Why dealers are struggling to fix cars?

[arbell9]

Article in Autoexpress

Our industry insider explains why hi-tech cars are making it harder than ever for garages to diagnose faults

Dealers failing to diagnose faults was the single biggest gripe of our 2012 Driver Power satisfaction survey. It’s easy to see why this would annoy drivers – no one wants to make multiple visits to their local workshop to get a problem resolved.

But what’s got us concerned is how widespread this issue is – it was the main complaint for an incredible 28 per cent of those who were unhappy with their dealers..............

[TBD]

That article certainly doesn't match with my experiences. Most dealer (not Lotus) have become so used to reading justt he fault codes that they have lost any appreciation for the mechanical basics. True, the cars have become more complex, but we still have pistons, cylinders, a gearbox, clutch, etc....

Go to your dealer because your car rattles and, most likely, he will tell you he couldn't find a fault code.

There are only a few mechanics left, who can still diagnose an issue without relying just on the ECU readout. Fortunately, many of them work on Lotus cars.

[mayevora]

New cars are just a pain in the arse. I went to get what I thought was a 50p Indicator bulb this morning. Turns out the 'earth' had melted which then also gave me no tail light and no brake light.

Answer (as told by two separate places) - a new sealed unit - cost including fitting £136!!!! A new Earth yes, I don't need the whole kin unit - but all sold 'as one'

Mugged or what

[Snoopy1969]

That article certainly doesn't match with my experiences. Most dealer (not Lotus) have become so used to reading justt he fault codes that they have lost any appreciation for the mechanical basics. True, the cars have become more complex, but we still have pistons, cylinders, a gearbox, clutch, etc....

Go to your dealer because your car rattles and, most likely, he will tell you he couldn't find a fault code.

There are only a few mechanics left, who can still diagnose an issue without relying just on the ECU readout. Fortunately, many of them work on Lotus cars.

This!

also: when they read the fault code it might not be very specific. Once at our family vw I saw the "result" of the diagnosis - it was not a lot more specific than the "warning light" in the car itself - so they changed one part and said "we hope it will be ok but we cannot gurantee and if not we will have to change a second part...." and the next day the warning light was coming back after 20 km and... the secondpart was changed....But it was fair to try the "half cost" way and to offer the possibility.

[arbell9]

I had a friend recently have their Rav4 engine warning light come on, she took it to the dealer, they charged 51 quid to diagnose the fault, yep £51 to hook a computer box up and read a fault code. They said it needed a new sensor, fitted it and reset the system. They said it fixed the problem , she picked the car up drove a few miles and the warning light came on again. She did a u-turn, went back and said its not fixed. They said it must be a faulty sensor after the one they replaced. They would swap that. She complained how did the they know the one they swapped first was broken, they said when they are in series it's not easy to tell. The part had to be ordered and hey would swap it. As goodwill they said they would not charge her for the diagnosis this time. She asked how was she meant to get home and the receptionist pointed her to the bus stop. At this point she flipped and they agreed to someone taking her home.

I think this is what he article is about, the mechanics now don't know what's wrong and just go into plug and play mode swapping things. When new cars work great , when they don't and are out of warranty it could cost you a lot as they do trial and error.

[Bibs]

A pal took his Kia C'eed back (I started a thread on here about it) as it was smoking on startup. They changed the fuel filter (c£200 fitted!!) before diagnosing it need an engine swap under warranty. The fuel filter was a £200 guess which was wrong, I told him to get his money back!

[TBD]

But, needing an engine swap because the car was smoking on startup doesn't sound like good comprehension of the matter either. But, as the dealer probably gets a good compensation for swapping the engine, so why should he look for the 50p item that is probably broken.

Edited October 24, 2012 by TBD

[ramjet]

Go back to the initial problem though and what mechanic in his right mind would think that a fuel filter would cause an engine to smoke on start-up?

What next? A fuel line causing the car to pull to the left?

[Bibs]

Water in the filter steaming off on startup. Its not uncommon I believe mate.

