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Slavvy posted:Sounds like an ACVW to me. Blue Rupie it might be better in the long run to just grind for a while and pick up a Japanese car instead of working along the VAG tree. Actually my yellow Leyland P76 is acting up really badly. I looked up my Instruction manual and did my own troubleshooting instead. Turns out it's just a short circuit made by a misplaced spanner as well as a broken piston in my engine. My first order of business is the removal of the spanner. I initially thought this minigame would of been pretty easy. Nope, it was very grueling and god those random sparks are really annoying (note to self: equip "Thickened Rubber Gloves" to nullify the damage). Finally got it out in my 7th try. Is there any new fan patches for the engine? It seems the V8 (version 1.01) has no opening seals on it and the manufacturer (Leyland Australia) phased it out in 1969.
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Dec 23, 2013 12:52
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13 INCH DICK posted:
When pepboys first switched me over to flat rate it was horrible. The first alternator they ever let me do was on a focus ZETEC wagon. Where the alternator is behind the engine. and one of the bolts loving decided your six point is only gonna strip me out....then you had to pull the whole loving motor forward to take it out.....gently caress YOU FORD!!!!!!
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Dec 23, 2013 16:30
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Some of the Zetecs its easier to just pull the axle and drop it down out the bottom depending on the year 
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Dec 23, 2013 19:22
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Does the flat rate pay scale factor in the make and year of the vehicle for labor time?
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Dec 23, 2013 19:56
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paragon1 posted:Does the flat rate pay scale factor in the make and year of the vehicle for labor time? "The book rate" is specific to the car - i.e. a blower fan might book at one hour on a 1975 GM truck, but at 8 hours on a 1988 Volvo 240. This does not prevent it from being anywhere from "wrong" to "hilariously wrong" to "criminally wrong", however. In many cases the book was written around dealership service departments with access to special tools and loads of training on the specific car in question. It also doesn't account for variance in individual vehicles as they age (i.e. rust). The flip side is that if you (the tech) get really lucky, you get a bunch of jobs on a day that book at longer than they actually take, so you get paid more hours than you physically worked. Pretty sure that's as rare as a unicorn fart.
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Dec 23, 2013 20:01
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Yeah. And even if you're a dealership with all the tools and all the instructions, most book times are still on a scale from slightly bullshit to monstrously, soviet-gulag-impossible. I work for a dealer and I've done jobs under warranty that are meant to take four hours, when the reality is about two days. Happily I live in a civilised country and get paid by the hour.IOwnCalculus posted:The flip side is that if you (the tech) get really lucky, you get a bunch of jobs on a day that book at longer than they actually take, so you get paid more hours than you physically worked. Pretty sure that's as rare as a unicorn fart.
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Dec 23, 2013 20:10
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If you wind up working enough hours on a job that your effective hourly pay drops below minimum wage, wouldn't that constitute some kind of labor law violation on the part of your employer?
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Dec 23, 2013 20:12
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Leperflesh posted:If you wind up working enough hours on a job that your effective hourly pay drops below minimum wage, wouldn't that constitute some kind of labor law violation on the part of your employer? LOL. basically labor laws are really bad.
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Dec 23, 2013 20:22
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Leperflesh posted:If you wind up working enough hours on a job that your effective hourly pay drops below minimum wage, wouldn't that constitute some kind of labor law violation on the part of your employer? HAHAHAHA. No. E: Flat Rate is a double edged sword that always fucks you unless you specialize in just a few manufacturers and know *every* trick to servicing them.
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Dec 23, 2013 20:23
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The automotive industry boggles me because we literally have people's lives (and livelihoods) in our hands and people still want to pay the least they can, and put the least amount of effort into vehicle maintenance they can, and so we get paid gently caress all to do things that are safety critical using methods that would roll heads if they were ever used in, say, airliner maintenance. Which makes great sense when you're hundreds of times more likely to die in a car crash, often because one of the vehicles is poorly maintained, than an air disaster. So stupid.
