mannebk9978
Eric, your work ethics, thank you man. At least a bunch of us need to keep it straight with the customers. I do it similar. And the folks who bring their stuff for fixing to me, they currently have to wait 4-6 weeks till I take more than a first look at it. I run by first come first serve. Guess what, they don't like it, sure, I totally understand. But I'm transparent about it. And just the other day, a guy who has his companies whole fleet with me and is waiting since December for his personal 2012 Durango told me, hed rather wait than have me fix a parts cannon fail. And he has quite some experience with that. And that darn Durango has soent about 8 months in 24 with me. Burned alternator, that took the ecu and some other stuff with it. Then the stater, then someone screwed up the oil change and i have to fix the hises for the added aftermarket oil cooler now. And regarding a fat parts guess, well, if proofing is more expensive that the part with labour, I do go find the parts cannon and aim it at the victim and hit the trigger. Finding the cannon usually is a problem, i dont use it often. Regarding amnesia, my regular customers do signe a wavier when dropping off, that gives me discrecion to fix what I deem reasonable. I don't have space to wait till i hear back from a customer. But i wont go ahead and dump thousands into a rust bucket. But then the bi annual inspections do take a lot of those in an other 5 -10 years to be rust buckets of the road, so we dont have that issue here. how ever we do have to fix a lot of stuff thats still perfectly fine just for these inspections. thats work i send to parts cannon shops. for my diagnostic work i charge about 3 times what you ask for an hour. and thats about twice of the rate a local Merc or VW dealer asks for. normal shops go at about 75% of your rate. My customer know they pay for my absolute transparency and proof based fixes. Most times i have send someone to an other shop, they had to come back, and i had more work. If i sent em, i dont charge for fixing up the mess, if they went on their own, i charge for it. and the list of shops i refer folks to, boy that gets shorter and shorter.
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buffuniballer
Other thoughts. (I was driving while your video was on, no, I wasn't watching, just listening)
Near the end you mentioned the oil looks clean and had discussed oil being low.
What if the oil WAS low prior to the recent oil change.
Maybe ask the customer to check the oil level if the light comes on.
One possible scenario is near the end of an oil change interval, the oil level is low and the oil has changed viscosity. (Especially if less oil is in the crankcase doing the work usually done by a greater volume of oil)
An oil change gets fresh and more importantly MORE oil in the system.
I am so happy neither my Mazda nor my now 170k mile Toyota use an appreciable amount of oil during their respective OCI.
The Toyota is less than 1/2 quart in the 10k OCI and the Mazda is new with 17, 7k miles and my OCI last night showed no measurable usage. I got 5L out of it after 7, 700 miles.
And to those who are going to judge my OCI, I got 6months or 10k miles on the Toyota (it's 8 years old) and 4 months or 7500 (give or take apparently) miles in the Mazda. Both are running Pennzoil Platinum synthetic at the moment with genuine manufacturer oil filters.
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rayj217
As both a dealer tech and shop owner your approach to that problem in my opinion was spot on. We both at the dealership level and as an owner have been using the transparent approach of explaining to the customer what we find and what the repair is or could be with information that we have gathered. Then have a conversation as to the best way to solve that problem. Knowing that some vehicles have certain inherent problems let the customer decide what he/she would be comfortable with doing. We have even had customers leave the vehicle for us to drive for a few days. Most times a great conversation with the customer all things worked out for both of us. This is especially true for a repeat customer. On a personal note, I even looked up a problem on my own trucks: problem read that a certain switch was at fault most times and took that chance. Easy fix not an expensive switch 10-minute repair. As for charging the customer I agree your 1-hour diagnostic fee and just the cost of the switch is fair. You at that point win the customers respect.
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jimgeorge4677
Nice video.
I too have my own shop and have a similar approach, but I always, always, always get something in writing before doing the repairs, be it text (I love text) or email (even better-easily printable that can be stapled to the final invoice. 100% concrete.
Since we are talking about Subarus and all, I have an elderly gentlemen that has been coming to me since the day we opened. Came in 7 months ago saying his wife said their 2014 Subie had a cel on but is now off. Scanned for codes and found 1 for the IMRC (Subie calls it something else-cannot remember exact verbage. Did find TSB but since it was off cleared code-hasn't been on since. No charge. Client has given me thousands of dollars in the past so I did a little freebie.