[GavinT]

I'm involved in trucking here in the States and the dealers are just hopeless at fixing the newer generation of Diesel engines. Since 2011 Diesel engines must have EGR, diesel particular filters and diesel exhaust fluid. The combination of all these three make the engine have almost zero emissions. Now this is all fine and dandy until they go wrong as no one can fix them. Stories of weeks and sometimes over a month in the garage are not uncommon. If the computer doesn't tell them what to replace or adjust they are completely clueless. If it's not a sensor or something obvious all they do is start throwing new parts on in the hope it will fix the problem. At an average cost of $100 an hour for labor plus parts it gets real expensive real quick. Today's mechanics are really just parts removers and installers. Their skills are pretty much only as good as what level of software the shop computer is running.

[Bloodnok]

It will only get worse with all the hybrids coming out. You'll have no choice but to go to the dealer for some fixes. Your average shade tree mechanic isn't going to be able diagnose those systems. And I bet most dealers will struggle with them too.

Edited October 24, 2012 by Bloodnok

[DanR]

Over here mechanics are one of the more lowly paid trades. Not many stay in the job. With growing complexities it's unlikely to get better. Builders, plumbers, electricians etc do not have to virtually re-learn all they know every few years.

What's required is an engineering-electronics expertise coupled with many many hours of spanner swinging as well. And then pay them what they're worth. Will that ever happen? Not likely.

Probably what will happen is cars being designed like white goods, tv's, computers, radios etc. Once their use by date is reached they'll also get trashed.

[MPx]

Certainly all true for the Rangey. If the computer says no, then there's nothing wrong. Had an incredulous experience in one dealer on my old car that had (it turned out) fried its sat nav module. The symptom was that the tasteful amber/brown tones GUI screen on the dash lost its graphical interface and just had a few lines of white text in courier font on a blue background - very 80s. The dealer had the car for a while and said no fault found. So I went out to the car with the service manager, pointed at the screen and said thats the problem, should be GUI not just plain text. That's how it comes he said. No it isn't, says I, and its not been like that for the last four years. Well I've never seen one thats not like that he says.......And that was the end of it. Obviously with a bit of googling I could diagnose the fault, found a second hand one on scambay for £150 instead of £1150 LR price and fitted it myself in 5 mins - problem solved, back to full function GUI.

There's over 30 CPUs in my current Rangey and I've bought an IID tool so that I can check for myself what state they think they're in. The real problem is that they of course react to each other. So if there's an actual fault on the gearbox, then it will probably also generate a fault on the engine management as that cant get the result it expects from certain inputs....and vice versa. That can then get very tricky on knowing where the underlying fault is. But I think the worse part of main dealer service depts is the lack of research to help sort it. If its not on their diag kit then its usually more than they can be bothered with to even search through the technical bulletins let alone the internet. They certainly never give any credence to anything written on a forum - yet that has helped me no end and saved me a fortune. Presumably there still too much easy money about to worry about the difficult cases.

[TBD]

Over here mechanics are one of the more lowly paid trades. Not many stay in the job. With growing complexities it's unlikely to get better. Builders, plumbers, electricians etc do not have to virtually re-learn all they know every few years.

What's required is an engineering-electronics expertise coupled with many many hours of spanner swinging as well. And then pay them what they're worth. Will that ever happen? Not likely.

Certainly all true for the Rangey. If the computer says no, then there's nothing wrong. Had an incredulous experience in one dealer on my old car that had (it turned out) fried its sat nav module. The symptom was that the tasteful amber/brown tones GUI screen on the dash lost its graphical interface and just had a few lines of white text in courier font on a blue background - very 80s. The dealer had the car for a while and said no fault found. So I went out to the car with the service manager, pointed at the screen and said thats the problem, should be GUI not just plain text. That's how it comes he said. No it isn't, says I, and its not been like that for the last four years. Well I've never seen one thats not like that he says.......And that was the end of it. Obviously with a bit of googling I could diagnose the fault, found a second hand one on scambay for £150 instead of £1150 LR price and fitted it myself in 5 mins - problem solved, back to full function GUI.

Fortunaely the mechanics over here are generally well eucated - their professon is now called mechatronics. And it is still a highly cherished job, so they do generally get the best.

The reaction of that LR service manager is just incedulous . I normally only get that quality level when I contact the call center of my phone provider.

Edited October 25, 2012 by TBD

[Bibs]

You'd think they had PhD's over here when the main dealer charges you £120/hour for their time!

