Automotive Maintenance: Fill & Download for Free

As a shop owner, an ASE Master Tech, with a bachelor's in Business Administration with 30 years under my belt, I can tell you a lot about the automotive industry and how it relates to the Mechanic, or preferably, the Automotive Technician career. However, I will try to keep this short. ;)It all started in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The labor trades such as plumbers, electricians, HVAC, and carpenters, already had strong unions and apprenticeship programs. They also became regulated with specific codes for health, safety, and proper techniques. This culminated in specific licensing for contractors and journeyman that are regulated by state agencies. Except for small differences in codes and regulations specific to county and city requirements, the licensing of the trades is mostly homogeneous. This created a system of standardization across the trade industries between manufacturers and various agencies.Unfortunately, the automotive industry did not follow such a route. It was the only trade to not do so. The manufacturers all wanted their own independence and freedom to specialize in their products. The discount style, low-end, and franchise auto repair companies, such as Firestone, Wheel Works, Midas, Jiffy Lube, and others wanted to keep costs low and hire untrained or poorly trained mechanics at low wages. (I personally find this a dangerous safety issue for consumers). Dealerships wanted their own autonomy and to hire and train mechanics for only their specific product lines. The independent shops didn’t have any interest, money, and cohesiveness to fight the corporations for equal access to equipment and data from the corporations and chose to sit on the sidelines as the automotive industry, manufacturers, repair facilities, regulatory agencies, and industry-based committees (such as ASE and ASA) all became discombobulated. Ultimately, this hurts the consumer and the industry, as there is no standardization, no regulated licensing, no safety codes, nothing. Some states have smog checks, others have specific safety checks, but nothing is standardized. Some organizations such as NATEF (and ASE), and ASA and some independent companies have tried to implement standard procedures and training. However, without cohesive support from manufacturers and regulatory agencies, it has been a failure.Now we have a situation where anybody can buy a business license and open an automotive shop and the corporate franchises can continue to hire cheap untrained labor. They don’t have to be a licensed contractor or ASE certified. Most of the independent automotive business owners don’t know how to properly run their business and end up working themselves to death for pennies and the employees (mechanics) suffer for it. The uneducated shop owners and corporations and lack of regulation are all responsible for the low wages in the industry. In the autobody repair industry, big corporations and insurance companies have nearly snuffed out the independent shops and are forcing wages to be low. It has become a situation of high volume work with low pay and long hours.A lot of shop owners are not competent at managing the financials of their business. They will often compete by selling work based on price instead of what the math is telling them they should be priced at. The result of selling on price instead of value results in the shop owners often performing work for very little profit and often for not enough money to keep their doors open or properly pay their staff. It puts stress on the company when things don’t go well. They often resort to using and installing cheap and unreliable parts to sell at a low price. The consumer often thinks that they got a deal. Unfortunately, their cars were repaired by a distressed or stressed shop. This often results in the repairs not lasting long and shoddy workmanship or worse, an unsafe car, or ticking time bomb of costly failures. I see this almost every day with customers that bring me cars repaired by other shops. The consumer often doesn’t realize that this costs them more money in the long run and jeopardizes their safety and other fellow drivers on the road.Despite all of this, the consumer still thinks of car repair in terms of the simplicity of the 1960s and why shouldn’t they? It’s confusing. In their minds, they can’t justify the cost and many assume it's minimum-wage caliber work. Most consumers can see that technology exists in their cars but have no idea how complex it is. They can’t fathom how integrated and intertwined all of the car’s operational systems are with each other. They simply don’t understand the level of training it takes to properly repair them. The pricing issue adds more confusion. Where I live, you can find shops charging anywhere from $80 per hour of labor to $240 an hour at the dealer and their cars rarely get properly repaired and serviced. They will also get a range of quotes on diagnostics and repairs from various shops on the same job that can have a price spread by as much as 100% or more. In addition, most of these so-called mechanics and business owners shouldn’t even be touching and repairing cars. The Internet made it worse as parts, especially cheap terribly made parts, are being sold for pennies above cost and YouTube tells them how to fix it, and most times improperly.The reality is that most consumers feel that they can’t trust automotive repair places as a result of the mixed pricing, poorly run shops, misleading corporate auto companies, and poorly trained and unlicensed mechanics/technicians. Many have opted to save a buck and do things themselves. Aside from some lucky DIY fixes and common issues, many end up throwing money, time, and parts at their cars with the problem still not solved or the car is driven on the road with unreliable parts and safety issues. Many choose to go to the cheapest shop they can afford and bounce around from shop to shop with no success.Now we have a situation, where if the automotive industry doesn’t fix itself, technology will. Long gone are the days when the average Joe and backyard mechanics could fix their cars. During this time electronic controlled systems, fuel injection systems, and computer controls started to be designed into vehicles. The modern car, even the most basic econobox being sold in 2019, is a rolling network of computers. On many cars, you cannot change the brakes without interfacing with a computer system. You can’t replace a suspension member without performing a proper 4-wheel laser alignment to the highest standards (the days of the sub $100 alignment are quickly fading) without calibrating the lane change assist, cruise control systems, self-parking systems, the headlight systems and steering and ABS systems (that $50 alignment became an $800 nightmare to your wallet). I can’t count how many repairs I have done on high-end cars that were worked on by improperly trained mechanics and shops and damaged because of it. Tesla and Prius are no different from BMW, Mercedes, and Ford, etc. All of those consumer amenities and complex systems do fail. The low pay, higher cost of living, bad employers, high learning curve, and parasitic shops, especially in California, has the old dogs and mechanics leaving the automotive industry in droves. You have to be part engineer, part IT, part electrician, part programmer, and a solid mechanic, in order to successfully work on the new cars. Things have become so complex that the automotive industry is going to collapse as many shops close and only the smartest and toughest stay in.As for me and a very small percentage of technicians in the industry (maybe less than 1% of us), we don’t need to worry. There are those of us who absolutely love cars and technology. We could have become engineers but chose to stick it out in the auto industry. You could say we are gluttons for punishment. We have taken every automotive class, we have obtained every certification and degree, and we have gone outside the industry to learn about software programming, IT networking, industrial machining, and design, and we have college degrees. We are fading in number, but we will be the ones to survive. Most of us top dogs, get paid a proper salary, and many of us have become successful business owners. We pay attention to our profit margins and business numbers, and we are not cheap to visit, but we guarantee our work, and we have a dedicated following of customers who understand the value of an intelligent professional working on their car and keeping their families safe on the road and educate them on proper car maintenance so that they can avoid expensive repairs down the road.

