HatefulMechanic

in essence, yes. but, if done right, the parts dept. can be involved with it, and profit also. but, some corporate structuring forbids it. enough people realize the loss of profit and things can change though.

if i send someone to another business more than twice for a part, service, or information, i am damn sure going to look at the ROI on that item. its business, plain and simple. we have two things to sell: time and parts. the more objects you have to sell, the more money can be made in the long run. with happier customers.


eh, yes and no. it is inherent to business to have problems with places at times, but there are some places that have more problems than others.

believe me, the stuff i have seen from ya'll is baby shit compared to stuff from other dealers. shit happens a lot of times when you have a large amount of people working on cars, lack of communication is the killer on things slipping out. been there, done that at many places.

which is why i am glad to be in a small shop, with few employees.

i have heard much worse about indy shops from OE dealers, not to mention what is heard from some of the techs at quite a few dealer shops. its always going to be an ongoing debate as to who can fix your car the best, for the best value.

R2R (right to repair act)is one of the biggest issues right now that will bring down a lot of the barriers on the OE vs. Indy shops, if people will support it and make it happen.

VWDAVE88

yes but why would anyone want an indy shop to preform warranty work
they are not trained on that vehicle like a dealer is we deal with just one line of cars im a Master VW Tech whats the purpose of me continuing with my training if any kid out of high school can do my job im against it i dont care where you take your car after its out of warranty i hope they stay with me but most dont being we are 80 bucks an hour an independant can offer cheaper labor rates but not all the knowledge of the car it might take longer or more parts to repair this a never ending bitchfest wether or not the dealer is better than an indy shop

QUICKTA

what shop are you at maybe i have heard bad things coming out of your shop, but out of respect I do not bad mouth other shops on the internet

HatefulMechanic

not all indy shops are like that. if you think we just sit around and not keep up with training, you are vastly mistaken. some shops take pride in the fact they go in for training often, staying on top of things. i usually clock 40-100hrs of training time a year, most of the time up and down the east coast (there aint a damn thing in this area for training, thats for sure!) and my guys usually ride along and go through the same training.

any kid out of high school cant do it, i dont see why you have that mentality. information does not equal ability, IMO. there are few places that the R2R act will help, and unfortunately, the support for it is dwindling. however, there are many of us fighting for it (the ASA and NIBS are big on support at the moment, and we will fight to have the information)

lack of tooling is one big reason most shops are not compared to dealers due to the fact of a lot of special tooling. we dont do much internal work on the Corrados and the VR6's, due to the large amount of tooling needed for setup work, but we do have 90% of most dealer specialty tooling. AST, Baum, and Oe tools are all readily available if the shop/techs want them. dealer level diag tooling is the hardest to deal with, right now we rely on VAGCOM for all our VW/Audi diag and coding services. it works on 99% of the things we need it to, and likewise its not covering on the current model year, its not economically feasible for me to have current model year coverage.

we can cut and program the sidewinder keys, which is a benefit to us being an hour away from roanoke.

parts availability is the same (sometimes better than) getting from ya'll, at least it has been my experience. we used to buy often from down there, but we had to rely on UPS or a driver to come and get it. our current supplier has a wide range of parts coverage (90% of it being OEM or OE parts) that are sitting here the next morning on the delivery. and, at a much better price, which i pass along to my customer. we generally stay in the competitive range with the local dealers, just to keep everyone happy though.

one of the recent scenarios i had was on a throttle body on an AVG beetle, i called and they didnt have it on the shelf. would be two days out on regular stock order, i think its 10% for rush shipping? checked my other supplier, they had a VW throttle body in stock (five of them actually) and had it and the annoying green gasket sent out and in my hands the next day, about 10am. and....it was almost 90 bucks less than the one from down there. yes, it was a brand new VW unit, in the VW box, shrink wrapped to the cardboard insert like the come.

when time matters, it makes or breaks my call on parts. add in that i only get a delivery once a week when i was in blacksburg, and they would not really deliver on a regular basis unless i had a larger order. it was UPS or have a driver pick it up for me.

Subaru is the one manufacturer that is giving us the hardest time on the diag equipment, the new select monitor III is not being released in its OE form to the aftermarket. they have another version that is done by Blue Streak, but it is not as fully capable (the immobilizer function is disabled, as are a few other coding options.)

oh well. there is never a replacement for the OE dealer, but a good independent shop that gives some competition to them for most standard repairs is always good for business. it keeps people on their toes.

HatefulMechanic

PM'ed you with that info

sidewaysfox

I guess what we were really trying to say was, set that Zcar on fire and run it off a cliff

HatefulMechanic

although, i am more inclined to watch it burn next to a large tank of propane, a BLEVE is a wonderful thing to watch!

VWDAVE88

well for the most part i see your point of view and it would be nice to only have 100 hrs of training a year to stay current but at the rate of automotive advancment even just keeping up with one car line thats not enough

vw is dropping multiple new car desgins and platforms next year so back the grind

but i dont think any major automaker will allow for indy equality
just like soon you will no longer be able to code immo keys to vw they have taken that info away from us so they dont have to give it to anyone
sooner or later we will be monkeys with computers and an internet connection

its on its way our new guided fault finding system has telediagnosis which connects with vw headquarters and the engineers so its on its way they can work our scan tools over the internet

QUICKTA

this thread was about a zcar

HatefulMechanic

which is what the R2R is against! it is to keep "proprietary information" from being a widely used phrase, preventing even the most simple repair from being performed.

GM has had the technology on this exact thing for the last 5 years, and are now heavily pushing it to their customers. its part of the technology that is being produced by automakers to become what is referred to as OBDIII. join up on IATN, there are hundreds of threads on this very topic over there.

remote assistance has been in use by Ford and GM for a little while now, and will do nothing more but increase its use, basically reducing their needs for a skilled trained technician. tell me that aint a bunch of bullshit?!

they can hire a load of C techs, with a couple of B techs to help out on the occasional driveability problem without having to call support. the A techs are no longer needed, at least in managements eyes, because they have the knowledge a phone call or internet connection away.


yes, 100 hours is not enough. however, there is never a day that goes by without learning something, especially if you hang out on IATN a little. there are some VERY bright people over there, and are willing to share the knowledge.

if you count time i spend over there, i have about 400 hours a year