Jason C
04-05-2005, 08:54 AM
Had a nice conversation with that BMW instructor who unfortunately has been busy ever since the new class of STEP students came in about 2 months ago. Some random choice comments from him-
"So there was a time when everything came from the factory with ridiculous tolerances, I mean just look at the Ford 302 they used for so many years. I mean gosh, you could just about build that thing off the shelf by yourself, you know? The ol' paper 'n matchstick measuring for building it? And it worked well for quite a while too. Not that they needed to be any better from the factory, some of us thought they'd go way better when they went to fuel injection, but nope! Hahaha..."
"...See, that's an interesting point on what people look for in cars. You don't buy a Mustang for its quiet exhaust, do you? I don't see the big deal that some people make, it's that type of American car, it's suppose to feel like that."
"Mechanics... tend to want something simple, you know? You spend all day working with all this computers and electronics and diagnostics, do you REALLY want to come home and mess with it further on your car? Best is when there's no computers, there's nothing that can go wrong with the car! It's just all out there, and you know it, and there's no mystery about. Tech is buying a car - 'Man I don't give a damn about that other crap, is it simple? Alright!' You know what I'm saying?"
"I wouldn't say OBD-III is taking the independents out of the equation, the factory does that with the 100 thousand mile warrenty and service interval. Now where's all the work going to go? It use to be that if you wanted to mess with it, you'd go to the independents. Just look nowadays though, Eibach springs, factory tuner wheels and whatnot stocked on dealer showrooms - they lost a lot of money to the aftermarket but now some are trying to change that."
"But the customer though.. gone are the days where a check engine light was easy enough to resolve by yourself. The customer calls you and says 'Hey I got a MIL' so you reply 'Well, do you have a DIS+ or a GT1? Well then, you're screwed, come take it in.' We're not going to be out of work anytime soon. It doesn't fix itself, you know?"
"We're doing stuff that is reallllly cutting-edge though. Just look at what we have. Few other manufactures are using fiber optics like we're using. I mean, our cars are one of the only few that network for christ sake! How complicated can you make raising and lowering a window? It goes up and down, right? How hard can that be?"
"But take for example, our cars for instance. How often do our power windows go out? Quite a bit, huh? We're using those cables to actuate them, but at the same time we use plastic pulleys. Cables tension on plastic pulleys - they go out. That's money for technicians right there."
"Nowadays it's like, swap another part in! Doesn't work, replace that part! You're kinda fiddling around with it, finding a balance between doing something that's going to be expensive as opposed to doing something even worse and more time consuming, the lesser of two evils - sometimes in the shop you'll have to do that a lot.
"Even if you go through the FASTTRACK and decide that you don't want to become a BMW tech, you'll still gain a lot. The core program here - hey I started the evening classes! I know what they don't tell you in their brochures. You and I both know the limitations inherent. There's just simply not enough times to cover everything on the other side, and not enough to cover what we do in enough detail. Once you're over here though, it's just so comprehensive the way we dive into it. I'll bet that none of you ever got around to removing a door panel, of if you did you never really really got into it or understood it. How many of you were shown how a power window regulator works? I mean I'm sure some of you stayed around after class and asked questions but that doesn't quite cover the limitations still... here we do like 4 power window assemblies a day at one point! It's much better than just sending you out there with a door panel remover tool and a shop manual and asking you to figure it out on your own. What you'll find is that whan you get out there you're 5 to 7 years ahead of someone who just graduated from the core courses - and that's just from FASTTRACK."
"Even the simplest of thing like I said earlier with the power windows. Most of them, you just drill right? Just drill and that's it - it goes into the hole, no further adjustments. But the M5 and the E39, 540i Touring, they use those two clamps on one end, and you kinda have to wiggle it and mess around with it, raise it and lower it a few times while looking at it and saying 'Now that's WAY off!' before you can get it right."
"Use the printers! We're not charging you money for ink and paper, we'll bring another pallet over if you need it. Most have TSB's but here we have SIB's and when you get on the network, if there's a new SIB released it will pop up on the screen. And do you want to print it out? Then just click on it and print it out. If they're talking about the MINI on the network and you want to print that shit out, print the damn thing!"
"The service is really for you, when you're out of class you won't get access to the SIP's. Not even the STEP students get access to them when they're not in class. Use the resources provided. The TSB's for one - they're there for a reason! They tell you about a common problem - this Ford has that component, and they all break the exact same way. You get the TSB that someone has generously done for you and instead of spending a couple of hours diagnosing it, you have the damn problem in your hand. They all do that! Well, that's what it's telling you."
In related news, FASTTRACK added ST056 Chassis Dynamics, and possibly more classes than that. It looks like I may not be totally screwed if I don't pass the entrance exam. Also I may just switch to the Motorsport program if they revive it in time - I like the lead instructor that will teach it and it's something that I'm interested in, though I have no interest of becoming part of a pit crew or anything like that. Hell, I might go through motorsports, smog, and BMW to end up working for a place like Dinan in Mountain View or Morgan Hill - I live right in between those two locations as it is. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Those are the two primary locations of Dinan which are so conveniently close to home. They're working on newer factory-warrantee cars so they need someone with current BMWNA training. They are performance-oriented so they'd no doubt like someone who has some exposure to performance tuning. Furthermore, there in CA, so they want their stuff to be CARB-legal - therefore a smog tech would be nice.