I enlisted in the Army in 1966 for the Warrant Flight Training Program. I went to rotary winged flight school following basic training. Upon completion of flight school I went to the Aviation Maintenance Officers Course at Fort Eustis, VA, then to Vietnam, Jul68-Jul69. During the early part of my career I noticed considerable resentment toward us aviation warrant officers, mostly from older commissioned officers. I believe they “felt” we hadn’t earned our bars because we could go from being an E1 in basic to being a Warrant Officer-1 in less than a year.Previously, warrants usually didn’t get their bars until much later along in their careers. I once heard an automotive maintenance warrant taking to his buddies, telling them it took him fourteen years to become a WO-1. That was the way things worked prior to the Vietnam War. The Army was going to an airmobile concept for combat in Vietnam, and it needed helicopter pilots, lots of them and it needed them quickly.Around the 1963–66 timeframe there were advertisements about high school graduates becoming Army helicopter pilots in a lot of magazines if memory serves me correctly. A high school diploma was the minimum educational requirement, but the individual had to pass a Flight Aptitude Test as well as passing a Class I Flight Physical. Passing the flight physical kept a lot of interested applicants from being accepted into the program. More than a few commissioned officers wanted to be helicopter pilots, but failed the flight physical.I believe that was the source of some of the resentment, plus getting our wings and bar in less than a year had to rub some of the more senior officers the wrong way. Sometimes the commissioned officers’ attitude came across as they just didn’t like us…whether they knew how we performed our duties or not.I figured they had the same opportunity to apply for flight school as I did, I couldn’t help it if they weren’t physically qualified so why be angry at me or the other warrants?

Auto Trade show exhibitions provide a platform to companies to showcase your products to consumers and also get new B2B customers.B to B Events is organizing West Africa Automotive Show from November 6th to 8th 2019, Landmark Centre in Lagos, Nigeria. The event will bring together suppliers, dealers, and manufacturers with all those involved in automotive maintenance, repair and vehicle enhancement to make connections and do business.Why Visit?West Africa Automotive Show provides visitors with a comprehensive range of automotive parts suppliers and distributors to support the automotive service industry.While attending the Car Expo, you will have the opportunity to find out about the best business deals, new trends and developments in technology, along with being able to meet the people who can provide you with the parts you need for your auto-servicing business.With over 100 exhibitors, brands and suppliers taking part you will come away from West Africa Automotive Show better informed and in a better place for your business.Pre-register or book a stand today and see what the automotive industry from across the globe has to offer. Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up to date with the automotive spare part industry.For latest updates - Social Media -Instagram - WAAS: Automotive Trade ShowsFacebook - West Africa Automotive Show