the road with the vehicle that had my wife and daughter with them in it and they struck it and killed them, I would come after them and anyone associated with that car. They got the hint and we payed a tow company to haul it away.
I have worked at both so hopefully I can give you some good advice.
Both have their pros and cons:
Dealerships: You will have access to better equipment and better technical information. The Shops will be cleaner. You can do the factory training programs to further your education. Pay might be a little higher per hour but will generally turn less hours than a chain store. Cars will be newer so you won’t generally fight things that are rusted together or have been rigged by four other shops. You not only have to deal with the service manager but you have your service consultants, sales consultants, sales managers, and other higher ups that will tell you how to do your job.Chain Stores: Are normally busier therefore you tend to turn more hours but pay is a little less per hour. Generally the equipment is older and on its last leg. Chain stores are corporate owned so it’s hard to get new stuff approved. Shops are in old buildings with concrete floors that have been soaking up oil and other fluids for the past 60 years. You have less people to deal with inside the shop. You see a wide variety of cars so you gain a broader knowledge of vehicles compared to 1-2 brands at a dealer. People wait until their POS vehicle has completely broken down and then bring it to your shop. The vehicles will be older and have more rust. people will try to fix it themselves, then take it to 3-4 other cheaper shops that rig the crap out of it and then bring it to you to properly fix. You will generally have more comebacks. Not necessarily from workmanship, but from cheap parts, frugal customers, and those that start off with “ever since you worked on my car….”.
Sorry about that, the pros and cons are mixed together. For me the biggest pro of a chain store is insurance. They are corporate owned so insurance is better and cheaper. I have awesome insurance. Half the price of when I worked at the dealer. Deductible is 1/3 of the dealer. For around $300 a month, I have health/dental/vision for me, my wife, and daughter and a health savings account. 401K is a percentage of what I make which is company matched.
The people and their attitudes will vary from shop to shop. Some of them are good and some are bad. This business can bring out the worst in people. For me, I work to provide for my family. I don’t care about other people’s egos or personalities. I don’t go to work to make friends. Yes the shop environment will be better if everyone gets along, but you will never make everyone happy. I have one good friend in the shop and we are always working with each other and helping each other out. I try to help anyone that needs it but If I piss someone off because I turned more hours than them or got a better job, then oh well. They don’t pay my bills. Working in a shop is like a big brother episode.
Of course most of this is just general and doesn’t apply to all shops. Chain stores are different than indie shops so there’s that whole part of it too.
It’s hard at first. I clashed with a lot people because no way in hell I was going to feed into someone else’s ego. But after a while, you just ignore them and they will leave you alone. Just work your ass off and try to better yourself. That’s all you can pretty much do. You won’t be able change people or how a shop is ran.
Sorry for the long response lol.
[quote=”MDK22″ post=144719][quote=”Fopeano” post=144713]You are in North Carolina, which is not part of the rust belt. You flat out do not need as high quality outside of the rust belt as you do within. We have nuts/bolts that require more torque to break loose and are also corroded and weak on the head surface where our tool engages the fastener. Even with Snap-On I have to torch things 4 out of 5 days a week because of the rust, let alone all the non-torchable things that can’t simply be ‘unscrewed’ or ‘unbolted’ and need to be finessed apart. One of my highly marketable skills is that I can get rusty things apart, then recondition and reuse them.
[/quote]I am currently in VA but, it was the same way in PA. In PA it was a 30hr min at a lower rate but….still a guaranteed minimum.
What Fopeano said is one really good reason why I buy the brands I do. I also doubt you see vehicles from all over the place. I do I see stuff from all over all different brands, etc. When you have enough “hammer” mechanics “fix” stuff you will break your Harbor Freight tools. I am all for saving money but, if it only has Snap-On next to the name it is normally because i have tried or seen other people try the other brands and they do not hold up. If you are doing this for a period of longer then 5 yrs you will waste a lot more time/money then you spend on buying the good brands. I am not a Snap-On fanboy either in fact I hate the brand and try to avoid it if I can. But, unfortunately in some cases it just doesn’t work and you have to buy it. A simple example is that oil filter claw. You get a really tight filter you will break the other brand claws. You will snap the nut portion off or, spread the housing apart, break the gears, what have you.
The fact of the matter is the Snap-On stuff lasts and if it doesn’t its warrantied over and over till they redesign it or discontinue it. Also for 90% of that list there is another brand listed. This is also based on personal experience of what I have seen and used. It also states Suggested Brands which means you are entitled to disagree. I have gone through some cheap tools but, I am very particular about my tools and it regularly saves me time and money being that way. I also took the time and energy out of multiple days to write that entire thing and I stand behind it. Are there other tools that might work I am sure there are but, my job isn’t to buy tools my job is to fix things with my tools. So I list what I know.
I mainly work on Big Rigs at the present moment. My tools stand up to rusted to hell and back again stuff, sea salt cured pieces of metal, all kinds of different chemicals some from what the shops use others from what is stored in the vehicles or where they were parked. I snap cheap things like tooth picks. You have some fasteners that are so bad you need to cut a slot in them just so you can use your screwdriver. Manifold bolts will break ratchets. Drain plugs often require the use of a pipe plug socket, 18in breaker bar and 4ft long pipe to break loose because the impact is your friend. I have literally snapped the welds on the drain plug nut because people use impacts to install them at lube shops. I have had to use an impact to remove a crossthreaded oil filter cap for the canister style. Once you start running into stuff like this cheap stuff will not hold up.
Your tools are an investment. If you want your investment to last you invest well. If you think oh I will just get it replaced let me tell you Snap-On, Mac, Cornwell, Craftsman have been around a long time. Harbor Freight has not. Also harbor freight regularly discontinues things and will not replace them if they do not sell it anymore.
So that is why.[/quote]
I 110% agree with this. I am not a fanboy of any particular brand. But most of my stuff is Macto/Mac/Snap-on for a reason. The stuff works. But more importantly, it works consistently. I also work in the rust belt and some of the cheaper sockets and wrenches will round off a nut or bolt in a heartbeat. Not saying all cheaper tools are bad. Some of them are surprisingly good. But if your going to be working as a professional technician, for the most part you will need to buy professional tools.
Another thing is shop around. A lot of tools from my experience that are sold through Mac/Matco are just rebranded tools. Matco has had a habit of using IR air tools. My mac slide hammer kit is the same exact as someone else’s OTC one. But there is one thing to consider. The original branded things will be cheaper. But the big 3 ones that are rebranded will have a better warranty in most cases.
My name is Matt and I am 27 years old. I have been professionally working on cars for 8 years now and I currently work for a large national chain store in Indiana.
I am ASE Automobile Master Certified and I am currently signed up to take the L1 this fall. Found this channel on youtube and I am pleased because not only is ETCG great, but the people that seem to follow him seem to be great as well.