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simonduffy6386
I had a ford throwing a cat code I loved the car so said get her done the shop threw a new o2 sensor didn't fix it try replacing the cat ok get her done I said 180 pounds they said came to fitting the cat and they said its a specialist cat which cost 400 pounds from ford they said just run it as it was it annoyed me having the light on but the car ran fine. Took it to another shop they said the same or pay an auto electrician to diagnose but they may never diagnose it. Eventually sold the car to a well known buy anything site it was sad really had lots of fan speed regulator issues in the end and I replaced it twice before I thought this is becoming a money pit the car was 9 years old when I bought it and I had it for 6 years before I gave up.
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jameskane319
As a customer, I'd appreciate your straight forward advice in this scenario. But I have the knowledge of your skills and approach, and seen you solve so many mysteries that others couldn't. Unfortunately, i don't think there are many technicians as skilled and experienced as you, and frankly, many become jaded. It's hard enough to make money, as we all know, and shops should be compensated for their time, efforts, skills, and supplies. That being said, there are enough videos in your library showing that many shops are either guessing or outright stealing from customers (parts cannon.
The fact that you did the best-guess fix gratis as part of the diag time speaks volumes to me. Kudos, and hopefully that gets them many miles down the road.
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bggann
It totally depends on the shop. My preference, drive it till it drops, then fix it. But sometimes circumstances mean make an educated guess. More often than not, this is a conversation between my wife (the customer) and I (the mechanic. But really, it depends on the shop and the relationship I have with the mechanic, and yes, if you find a good mechanic, build a relationship! Right now I'm debating if i should have a job done by my mechanic, or do it myself, cause it is a crappy job and I feel bad about doing it to him (egr cooler bypass valve on a Duramax. But its also a chunk of change that he might like. Dealer says remove the cab, $5k. uh no. As a vw mechanic (air cooled) I learned to reach into tught spaces a wrench by braille.
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stephenjohnson5204
I do the same as you did on simple (and low risk of leaving owner stranded or damage to vehicle) inexpensive shotgun educated guess but when it involves expensive part, lots of labor and or vehicle damage or leaving owner stranded or stalling i personally want to have a definite cause of failure on higher priced repair (i also do the highlighted note on repair order and discuss repair with owner and i note date and time i called owner on repair order. It is not worth getting bad reviews ) MECHANIC'S already have a hard time having customers trust and i do not want to give customer a reason to not trust me or give them reason to spread bad reviews. Treat customer as you would want to be treated
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robertcook7144
I think this is where experience and transparency come into play. If the shop is experienced enough to see the pitfalls of guessing vs the rate of occurrence and can be transparent with the customer about this along with the cost, then I think this is acceptable. Conversely there are shops that will flat out tell you they are 100% certain of the issue when they know it's a complete guess. Can we just have more of the former please. And customers, can we maybe start expecting that some troubleshooting will be needed and that every issue may not be a first time fix. Sometimes things just have to completely break and leave you on the side of the road before they can be fixed.
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nokoman85
Intermittent faults are hard to troubleshoot. As an aircraft technician, I get these all the time. Sometimes, we have to obviously ground the aircraft until we find a fix which consumes a lot of labor hours chasing wiring etc. We ultimately find the fix and move on. As a DIY auto maintenance person, I understand what you just found in this video. I would have. no problem with a reputable shop such as yours telling me this is a big fat guess (WAG, but at least we can rule out this part of the problem. Sometimes, we just don't get that warm and fuzzy feeling. If the vehicle does come back, at least now we can start looking for the green crusty wire corrosion.
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qcan8468
Will you be replacing rear wheel bearings soon BTW had my 12 F250 dashboard light up like a Christmas tree a few weeks ago. No ABS, no traction control, service brake system (flashing, etc. A few minutes later, the dash lights cleared. The tree lit up once again just as I pulled into my driveway. Plugged my cheepo reader in and found about every module with lost communication codes. Tried my best Eric O impersonation but failed. Never did find the broken wire / green pus / money shot I suspected. Dropped it off at the dealer and they found a chafed wire in the LF wheel well. No parts, 1. 5 hrs labor and they even washed it. I took the win.
