I am wondering if anyone else seems a similar trend: people who work on vehicles any more do not seem to have much in the way of diagnostic capabilities.

Every single day there is someone who asks for help, yet is very bald in the information they provide, the testing they have performed, or the specifications they think are correct. Overwhelmingly, the statement is "tests good". What does that even mean? Seriously.

Far too often, I see the almighty Scan Tool as being the only thing these guys want to get out, then out comes the shopping cart and they start slamming a bunch of sensors or parts into a vehicle at a high rate of speed and a low rate of pay. I say low rate of pay, because how can someone possibly present a customer with a shopping list full of parts for a repair on top of labour? I've heard it all before: "Well, I replaced the spark plugs, the air filter, the fuel filter, all the coils, and it runs better, but... the misfire is still there a little bit". Uhuh. Sure. After all that annoying maintenance has been performed, now the REAL problem can be attacked. You know the one - it's the one problem that the vehicle came in for that hasn't been fixed with all of those Gravy Train parts. Do they even remember that there are mechanical parts to that engine any more?

It is worse now then ever. I talk to Dealers (Service Managers), Independents locally, within about a 25 mile radius, and it is all the same, all over: very few guys know how to fix cars. They have no diagnostic strategies and don't know the first thing about what they are working on. They have little to nothing in the way of manuals (unless at a Dealer), but even if they do, they just want to ask George (who can fix damn near anything) in the next bay over, "Hey George! Did you ever have one that..." Of course, George is a nice guy - maybe too nice - and he always bails those guys out.

The young guys coming into the field, whether they have been to a tech school or not, don't seem to have much in the way of basic understanding of an automobile, engines, electronics, testing, diagnostics; why?

David R Anderson Jr
Consultant
Anderson Service Center
Hatboro, Pennsylvania, USA