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Dec 23, 2013 20:33
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Well. I mean, sometimes yeah the pay is terrible, but for example this weekend I heard a loud idling diesel outside so I went out and saw my neighbor's pickup truck being dropped off at his house by a tow truck so we had a chat. Apparently his water pump is hosed. I asked if he was gonna do it himself, he said yeah because the place he normally takes it told him that at new years they're raising their labor charge from $160 an hour to $180. My jaw just about hit the floor. This is the SF bay area so $95 an hour is pretty normal around here, but $180 jesus gently caress! So I know there's some places that are making very good money and even with really high overhead I have to imagine the workers are getting a decent income. Also, in my limited experience the most important safety features of a car (brakes, tires, seat belts) are also the easiest to work on. It does not take a huge amount of training to learn how to repair or replace the components of a disk brake system or use a computerized alignment rack to assist with adjusting toe, camber, etc. The annoyingly difficult parts of automotive mechanics are diagnosing issues that are intermittent or have symptoms that could be caused by several different kinds of problems, and, just the physical difficulty of a lot of jobs due to the crowded engine compartments found in most modern cars. The former requires a lot of skill and experience and I really respect the people who do it well - but I don't think it's all that related to safety - and the latter is similar to a lot of dirty, uncomfortable, thankless manual labor jobs that I think ought to be paid better. So the pay issue really comes down to the fact that people already spend too much on their transportation and a lot of maintenance seems to the layperson like pouring money into a hole: the car seems to drive the same, so why did that service cost $800? The fact it prolonged their car's serviceable life by five years further past the date they'll have long since sold it, or that it actually saved them $2400 in repairs that would have been necessary if they hadn't done the maintenance, is sufficiently obscured that it's hard for most normal folks to really internalize. So, people get the cheapest service they can, if they bother to get service at all, and for the most part their cars remain very safe because cars these days are just incredibly good at keeping you safe even when poorly maintained. Poor driving decisions (especially the decision to drive at all while impaired, but also driving too fast for the current weather/road conditions, and of course driving while distracted) cause far more accidents than poor maintenance anyway, and most people are acutely aware of that.
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Dec 23, 2013 21:08
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13 INCH DICK posted:Some of the Zetecs its easier to just pull the axle and drop it down out the bottom depending on the year yeah that would have made it an after work six pack night....but after that daylong battle it was tequila and oj. I also remember the master tech saying he knew another way to do it but never showed me. That was probably it. So in otherwords gently caress car manufacturers that put alternators in stupid spots...I mean I can do a 4.0 sohc exploder in less than a half hour if I have the alternator at hand. But that car got me maybe 1.3 but it took my whole day to accomplish 
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Dec 23, 2013 21:30
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The takeaway is I should be happy I pay my mechanic by the hour?
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Dec 24, 2013 02:07
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your mechanic should be happy to watch you play video games for an hour in exchange for fixing your car
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Dec 24, 2013 02:56
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Blue Rupie posted:My first order of business is the removal of the spanner. I initially thought this minigame would of been pretty easy. Nope, it was very grueling and god those random sparks are really annoying (note to self: equip "Thickened Rubber Gloves" to nullify the damage). Finally got it out in my 7th try. You might have missed a previous sub-mission: disconnect battery.
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Dec 24, 2013 05:29
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GOD IS BED posted:You might have missed a previous sub-mission: disconnect battery. Sub-mission hell, not disconnecting the battery before working on a car is like forgetting to equip your best weapon before a boss fight. E: except you have a chance to be maimed/killed for real instead of having to reload from your last save, so it's more like loving around in a Holodeck with the safeties off. Terrible Robot fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Dec 26, 2013 |
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Dec 26, 2013 02:25
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Terrible Robot posted:Sub-mission hell, not disconnecting the battery before working on a car is like forgetting to equip your best weapon before a boss fight.
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Dec 26, 2013 04:24
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I just want to give 13 INCH a hug after reading this thread and the cleaning the bedroom thread.
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Dec 29, 2013 11:24
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Welcome home, thread.
