On the topic of ASE Certs…I always wanted to get them and never have… Afterall I wasnt a Professional mechanic, right? I still dont have them and yet I repair vehicles that others have completely thrown up their hands in vain trying to repair. My experience repairing engines and cars has been lifelong, so I am pretty darn good at it if I do say so meself…however. I think it comes from ALL the knowledge one collects in their life…such as electrical theory…how things work…what makes them work and the curiosity to find all this stuff out and apply it to the real world. I sort of use this mentality with everything…I just figure it out intelligently.
I still want to get certified someday, just to say I did. Everyone who knows me sort of knows that I dont fit into neat little categories and sort of gives me a “pass” in that dept. Can you be certified out the ying yang and Know NADA…SURE…certainly seen that before. The certs are for other peoples comfort level I suppose…they dont mean you truly know what you are talking about under the hood.
I’m sure we can open a whole thread just on this subject… Why did I write this? Maybe because I actually DO want the certs…perhaps I am jealous…However I have proven my skills to be above and beyond those who help certs over my head before…so how important are they?
This might be a repeat post. Karl and oldschool, sorry you guys did not get pay raises with your certifications.
Yes, young mechanics can pass test and not do well.With most careers,first comes bookwork,certifications and Degrees.Then on the job training.Drs,Nurses,Lawyers, Teachers,and just about every profession has more learning after passing tests.
Those that don’t do well are weeded out
Yes ,Certifications are more for customer confidence than mechanic jealousy and put downs.
Mechanics will never have a united voice because we are too busy fighting each other.Certifications is just another dividing issue, unfortunately
If we, the mechanics, could get together and create the tests for the real world, maybe they would be more acceptable. I admit, most questions are stupid and don’t apply to everyday real situations
Karl, disagree that the test are easy to pass. They are mostly “Trick” questions. This old dog has had a hard time passing, but I still do.
The only thing an ASE certification shows is that whoever was taking the test make a passing level of correct choices on a series of multiple choice questions.
Honda Blackbird, I’ll give you an example of this and it involves me and a test I took a long time ago about emissions/engine performance.
The service manager signed everyone up for a test and paid for it. Every tech in the shop was going.
The SM told me the tests were geared towards what we were familiar with. When I got there and scanned the test a bit I knew I was toast. Most of the questions involved things and cars in which my knowledge was around zero. Guess what? I passed the test with something like a 90. Does this mean I’m as sharp as a tack or just plain lucky when choosing A, B, C, or D? My feeling is that it’s the latter.
We had another guy who specialized in A/C work and he is as good as it gets. He flunked the A/C test and flunked it to the tune of around a 30 score. Another front end specialist (also as good as it gets) did the same; flunked and flunked horribly.
Hands-on and paperwork seem to work opposite each other at times.
We had a guy come to work at the dealership and he had spent 2 years in a college sponsored technical program about diesels. He held an Associates Degree in Diesel Technology and as shop foreman I gave him his first job; a VW diesel that was towed in for a no-start. I told him to charge the battery and check the glow plug fuse as the first step.
Some hours later he had thrown in the towel and asked me about the problem. The cause? A dead battery from cranking an engine with a blown glow plug fuse. New fuse (about a 15 second repair) and she fired right up. So much for 2 years of diesel school and a wall hanging.
I am a complete amateur. I maintain my vehicles, my girlfriend’s car, and my mother’s vehicles. What I know about automotive things comes from experience, TV, and reading Tom and Ray’s newspaper column. I am an automotive enthusiast who tries not to get in over his head.
Sometimes I surprise myself by troubleshooting an electrical problem on my motorcycle or catching a radiator leak on my car before it shows up on the temperature gauge, but I am not the kind of guy who does his own timing belt jobs or flushes and bleeds his own brake lines. I take on the things I know I can do without screwing up, like replacing brake pads/shoes, fluid changes, belts, hoses, alternators, radiator, etc.
I grew up watching my father fix things around the house, but unfortunately, he didn’t work on cars like he did on the house. I learned a little from watching my friends’ fathers work on their cars, and when allowed, from watching a mechanic work on my car.
I did not expect any pay raise for the ASE’s. It was done to not provide the person who was giving me my next interview (it was certain there would be a next interview) a place to stop and dwell on “you know that we here at “Friendly Motors” expect all our mechanics to have at least one ASE”.
