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6/19/2007 5:39:37 PM

Our techs are flat rate. They get paid an hourly rate and each job they do is assigned a certain amount of hours. For examples oil changes are only worth like .23 hours while an engine diagnostic - wether it takes him 5 minutes or 2 hours pays 1 hour. When we charge you 3.5 hours for a job, the mechanic gets paid for 3.5 hours of work again wether it takes him 20 minutes or all day. This way they do jobs quickly, still doing them the right way because they don't get paid anything to fix their mistakes.

6/19/2007 6:03:26 PM

^ and that is what you call a half ass jiffy lube shop, walked right into it

6/19/2007 6:05:33 PM

how so? what sort of payment method do you propose?

6/19/2007 6:21:03 PM

anyone feel like explaining to this kid how it works at a real shop? i got other things to do besides writing a novel

6/19/2007 6:26:35 PM

I can tell you this: when I hooked up to a customer's car with a scan tool, there was a single charge for that. Just pulling the codes cost between 45 and 60 dolla.

Diagnosis time: In two of the three shops I've worked in, the customer paid the full hourly rate for EACH HOUR of diagnosis. That involves collecting real-time data stream, correctly targeting a malfunctioning component using something like Snap-On's Vantage oscilloscope (which, in my honest opinion, was an overpriced, underperforming piece of shit), a test light, and/or a VOM (either analog or digital, depending on the component being tested).

YOU'VE GOT TO BE PREPARED TO BACK UP YOUR DECISION TO SWAP A COMPONENT BASED ON WHAT THAT 2500 DOLLA SCANNER TELLS YOU IS BAD. Various problems can mask each other, and even though you're armed with all those fucking error codes and maybe a data stream that steps out of acceptable parameters, unless you know how to individually test components, you're still in the plug-and-chug game. And you're wasting your time, the customer's money, and making an ass out of everybody who's got a finger in the job.

Good diagnostics is both an art and a skill honed only with time and experience. Having access to all the electronic diagnostic aids in the world only does you so much good. Being able to properly, quickly, and ACCURATELY troubleshoot is no small matter, and I haven't seen a whole lot of places like Merchant's that really do that good of a job. For one, you can't find the best master techs at such a place because they sure as hell don't pay like a private shop or a dealership might.

Taking the proper amount of time is a worthwhile effort, and quality shops realize this. Sure, they may base their labor on Mitchell's or Chilton's or Alldata's labor guides, but they also charge accordingly for diagnostics and special procedures done properly. The emphasis is on completing what may be a complex job correctly, and billing properly for it. No stupid Merchant's/Jiffy Lube/All Tune sweat shop mentality where the techs have got to turn and burn to make good money.

6/19/2007 10:00:42 PM

^ thank you, saved me some carpal tunnel syndrome

6/19/2007 11:20:47 PM

EX-FUCKING-ACTLY

6/19/2007 11:39:44 PM

Quote :

"how so? what sort of payment method do you propose?"

well I for one named my own salary at my current job. i work as a subcontractor and get paid a certian amount each day no matter how long i work, and dont get paid for days i take off. if i work a half day here or there i assure i make up for it elsewhere in the pay period. i can take stuff i am experienced in and blow through it quicklike (cause i mean, cmon we all test ourselves on how fast we can do the trivial shit) and i get to take my time on difficult jobs, this allows me to do it right the first fucking time and not have to stress over comebacks or being a shitty merchants mechanic. also when i started in this business i had to many old timers tell me, if they could do it all over again they would specialize in something. handicapped vans, transmission repair, whatever... just specialize in something cause "thats the ticket". it took me a while to understand it, cause i was used to the old "general repair on anythign that came in the door" mentality, but now i specialize. and i can honestly, its totally worth it.

merchants sucks, precision tune sucked, and snappy lube sucked, and every little shithole "servicenter" everywhere sucks. only king of shop i havent worked in is a dealership, and its cause i already know they suck. ive been doing this almost 10 years, so you can either listen and learn, or not i dont give a fuck.

6/19/2007 11:54:10 PM

Merchant's isn't perfect. I work there until I can get a co-op, I don't defend it. There are advantages to the payment system they use and i'm sure the big guys at corporate in Juno Beach decided while the method you describe is more fair, they profit more off of what they do now. I never said I loved the way they pay, I just described it. 69, your calling me kid was highly unnecessary. Elitism on the internet is a waste of time.

zxappeal, I really am interested in what happened to make you mad at my particular location. Partially because I want to make sure it wasn't something I did and partially because I hold my own reservations about some people there and want to laugh with you at their inept-ness

6/22/2007 1:34:02 AM

Backpedal if you like, you posted about merchants in several threads like it was the solution to all our problems.

6/22/2007 2:03:23 AM

Maybe we happen to have a good master tech and i'm tryign to save some people some trouble like this guy who was getting his diagnosis from a 100 dollar OBDII scanner. Or maybe i'm being overanalyzed which is highly likely considering my registration date and post count.

6/22/2007 2:09:43 AM

i think like 50 of your 53 posts you mention working at merchants.