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Dec 29, 2013 12:31
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EVERYWHERE 
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Goodbye, 13 INCH DICK. Hope you enjoyed your stay in LP.
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Dec 29, 2013 12:33
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We're still lurking here. Don't think you can go home without baggage
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Dec 29, 2013 13:13
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13 INCH DICK posted:Firstly, I work under a pay scale known as flat rate. I am not paid hourly. Every job has a set 'flat rate' labor time in the computer based off the Mitchell Labor Guide. If it says something takes 1 hour, we bill the customer 1 hour and i get paid 1 hour. It doesnt matter if I come in under or over that time, hence the flat rate concept. This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
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Dec 29, 2013 15:49
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ColdPie posted:This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I can see the line of reasoning that lead to it, you don't want your worker loving around for hours on end trying to stretch out a job as long as possible and it lets you bill customers in a fairly consistent manner (imagine Billy Bob's poo poo fit when his cousin Ricky got the same service at the shop for half the price, good luck trying to convince a customer their rusty piece of poo poo is to blame), and (in theory) it should be a "fair" compensation to the mechanic doing to the job. The problem lies in that the book time's concept of "fair" is similar to a slave masters concept of "fair" Best of luck 13", maybe it would be a good idea to move somewhere where mechanics get a more civilized pay? Can't imagine there's too much tying you down to Seattle.
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Dec 29, 2013 16:38
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No, the problem lies in the fact that despicable human beings that operate on the assumption that all employees are sacks of poo poo that'd rather sleep in the bathroom than work are still allowed to operate businesses. Welcome back 13". Get out of flat rate while you can. And start that dating.
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Dec 29, 2013 17:40
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My best recommendation to everyone saying "flat rate is stupid, I had no idea my mechanic was being hosed that hard!" is to find a good, solid mechanic... and have him do poo poo for you at his rate (or even a bit higher), as a side job, by the hour instead of going to shops. Gotta be careful doing this, you don't want to get him fired, but realize that the shop rate of 95-120-150whatever dollars an hour is not what the mechanic sees, either. Often it's more like 20 an hour, or less, flat rate. Choosing a good mechanic: not the one that tells you everything is wrong with your car and you are going to die, unless your car is a piece of poo poo. Not the one that says nothing is wrong, unless it's new. You want the one that is willing to show you what's wrong, point at stuff, etc, and IMO the mark of a truly honest mechanic is one that will show you things that aren't wrong yet - and tell you that you don't need to do that service, yet, but you should budget for it sometime in the next x months/years because it's going to need doing. Of course, this is all predicated on him being able to do stuff in the shop after hours or work out of his driveway or something, which isn't always possible. If you can find a brand specific freelancer that's even better. For instance book time on a 97-01 jeep cherokee heater core is something like 6 hours, I did my first in under 4 and could probably do another in 2-3 if I was really motivated. Knowing all the tricks in the book and exactly which tools are needed for every nut and bolt on the vehicle helps, you can grab a handful of wrenches and wade in and not have to come out for 30 minutes. kastein fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Dec 29, 2013 |
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Dec 29, 2013 18:15
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Oh hey there. A picture for those of you not on facebook.
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Dec 29, 2013 22:24
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13 INCH DICK posted:Oh hey there. A picture for those of you not on facebook. You find the owner?
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Dec 29, 2013 23:15
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13 INCH DICK posted:Oh hey there. A picture for those of you not on facebook. Steal those wheels asap.
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Dec 29, 2013 23:26
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kastein posted:My best recommendation to everyone saying "flat rate is stupid, I had no idea my mechanic was being hosed that hard!" is to find a good, solid mechanic... and have him do poo poo for you at his rate (or even a bit higher), as a side job, by the hour instead of going to shops. I might be giving away my billion dollar business plan but I think a good mechanic could hire someone to take pictures to put on the customer's invoice to show what was wrong and what has been done. In the 21st century the technology is very available.