[alan]

You'd think they had PhD's over here when the main dealer charges you £120/hour for their time!

In some ways that is fair. A big dealership needs someone with a degree in electronics and an understanding of network technology (CAN Bus, LIN Bus, FlexRay and MOST interfaces). This person needs to know how to use scan tools and oscilloscopes properly. Such a diagnostic expert should be paid a good wage, they pay for themselves by preventing the random replacing of parts until the problem goes away.

The problem is that in most garages the expect the same person to diagnose complex computer network problems and also to change the oil and brake pads. They are two totally different roles requiring different training and salaries.

There is little to attract the right sort of people into the industry and outside the main dealers there is virtually no training going on (garage owners will not send mechanics on courses as they think they will then want more money / leave to get a better job). Dont get me started on much of the training going on at colleges etc - still teaching people how to set points and timing on distributors rather than modern common rail & direct injection engines.

[ramjet]

It's funny you should say that Alan as several years back I was speaking to some young guys doing their mechanics apprenticeships. They didn't even understand the concept of a distributor. It was not taught anymore.

[Guest Mutley00]

Fortunaely the mechanics over here are generally well eucated - their professon is now called mechatronics. And it is still a highly cherished job, so they do generally get the best.

Why am I not surprised that Germany has a system the rest of the world should aspire to !

[Iconic Ride]

Even the most trusted of mechanics can have an "off day." One of my vehicles (not shown in my avatar stats area) was purchased new 22 years ago. It now has over 225,000 miles on the clock, and a collection of maintenance (routine and otherwise) receipts that would choke a horse. Once the car had gone out of warranty I began taking the car to an independent mechanic who had been working on that particular marque for many years. He has always been upfront and fair with me on diagnosing and fixing whatever problems that needed attention. His willingness to take the time to discuss things in depth was and is refreshing. I think he gets a kick out of face to face talks with customers who are truly interested in a complete understanding of the issue and the work to be performed, and has often gone out of his way to show me schematics and workshop manuals diagrams to clarify things when words alone were not sufficent.

Nonetheless, on my last visit to determine why the car would not start (flatbedded in), he ended up replacing the ECU, a fairly expensive repair. I came in to pick up the car, which was still in the work area of the shop, and he started it up to demonstrate that it was once again a runner. As we talked about the car (which was idling in "park") for a few minutes, it suddenly died. Puzzled looks all 'round. He sheepishly said that he'd have to look into it further. It eventually turned out to be a crank sensor gone bad. The problem was that the sensor had initially checked out as good. It was the first thing he had checked when the car first was dropped off. It ultimately turned out that it was intermittently bad, but not sufficiently so as to generate a fault code....which, again, he had looked for when the car was first brought in. The replacement ECU was installed as an "exchange" deal with a supplier, so the old ECU was not coming back. He was honest enough to admit that, at this point, he could not say with certainty that the old ECU was bad, but replacing it did enable the car to run again. Did the crank sensor "come back to life" just when the new ECU went in? We will never know. In any case the new crank sensor cured the "die at idle" problem. He had additionally spent a great deal of time cleaning numerous wire loom electrical contacts and junctures throughout the car. He charged me only a fraction of the time spent on this.

The whole point of this long winded description is that even a true "nuts 'n bolts" old school mechanic can be led astray, even with the best of investigative intentions. I elected to "eat" the cost of the ECU (not as bad as it sounds, as it was a "remanufactured" one from the aforementioned supplier that the old one was sent to), as the shop that this mechanic works for has a policy of not backing their mechanics up if they misdiagnose a repair. I figured the "free" electrical work more than compensated for the part's cost. And who knows, the old ECU may have in fact contributed to the original problem.

Anecdotal note: I had gotten no more than 3 miles away when the passenger side wing mirror unexpectedly came loose from its housing, dangling from the mirror motor wires at an odd (and unusable) angle. I turned around, went back to the shop and asked the mechanic if he had done any work on it this visit. He said he had not, but he then dropped what he was doing and promptly proceeded to fix the mirror on the spot at no charge.

[USAndretti42]

Everyone makes mistakes (said the Dalek climbing off the dustbin) but the big think is to admit it. That makes it much more palatable.