In my new field (Systems Administration, this job description can mean many different things), we have the same discussion about certs not being of value. One cert I am studying hard for is called a “CCNA”. This cert is tied to CISCO. In my Network security class one man was on the “certs are of no value” tirade and I found an oppourtunity to ask him “how long have you had your CCNA”? after an uncomfortable pause he says “I don’t have my CCNA”. I find that complaining about certs. and not having them go together like peanut butter and jelly.
I’ve been an engineer (chemical and petroleum) for 30 years, and worked on my cars and motorcycles for about 45. Grew up in a family of engineers, dad was also an inventor. I had to rebuild the engine on my first car before I could drive it, worked in a garage in HS and college. Wish I had a bike now, but Dallas is not the best place for them, and I value my skin too much.
As for my dad, here’s one of the things he invented, built, and ran for 30+ years (I’m the tall kid, my brother’s in front):
No ‘need’ to it. He thought it up while sitting in a Japanese prison camp after being captured in Manilla. It would do 25 mph and tow 4 skiers at once. Here’s a pic of it being launched. See the tire on the left side? That’s one of the two road wheels, the two hulls fold up keel to keel, and you just pull it out and drive down the road, no trailer needed!
My father was an engineer too. He was a traffic engineer specializing in mass transit systems. Early in his career, he was the first to recommend rumble strips be used to warn drivers a stop sign is coming up ahead on rural roads. In a sense, he invented rumble strips, but not really. His grandfather, my great grandfather, was an inventor of sorts. He invented a type of rail car coupler, but his design was not the one they chose to to go with. He had an old tractor that he named “Cal” for Calvin Coolidge because “it chose not to run.” He refused to put any of his cars in reverse because he claimed it was bad for the car. If he had to back out of a spot, he would push the car rather than put it into reverse. My father’s version of his grandfather’s quirk was that he refused to make U-turns. He would drive miles out of his way in order to avoid making U-turns.
I buck all these trends. I put my car into reverse, I make U-turns when I am lost, and I even stop and ask for directions without putting up a fight. I guess in this case, the apple fell far from the tree.
Yes, a '63 Polara with the 383 police engine (I drove it last year, it still runs). He connected the car’s drive shaft to the propeller shaft through a door under the rear seat. The front wheels sat on turntables that controlled the rudder. So once you were on the water, put it in 3rd, hit the gas, and away you go!
You mean this was for the hell of it? LOL !!! I LOVE IT!!! So I see this pic and it looks like he has hit the shore and is driving the car off the Pontooni Dodge-a-Rooni…No? After it hit shore I guess you would need to re-attach the driveshaft and go… I still wonder what prompted him to make this AND I am SHOCKED that you guys were cruising so well under car power! LOL Im still shocked…this is great
41 plus years in the business. not a technician.have done sales, service manager, assistant manager, service adviser, store manager. have put my hands on many many jobs from oil changes to brakes to water pumps, suspension alignment and many others. have done trouble shooting and helped diagnose many problems. too many schools to even begin to count them. i love the business and enjoy the people both fellow employees and the customers. i have not been on this site very long but i like to read the comments and advise given
I’m currently playing a Tele. I’ve owned and played countless six and twelve strings, my music ranging from '60s/70’s rock to folk to Simon and Garfunkle, blues, and spanish. I keep a guitar next to my lounge at home and when I hear music I like on TV I play along. Typically I’ll appempt to keep the chords rolling while adding the melody in a process I call “playing outside the chords”. It mixes rhythm with lead.
My favorite guitar of all time was a high-end Washburn dreadnaught acoustic, but my shoulder got too bad to play it so I mailed it to my son (we went to Berklee School of Music) and bought the telee. The action, the resonance, and the melodic sound of that Washburn put me in a trance every time I played it. It’s the only acoustic I ever played that was as easy to play at the 12th fret as at the nut. I could truely play comfortable to over three octaves (above the 12th fret on the 1st string). I’ve owned a Yamaha, a Martin, an Ovation, a Fender Wildwood, and numerous other acoustics. Nothing came close to that Washburn.
For some reason my post was removed when I said…WHat the hell is that? I guess it offended someone? I didnt mean it in a bad way… Anyway…I really was inquiring as to why he might have made that. As in…maybe he caught a great shortcut route using the waterway to another road and shortened his drive. I also thought that there was some type of internal power source as in marine dedicated power. I had NO idea he ran it off the Dodge! Thats even better! LOL…
