Bendigo Boxer • Fights • for His Industry
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
August 2009 –––––––––– www.tat.net.au The Issue No 10 Bendigo Boxer • fights • for his industry $115 gives you: • 12 months subscription to TaT • Six magazines mailed to your postal address • Access to illustrated solutions on line • Problem solving service APPLY ON PAGE 29 • A faulty ABS pump assembly on • A main connector plug on this this Jeep Cherokee even gave Ford AU was so screwed up it, it the scan tool a few headaches. continued to drain the battery. spending less time on the job, into to get the business going. using a cheap and poorly made replacement part, arguing that So don’t just be involved in they didn’t want to spend a lot of the process. Take the time to ometimes it takes a The hardest thing for a technician money on this repair. understand where you are in significant event in your to understand is the relationship the scheme of things and what life to really make you between his skill strength and the There is a regrettable tendency strengths you contribute. thinkS of why you do the things value of his time. by technicians who are employed you do and how you feel about in a workshop, to fudge the real For those of you who wallow in your life’s choices. It appears that the customer – the amount of time they spend on your daily routine of trying to fix consumer – has figured out that jobs, perhaps sometimes to hide problems that you believe are I had a lucky, if not a close, call we often find it difficult to put a their own incompetence, but all getting beyond you and you feel recently which made me think value on our skills and our time too often they downplay their time you are perhaps too proud to ask about why I’m an auto technician, and the consumer will manipulate and their role because they are for help – snap out of it. which was my life’s choice. I know and exploit our apparent thinking through the consumer’s I have an analytical mind, but was indecisions to their own ends. I wallet rather than through the There are plenty of choices you that enough? would go a step further and claim workshop’s cash register. Many can make about how you manage that some consumers have a of these technicians don’t easily your daily work routine. We don’t I was also inspired to write this by strong influence or even control see the relationship between their all have to know everything but we one of Michael Jackson’s songs, over their tradespeople. productivity and the ultimate ability do need to know how to get help The man in the mirror – of the workshop to meet their when we need it. The technician’s lack of expectations for wage increases, ‘I’m starting with the man in the understanding about where they fit training programs, better tools or Some techs are information mirror, I’m going to make him into the consumer-dominated food bonuses. sponges, some are not so change his ways’. chain allows the consumer the interested anymore. So long as upper hand to dictate the terms – It’s time to look in the mirror. The we each understand how to use The world has become dominated how much they should pay for the sooner we understand the quality what we’ve got, there is a role by consumerism and it can be job. Do you see the difference? we have within us and adjust our for all of us. It’s this difference in ruthless and abusive. It has Not what the job is really worth, charge-out rates to reflect that attitude that produces technician become critical for those of but how much they are prepared quality, the better we will survive in specialists at one end, and drones us either running a business, to pay for it. What are we running this consumer conscious world. at the other. You have a choice. or working in a business to here, a business, or an eastern Working out the end cost of our understand our role in this new carpet bazaar. working hour is a chore that can’t Deyan Barrie world order. be compromised. If we lie to What I am leading up to here is ourselves and sell the business (The significant event Deyan Most of us work under the that there is no shame in saying and our skills short, we will quickly refers to was a ‘procedure’ to delusion that we can fix any car, no to some customers. turn the workshop into an unstable clear an almost blocked artery. without help. The reality is that pool of unrest, poor cash flow Thankfully, he acted in time and there are many jobs a technician Better to say no than end up and bad emotions. This will drag he’s back on top of the world. should probably never accept in doing a job you know is not up everything