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Dec 30, 2013 01:06
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It is possible for flat rate to help mechanics too. One of my top techs can do the same jobs in half the time as my second tech. Would it be fair to pay him less because he has more skill and experience and can do the work faster? I don't know if auto shops can do it, but in marine we have a flat rate scale for work but if we need more time for dealing with rust/corrosion I absolutely will call the customer and get that approved.
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Dec 30, 2013 01:25
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GentlemanofLeisure posted:It is possible for flat rate to help mechanics too. One of my top techs can do the same jobs in half the time as my second tech. Would it be fair to pay him less because he has more skill and experience and can do the work faster? No, it wouldn't be. In many businesses we adjust for this by modifying the hourly pay rate or salary of the employee as appropriate. This means said employee's compensation is not at the whims of their manager as to what jobs they do or do not get and utilizing said employee appropriate to their compensation costs is left to the management, who's job it is to do this kind of thing. Motronic fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Dec 30, 2013 |
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Dec 30, 2013 01:31
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This is going to be the AI equivalent of the tipping debate/derail isn't it.
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Dec 30, 2013 01:50
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Bajaha posted:This is going to be the AI equivalent of the tipping debate/derail isn't it. SERIOUS QUESTION TIME Do y'all tip your mechanic?
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Dec 30, 2013 07:04
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In my specialty I only wish I got the tip.
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Dec 30, 2013 07:14
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Re: Alternator abuse stories My worst alternator experience was on my supercharged MR2. Since it was an '80s Toyota, the alternator failed twice in my limited ownership, and I only had the engine out once. So when I had to go back in, what I found was that on the regular 4AGE, the alternator was aft, between the trunk and the intake manifold, and not too hard to reach. But on the 4AGZE, that's where the supercharger goes! So the alternator relocated forward, in between the exhaust manifold and the cabin. No matter which way you turned the fuckin' thing, it wouldn't come out the top, and it wouldn't come out the bottom. Eventually, I discovered that the secret was to remove the electric puller fan from the car's side vent, and pull the alternator out through the vent. gently caress Toyota and their heinous engineering afterthoughts.
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Dec 30, 2013 16:09
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ironblock posted:Re: Alternator abuse stories The only alternator I had to replace was on the '84 Toyota pickup I had at the time, with the 22R motor. The only way to get it out was by removing the lower radiator hose, thus draining all the coolant. I don't know, maybe that's normal, but it seemed pretty stupid at the time.
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Dec 30, 2013 21:15
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Still not as bad as that loving RX330 alternator I had to undo all the motor mounts for and jack the engine up. Last time I bitched about it it was established that it was perfectly accessible on an earlier version of the motor and instead they felt liked they needed to make it harder.
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Dec 30, 2013 21:20
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I'd heard somewhere, possibly even from a Toyota tech, that the first two steps in replacing the water pump (/timing belt?) on the four cylinder Venza are 1)make all preparations necessary to remove engine from vehicle 2)remove engine from vehicle. Is it really impossible to do so otherwise? I mean, I've seen some Audi poo poo where it's easiest to remove the entire front clip off of the car to do certain things, but really, pull the engine?
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Dec 31, 2013 05:24
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This is why I miss my Honda Prelude: replacing the alternator was a matter of unplugging a wire, undoing 3 bolts (none of which are hidden or obscured or behind anything), moving the belt out of the way, and making the swap. If the tension on the belt is off, you can lean on a long screwdriver wedged under the alternator and lever it into position. Similarly, even though I never had to do anything to it, the starter is right on top. Plus, the interior was basically made of LEGO. 80's Hondas are the best, except for all the rust. Good find on that non-rusted example, 13"
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Dec 31, 2013 06:40
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 22:48 |
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So my new ladyfriend and I might be looking into getting a place together in the next month or two, and I'll be looking for a place with a driveway. Before anyone says how quick it is, I've known this girl for six years and been trying to be with her for 4 so I know her pretty goddamn well. One way or another, poo poo's going to be interesting. I hope she's more Fastback and less Froot truck haha
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Dec 31, 2013 06:56
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