6/22/2007 2:13:31 AM

I'm done with this thread. I was inviting the guy in, I was going to give him a discount on the diagnostic and try to help him out. If i've mentioned where I work its because i'm trying to get someone to come in and help them out. I know exactly where this is going and i'm no longer contributing to it.

6/22/2007 2:16:44 AM

Quote :

"wahhh, i'm taking my toys and going home!!1"

6/22/2007 2:20:35 AM

6/22/2007 2:44:03 AM

^^ still waiting on info about your place

6/26/2007 3:36:35 AM

hey slingblade do you have the black z28 and the pick up

6/26/2007 9:20:43 AM

^^ have you got it fixed yet?

6/26/2007 10:42:05 AM

nah that's my buddy carson. I have the white ford pickup and the lifted grand cherokee.

6/26/2007 3:08:47 PM

^^nope, waitin on money

6/26/2007 6:16:44 PM

ok i called a guy who does engines, told him i'm overheating and a bit of water is coming out of the exhaust. he said it's either a cracked block, head, head gasket, intake gasket, some shit like that. told me no computer anywhere would be able to diagnose that so fuck it, i'm goin there

shall keep you guys updated. interestingly enough, with the maf sensor coming up i wonder if it is simply the intake gasket. that would really be awesome, i don't want a new engine

7/19/2007 5:27:21 PM

How much water comes out of your exhaust? A little bit at start up is normal, that's just condensation from the air building up in your muffler. If you have liquid going through your engine coming out of your exhaust you have pretty big problems.

7/19/2007 10:32:09 PM

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7/19/2007 10:40:27 PM

dude we told you from the beginning it wasn't the damn maf sensor, learn to listen. i told you you could unplug the thing and it would run fine and WOULD NOT OVERHEAT if nothing else was wrong.

now, my money is on a head gasket.

7/19/2007 10:45:34 PM

7/19/2007 11:34:04 PM

7/19/2007 11:48:19 PM

7/20/2007 12:24:32 AM

Quote :

"dude we told you from the beginning it wasn't the damn maf sensor, learn to listen. i told you you could unplug the thing and it would run fine and WOULD NOT OVERHEAT if nothing else was wrong. now, my money is on a head gasket. "

you told me to learn to listen...yet you tell me that i could unplug my maf and run fine. YET I AM LEAKING WATER THROUGH MY EXHAUSTAND SUDDENDLY YOUR MONEY IS ON THE HEAD GASKET. omg YOU ARE A CAR GENIUS. TELL ME OH OPTIMUS CAR-PRIME. WHAT SHALL I SPEND ON A NEW ENGINE

7/20/2007 3:49:54 AM

Glad to see we're all adults here.

7/21/2007 1:33:14 AM

if you woulda diagnosed and fixed your problem instead of driving it around overheating like a dumbass, you wouldnt have this problem

7/21/2007 2:46:00 AM

i haven't been driving it around....

let me explain the succession of events once again.

i was driving to the airport. i came back. as i was getting ready to take a friend to the mall, the car OVERHEATED. i took it to a place i THOUGHT could diagnose it and followed their advice. car still overheated. asked another guy about it the other day and he told me that it may be a blown intake gasket or head gasket, and mentioned the possibility of a cracked block or head. i have not driven the car in quite a while. it is sitting in my parking space waiting to be towed to a dealer to get work done on it when i have money. let's also not forget that the car i have has this wonderful failsafe in the engine. if it starts to overheat, half of the engine shuts off and begins to pump air instead of fuel into the chambers.

i apologize for my angry post (2 up), i was drunk

7/21/2007 11:44:39 AM

i didn't realize you had water coming from the exhaust, did i miss that or is this something new? when did that start? is it doing it all the time or only when it's first started?

7/21/2007 11:56:31 AM

Quote :

"you told me to learn to listen...yet you tell me that i could unplug my maf and run fine"

maybe i'm missing the point..but if you unplug it and it still overheats, it isn't the problem in this case.. the computer goes into speed density mode when you unplug it and it should run decently, and definitely not over heat at least. i know a few ppl with supercharged corvettes that run speed density mode all the time. my point was that i told you it'd be a reasonable troubleshooting step to unplug it and see if it still overheats before you go blow money on a new one. if it still overheated with it unplugged then something else was the main problem. not saying that you should run around forever and always with it unplugged but it still overheating with it unplugged is a good sign that something else is the cause of the problem. i guess you've figured that out already now tho

[Edited on July 21, 2007 at 1:58 PM. Reason : the]

7/21/2007 1:36:21 PM

yea, that was the thing though. the shitty computer they had kept pulling up the air intake system, with codes pointing to the maf as well as other things. and now that a mechanic has mentioned that it could be an intake gasket, i'm thinking maybe the computer wasn't all that wrong

7/21/2007 1:39:50 PM

possible..i dunno enough about that car to say much else but hopefully it works out for you

7/21/2007 1:45:25 PM

http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/items/3ZW29

7/21/2007 2:21:18 PM

my car be fixed yo. cracked intake manifold and broken cooling fan. the fan would just randomly stop apparently while driving. they almost didn't catch it.

8/23/2007 10:56:31 AM