down and decay the As he took a few days off to the first place. to scratch, simply because the very structure and foundation recuperate, he became quite customer brow-beat you into which somebody’s hard work built philosophical.) The team Contents Publisher International correspondents Dennis King fights for his industry……4, 5 The Automotive Technician Pty Ltd Julian Hentze - Georgia USA •TaT Assist •TaT Chat •TaT Train Braking Point - new series……………8, 9 ABN 27 121 589 802 Hayley Windsor - Istanbul Turkey •TaT’s a Fact •Tips for TaT TaT’s interesting………………………11 - are all registered trade names of 1 Cleg Street Reader A Volt from the blue……………………12 ARTARMON NSW 2064 Bron Robinson The Automotive Technician Pty Ltd. Commodore noise……………………13 The Automotive Technician Pty Ltd [email protected] publishes technical advice and Carbon buildup - the new headache……15 Ph 1300 828 000 Advertising inquiries actual case studies for the Fax 1300 828 100 Jeff Smit Hybrid sales sky rocket………………15 purpose of educating technicians. [email protected] TaT’s a facts………………………16, 17 Editor in chief Ph 02 9966 8600 These advices are given in good Ken Newton faith, and are based on actual Replacing transformer ignition coils……18 [email protected] Graphic design workshop repairs. No guarantee is Exhaust system blockages……………18 0438 569 517 Russell Jones given, nor any liability accepted in Fax 07 5591 8172 Russell Jones Graphic Design respect to any published advice. Auto CPR - asking questions…………20 [email protected] Technical editor The Automotive Technician Pty Ltd A plug for the Prius plug in……………21 is not responsible for the accuracy Jeff Smit Original TaT design standard Safer to walk - Hayley Windsor…………22 [email protected] of any information contained in Allan Green 1300 828 000 material submitted by third parties Who owns what? - Julian Hentze………22 CEO Design and published in this magazine and [email protected] Scan tools - Bosch KTS 340…………24 Technical research accepts no liability in relation to Deyan Barrie such materials or their content. Scan tools - Multiscan P1……………25 [email protected] Printing Newsworthy articles or comments Repair data strangle hold………………25 02 9476 6277 Immij NSW are welcomed, and should be 3/12 Mars Road, Scan tool training program……………27 submitted to the Editor in chief. Technical advisers Lane Cove Last word - Ian Stangroome……………30 Jack Stepanian NSW 2066 All material appearing in The www.immij.com.au Automotive Technician is copyright. Nick Murphy The Automotive Technician is a member of the Reproduction in whole or in part is Circulations Audit Board. CAB Audited as at March [email protected] Affiliated associations illegal without prior written consent 2009 - 7830 per issue. Average copies mailed by post VASA from the Editor in chief. office or mailing house, less returns - 5119 per issue. Wayne Broady www.broadyauto.com.au (Automotive Air Conditioning, All advertisers agree to indemnify Electrical & Cooling Technicians of the publisher for all damages or Gil Sher Australasia) liabilities arising from their published [email protected] [email protected] or unpublished material. The Automotive Technician 3 Dennis ‘Bendigo’ King fights on for local kids and Dennis King (left) poses with his crew, Drew Phillips (auto electrician), Matt Goodman (1st year apprentice auto electrician), Grant Raven (4th the auto repair industry year apprentice auto electrician), Ron Stafford (mechanic, customer relations, spare parts) and Martin Gale (diesel mechanic). o explain Dennis A chance meeting with Ian King’s attitude to Welshman, then the owner of Tlife, just visit www. Brighton Auto Electrical, ended bendigoautoelectrical.com in an offer of an apprenticeship to become an auto electrician. Buried among the long list of reasons for visiting his “To this day, I vividly recall the workshop is this little gem, massive relief I felt that I had found my niche in life. From “Buy an alternator from us that point on, I improved my - a local kid gets a job. Buy knowledge and vowed never to from someone else and a be left behind again,” Dennis shareholder gets richer!” said. It’s a theme that could well His plan is not to replace become the catch-cry of Dennis King can always be found in the front row of all training events. This already established trades provincial towns and cities one was Wire & Gas 2008 at the presentation by TaT trainer Nick Murphy. training organisations, but across the country, especially he wants to build a model those that are struggling to stay education system, and a Dennis looked at his own workshop, specialising in future afloat.