Ten years ago we had to connect the scan tool to both the car and the PC to perform a software update. With Wifi I can perform software updates in the parking lot, handy if you have 50 or 100 stock units to update.
If I’m across the street and do a connection search with the scan tool I get a dozen wifi connections, most of them are secure but most businesses are using wifi. I have wifi in my house and I’m not a computer nerd.
The dealer that I worked at in 1990 had satellite service for communication. I can’t imagine any businesses using dial-up.
On the flip side of that, even having the latest in scan tools and web access in a nano-second is not a guarantee that the car will be properly diagnosed or repaired.
I think that’s probably proven countless times a day all over the country.
On the flip side of that, even having the latest in scan tools and web access in a nano-second is not a guarantee that the car will be properly diagnosed or repaired.
You got that right! With the latest Snap-On scan tool purchase the Snap-On rep was going over their ProDemand (or whatever they call it), by which the scan tool connects to the shop wifi and then is online with their website, listing the most common causes and repairs for whatever fault code the guy is finding on the car. I looked at him and exclaimed “I don’t want or need that!”
That kind of instant database of common fixes is one of the worst things to happen to this industry, for both the mechanic and the consumer.
That sounds like something along the lines of CarMD and so on. Does Snap-On offer live online tech support from “highly trained and knowledgeable technicians” with the purchase?
Web access is a necessity today, we haven’t had printed manuals for fifteen years and service bulletins are too numerous and frequent to handle by any other way but a computer.
In 2005 the shop I was working in doubled the number of PC’s in the shop for the technicians and rather than wire the shop for eight more computer ports it was more economical to hang a wifi unit on the wall and allow the techs to place the pcs where they wanted.
We don’t use don’t use wifi or internet for things like CarMD, wifi has become the norm with systems like Chrysler’s wiTECH introduced in 2007-2008.
It allows a tech to plug into a vehicle, sit down at a PC and perform software updates or download freeze frame data for the manufacture to review.
That reminds me of a case ten years ago when the shop foremen came to me and said that I needed to FAX the freeze frame data to technical support before the replacement part would be released. Why don’t you give me some envelopes and I’ll mail it in? At that time this was handled by email. The point is the shop foremen had fallen behind, still living in the 1990’s.
Web access doesn’t ensure a proper diagnoses/repair but what sort of a tech would work in a shop with one light bulb and no internet?
Well, I’ve worked in the service department of a large multi-line dealer (Subaru, Mazda, GMC, Pontiac) under a single light and one jail cell type window.
The dealer is MUCH larger now with about 10 franchises and they gave up on the Subaru franchise.
It was a barrel of laughs to have a Subaru transmission on the bench in 200 pieces and be expected to repair it and reassemble it with a 75 watt trouble light hanging from a nail on the wall.
The city fire marshal walked in one morning, stopped 5 feet inside the door, looked around for a minute, rolled his eyes, and walked out.
A lot depends upon the committment by the dealer and in most cases there is no committment although upper management expects it from the employees.
The last dealer I ever worked for by the way…
@ ok4450 That sounds like something along the lines of CarMD and so on. Does Snap-On offer live online tech support from “highly trained and knowledgeable technicians” with the purchase?
No. At least not as far as I know. This just takes the troubleshooter built into the scanner database to the next step. The website is constantly updated (they say) so that a guy pulling codes can just read about the most likely causes and go from there. I hate programs like that. That’s for the free code pull at Autozone and the DIY guy who hasn’t a clue what he’s doing in the first place. In a professional setting actual thinking and testing should be done.
Unfortunately, as you said earlier, too often that’s not the case.
Still not as bad as the advice doled out 4 or 5 years ago by a well know YouTuber mechanic whose response when asked by someone why their car was not running right was to “start unplugging sensors until it does”.
I was exaggerating about the lack of lighting, in the poorly lit shops I worked in the solution was to work with the shop doors open.
From 1995 to 2005 there was a boom in new dealers in this city. When a new facility opened as much as 50% of the service and sales personnel left old dealers for the modern facilities. Existing dealers were forced to modernize.
