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by AngryData 217 days ago
Dude is out of his gourd if he believes mechanics are making 6 figures without doing crazy overtime. Just because a job posting is advertised up to 6 figures doesn't mean they will actually offer you such a wage. I live in Michigan and am from a family of mechanics and 95% of mechanics never break $100K ever.

He is also extremely ignorant if he thinks it takes 5 years to learn how to take an engine out of a vehicle, people get PhDs in 5 years, and I could teach someone to remove and replace a certain vehicle's motor in a few days at worst including most of the tips and tricks when things don't go smoothly, after a year I would expect them to be able to take out any motor from any vehicle without guidance. Taking a motor out of a vehicle is one of the easier parts of a mechanic's job, the hard part is being able to diagnose problems without tearing the entire motor out before you know it needs to, or figuring out how to fix a problem without tearing apart every nut and bolt on the car per the official repair, especially as a dealership mechanic where you only get paid a set minimum price for each job no matter how long it takes you in reality. Sure a brand new vehicle might have bolts that spin off in 10 seconds, but the crusty rusted out car from Michigan salted roads might require torches to remove it or time to extract a broken bolt, or drilling and tapping and helicoiling a stripped hole. Even if the hourly labor was free, the parts that either MUST be replaced once bolts are pulled and seals broken, or will inevitably be broken in the process of removal no matter how careful you are, still cost money.

1 comments

Designing a car that is easy to maintain and diagnose is a lot harder than it seems and manufacturers are incentivized to focus on new sales than maintenance.

Well, then we ended up weird designs that expects you take and engine out to change an alternator or estimates that are way off.

It’s quite dishonest that all the problems of the entire sector is being merged into “nobody wants to work anymore” style conversation with a lot of fine prints.

I had a ford and when working on it I realized one thing:

This car was designed to assemble, not to disassemble.

Easiest example: the gray fabric-like panels in the trunk that cover everything? They are attached with small christmas-tree fasteners that mate with holes in the trunk walls. They take maybe 1/4 second to fasten. But to unfasten they take finesse to carefully remove without breaking the fastener.

Cars are like that all the way down. Also, a lot of these types of fasteners are designed to be replaced after you take them apart. But basically no mechanic does that. It's one reason why you have door and other interior panels making squeaking or other vibration noise after your car has been worked on.

Even decent reusable fasteners like screws frequently deserve a little locktite when replacing them and nobody does that.