"So there was a time when everything came from the factory with ridiculous tolerances, I mean just look at the Ford 302 they used for so many years. I mean gosh, you could just about build that thing off the shelf by yourself, you know? The ol' paper 'n matchstick measuring for building it? And it worked well for quite a while too. Not that they needed to be any better from the factory, some of us thought they'd go way better when they went to fuel injection, but nope! Hahaha..."
"...See, that's an interesting point on what people look for in cars. You don't buy a Mustang for its quiet exhaust, do you? I don't see the big deal that some people make, it's that type of American car, it's suppose to feel like that."
"Mechanics... tend to want something simple, you know? You spend all day working with all this computers and electronics and diagnostics, do you REALLY want to come home and mess with it further on your car? Best is when there's no computers, there's nothing that can go wrong with the car! It's just all out there, and you know it, and there's no mystery about. Tech is buying a car - 'Man I don't give a damn about that other crap, is it simple? Alright!' You know what I'm saying?"
"I wouldn't say OBD-III is taking the independents out of the equation, the factory does that with the 100 thousand mile warrenty and service interval. Now where's all the work going to go? It use to be that if you wanted to mess with it, you'd go to the independents. Just look nowadays though, Eibach springs, factory tuner wheels and whatnot stocked on dealer showrooms - they lost a lot of money to the aftermarket but now some are trying to change that."
"But the customer though.. gone are the days where a check engine light was easy enough to resolve by yourself. The customer calls you and says 'Hey I got a MIL' so you reply 'Well, do you have a DIS+ or a GT1? Well then, you're screwed, come take it in.' We're not going to be out of work anytime soon. It doesn't fix itself, you know?"
"We're doing stuff that is reallllly cutting-edge though. Just look at what we have. Few other manufactures are using fiber optics like we're using. I mean, our cars are one of the only few that network for christ sake! How complicated can you make raising and lowering a window? It goes up and down, right? How hard can that be?"
"But take for example, our cars for instance. How often do our power windows go out? Quite a bit, huh? We're using those cables to actuate them, but at the same time we use plastic pulleys. Cables tension on plastic pulleys - they go out. That's money for technicians right there."
"Nowadays it's like, swap another part in! Doesn't work, replace that part! You're kinda fiddling around with it, finding a balance between doing something that's going to be expensive as opposed to doing something even worse and more time consuming, the lesser of two evils - sometimes in the shop you'll have to do that a lot.
"Even if you go through the FASTTRACK and decide that you don't want to become a BMW tech, you'll still gain a lot. The core program here - hey I started the evening classes! I know what they don't tell you in their brochures. You and I both know the limitations inherent. There's just simply not enough times to cover everything on the other side, and not enough to cover what we do in enough detail. Once you're over here though, it's just so comprehensive the way we dive into it. I'll bet that none of you ever got around to removing a door panel, of if you did you never really really got into it or understood it. How many of you were shown how a power window regulator works? I mean I'm sure some of you stayed around after class and asked questions but that doesn't quite cover the limitations still... here we do like 4 power window assemblies a day at one point! It's much better than just sending you out there with a door panel remover tool and a shop manual and asking you to figure it out on your own. What you'll find is that whan you get out there you're 5 to 7 years ahead of someone who just graduated from the core courses - and that's just from FASTTRACK."
"Even the simplest of thing like I said earlier with the power windows. Most of them, you just drill right? Just drill and that's it - it goes into the hole, no further adjustments. But the M5 and the E39, 540i Touring, they use those two clamps on one end, and you kinda have to wiggle it and mess around with it, raise it and lower it a few times while looking at it and saying 'Now that's WAY off!' before you can get it right."
"Use the printers! We're not charging you money for ink and paper, we'll bring another pallet over if you need it. Most have TSB's but here we have SIB's and when you get on the network, if there's a new SIB released it will pop up on the screen. And do you want to print it out? Then just click on it and print it out. If they're talking about the MINI on the network and you want to print that shit out, print the damn thing!"
"The service is really for you, when you're out of class you won't get access to the SIP's. Not even the STEP students get access to them when they're not in class. Use the resources provided. The TSB's for one - they're there for a reason! They tell you about a common problem - this Ford has that component, and they all break the exact same way. You get the TSB that someone has generously done for you and instead of spending a couple of hours diagnosing it, you have the damn problem in your hand. They all do that! Well, that's what it's telling you."
In related news, FASTTRACK added ST056 Chassis Dynamics, and possibly more classes than that. It looks like I may not be totally screwed if I don't pass the entrance exam. Also I may just switch to the Motorsport program if they revive it in time - I like the lead instructor that will teach it and it's something that I'm interested in, though I have no interest of becoming part of a pit crew or anything like that. Hell, I might go through motorsports, smog, and BMW to end up working for a place like Dinan in Mountain View or Morgan Hill - I live right in between those two locations as it is. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Those are the two primary locations of Dinan which are so conveniently close to home. They're working on newer factory-warrantee cars so they need someone with current BMWNA training. They are performance-oriented so they'd no doubt like someone who has some exposure to performance tuning. Furthermore, there in CA, so they want their stuff to be CARB-legal - therefore a smog tech would be nice.