@Nevada_545, I’m not exaggerating about the lighting and even on warm days with the doors up the place was a dark as a cemetery on Sunday night.
It also had very little heat so in the winter the doors had to stay down. It was common to work in there with doors closed and a heavy jacket on; and still have numbed fingers.
@db4690, I discovered a lot of the flaws after I went to work there and was warned by a couple of techs there on Day One when they invited me to go to lunch with them. Within 7 or 8 months I was gone along with almost everyone else who was there when I hired on including the service manager who hired me.
One of the techs who took me to lunch said he had been complaining about a service rack fault and warning for over 6 months that it was going to dump a car someday.
One day it did dump a car and I was 15 feet away when it went off the side and onto the roof. The SM along with the tech barely escaped being crushed. The car was declared a total loss, the tech was fired 5 minutes later, and service people were in the next day repairing the rack.
Every single facet of the service and parts department was a joke and it was like being in a Three Stooges movie.
The only difference is that with the Stooges it was an act and planned.
@ok4450 Did the tech that got fired for dropping the car . . . due to the defective rack . . . turn around and sue the shop/owner for unsafe working conditions?
I’m guessing he didn’t have the emotional willpower or the financial resources to pursue that course of action . . .
That kind of shop . . . the owner DESERVES to lose all his customers and face financial hard times
Hopefully, all the other shop owners in town knew that this guy was an unsafe cheapskate
The tech just took his lumps and moved on. He dropped by a few days later for lunch with us and he had already found another job as the front end/brake/alignment specialist at another dealer. He’s a very good tech and had about 20 years of brake/suspension service only. That’s pretty common with domestic dealers.
The scumbag dealer has actually grown countless times over. Though under the same name, they have many more franchises under their corporate umbrella and have moved and expanded.
I think they’re now part of a mega-chain of publicly held dealerships (maybe 300?) even though the signs out front have the same name.
They had a Pontiac/GMC heavy line guy who was going to move on and gave 2 weeks notice. He asked that he not be given anything too deep as he wanted to finish up engine jobs. He didn’t even make it two days before being shoved out.
Same goes for their Pontiac/GMC transmission specialist who was buried in work. Two weeks notice and he was shoved out a day later. Both guys just started their new jobs earlier than expected.
It’s tough to maintain a positive attitude and high morale when faced with this every day.
It shouldn’t be like that but unfortunately it’s far too common.
And the parts department there made the Three Stooges look like genuises. I was warned on Day One about them also. Seven people behind the counter and it was always a 15-20 minute wait for the mechanic while the flat rate clock was ticking…
They had one super sharp parts guy there and they fired him. His crime? The company softball team had a game that evening and he went to the bathroom at 1 minute before quitting time. He chose to change into a team uniform while in there and got axed for it.
The parts manager spent most of the day in his office watching soap operas on his little TV. sigh
In the 90’s I worked at a Chrysler dealer that had only recently installed lifts! There had always been one lift for oil changes. That was it. 8 or 9 mechanics. Each tech had his own work bench. That was fine. But as for lighting, there were no ceiling lights whatsoever. Above each work bench was a 2 florescent bulb light fixture with no reflector. Like a dungeon. In winter after say, 4:30, you had to rig up a drop light to do rear brake jobs. Guys used a screw jack to hang the drop light from so there were occasional fights over the screw jacks.
Getting a little OT here, but how is a place like this supposed to knock out quality work? Plus the psychological lose/lose ramification, you might say, where the techs felt that if management seemingly didn’t care to provide necessary equipment, then why should the tech care either?
Back in the 70’s I read an article about a speech the “media philosopher” Marshall McLuhan gave to market analysts at the Westinghouse division for light bulb production. He told them they shouldn’t view their job as selling light bulbs or even light itself. They were selling information.
I don’t know that any of this is OT due to the fact that all of these things mentioned does have an influence on mechanic morale and quality of work that is turned out. On the flip side, some independent shops operate on pretty shaky principles also.
The OP wanted to know about advantage at the dealership and like most things in life it has pros and cons.