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keithgrimshaw9781
Happy new year to you and your family all the way from north/west uk near Liverpool I think you took the right approach with this repair and by the sounds of it had the customers backing, I was a truck, van and car tech for over 50 years my last 23 years at a Mercedes Benz dealership I like you like to get it right first time nobody likes a comeback but in this instance you had enough evidence to show that the oil switch was intermittent (sometimes you just gotta take a risk) been watching you Eric for a long time excellent work and content your fault finding technique is superb especially on the electronics keep up the great work.
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jimlangerie
Wife's car was sputtering and the engine light came on. Took it to my guy Keith and he called and said Coil pack $100 (or whatever it was. I said do it. He said it's done. Turns out it was the first thing they do when those symptoms occur - and they're usually right.
I love your reasoning and openness. It MIGHT not work, but it's so cheap that it can't hurt to try. The diagnosis (already sunk) is vastly more expensive. I would love to have one of your guesses on my car when necessary. You're so thorough that even if it's wrong it's still better than parts cannon Pete will ever be.
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paulstandaert5709
In a situation like this, I would do exactly what you did. Some parts are cheap enough, easy to replace, and are of high enough of a failure rate that it doesn't pay to keep going with such a diagnosis.
Oxygen sensors (the cheap ones) are something that I don't even diagnose. If it is old and/or has no name brand stamped into it, it gets chucked in favor of one that someone at least has the balls to put their name on.
Those amnesia customers tend to just get dismissed. The local Tires Plus is right down the road and ready to service them.
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stevesprouse2388
Hey Eric. I just had a 2011 subaru with the exact same symptoms. I don't have all those fancy tools but I was able to check the resistance on the left oil pressure switch and compared it to the right side. the right switch showed very high resistance. I replaced the switch and this fixed the P0026 code. I also remembered a video that Ivan did with a clogged valve body filter. I did go back and cleaned the valve body, just because. Thanks for the videos. I appreciate your ability to do correct diagnostic procedures. This has helped me alot.
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burks1993
id like the option however i think it depends on both customer and shop relationship. if ya both know each other and have a decent understanding on the intellect of both sides offer it. if the customer is brand new explain see where they sit and if the customer is a previous problem explain ya got an hour tied up that its unfair to charge em chasing ghosts all day and there's vehicles waiting with a definitive problem and decline repair. hope they pay the hour of diag and if they don't ya lose an hour to save a headache kind of a win regardless
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grahamcooper3399
You're definitely not a Shotgun guy - you're a bow/arrow kinda guy. You aim for the problem then let it go! Honesty and transparency will will the battle every time! Thanks for the video! As a consumer and one who got royally screwed by a dealership, if I'm given the option of this might or might not do it, it's a guess, and the best guess we've got, I would say do it. If it works, great. If it doesn't work, let's try something else (and I would do my best to get it in there when the code is present and it's broke broke.
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MDAdams72668
I often tell customers This is what I would do because______ BUT I cannot guarantee. OR This part is x diagnosing it completely is x what do you want to do In either case, I document the conversation and decision carefully and have them sign that they understand that way I rarely hear you just fixed it and the problem is still there and if I do I show them the signed paperwork. I do the same thing for cars that have not completed a drive cycle yet. Because you know I just paid you to fix the engine light and it is on again
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arcburn3364
Agree a hunert percent. On a cheap part and quick install yes. I’m not a shop, but help family and friends. A few weeks ago my Chevy thunder truck started stumbling on easy acceleration in the morning at a certain point in the throttle position. I ohmed the TPS and it seemed ok, but I bought another one anywho. Didn’t fix it. It slowly got worse so after sleepling on the situation a few days, I replaced my spark plug wires and problem solved. I injured myself however trying to kick my own rear. BTW I love SMA videos.
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Suukerjunk
as a service tech in industrial Automation i sometimes get intermittent faults, even after all the tests and measurements, sometimes i'm also not sure what it was, that is when i discuss it with the customer and lay out my theoretical what it could be depending on what the complaint was, sometimes the price of the part plus labor is nothing compared to the cost of down time and the customer just opts to replace and throw it on the preventative maintenance side. 9 times out of ten it is fixed
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