skm

Jeff, I sometimes feel as you do , why keep up with them ? I am master certified with my L1, master emission license and state inspection license, People notice my certificates as i work on their cars as mine are hanging above my tool box. I am the only one with certifications at the shop and have been for a very very very long time, so i guess they don't feel a need to display them. The only use the shop has is using them for cheaper insurances etc.. I get no benefit from that either. I have paid for every single test out of my pocket and get no recognition for them by my work place. As you I don't study and have them broken up in a 3 year stretch I get a few years in between where I don't have to retest. The funny thing is I recertified in L1 about a year ago and at the test center the lady said Congratulations you are going to get a big raise you just passed the L1... I laughed and told her no I past it over 10 years ago that is a recertification and means nothing where I work. I just keep them so when the time comes I will use them to help secure a better position somewhere.

yes and there are way too many bluffers out there! We can't only blame them though for making things hard for the properly trained mechanic, there is the owners that allow it and the customers that don't know what is really involved in a proper repair. Is there a real way to inform the public? probably not ASE or equivalent certification is one way but ask the general public what ASE is and you will probably get a look of "huh". When someone takes their car to a shop they "assume" the person working on their car knows what he or she is doing. Just like when you go to a doctor you assume they know what they are doing and give you a proper diagnosis and treatment. Unfortunately this is not always the case and more so in the automotive world of repair.

great article Gonzo.. could't agree more! The problem now a days is to get the up and comers to understand this, as well as the customers. Just yesterday I said to the 22 year old at work with no training "either shit or get off the pot" he said what do you mean ? I told him either get serious stop wasting money on tools and go to school or pick a different career path.. So many mechanics think the bigger my tool box and the big name brands of tools make me a better mechanic. All I can say is GOOD LUCK WITH THAT! lol

Imcca, yes I agree i like to help others , but I think in the long run knowing the findings can benefit a lot of others. Not to mention it is nice to to get even a little thanks for your input not just taking peoples help for granted, especially if they are nice enough to offer there help a lot of people out there just take the attitude it is not my problem so don't even give any input, so when some is given a little appreciation should be given in return, don't just keep crying wolf or you will find that when you really need help there will be no one to help.

carbttech72, Did you find out what the problem was?? I find that most people don't seem to give any follow up on what they find. This site can be used as a good tool to help others that come across the same situation. any updates?? Just my 2 cents.

Sounds to me that the timing chain is not installed properly,, I am not sure since I have never done a hyundai , but it is possible that the vvti actuators (cam gears) need to be set before putting the chain on .. If the instructions are not followed exactly you will have problems.. one tooth can be a very large timing difference.. I have done several cars where you had to set the vvti actuators before installing the chain.. just because the marks line up doesn't mean you are set correctly remember the vvti allows for timing changes so the cam may be in a different position than what you think it is if you are just using the marks on the cam pulleys (vvti) actuators. You can check for signal using a logic probe or equivalent testing light . you don't have to have a scope in fact i hardly ever use a scope any more..

Haha, yes don't we all know these people.. Love the ones that call and ask if they can bring there car by for you to take a quick look why a headlight is out, so in your busy schedule you agree, thinking it won't take but a a few minutes should be able to fit it in. You see them pull up as they said they would, they go inside fill out the repair order, give you a quick wave as they walk away saying that they will be back in an hour or so. You go up grab the ticket they just filled out and find 1. replace burned out headlight 2. LOF (lube oil and filter) 3. check all tire pressure 4. rotate tires 5. check brakes 6. check air filters (cabin and engine) 7. check all fluids (top off what is needed) 8. check belts and hoses 9. check wiper blades 10. phone charger not working (fuse) ? 11. noise in left front going over bumps then at the bottom of the repair order they leave you a little note . Thanks, I will be back in an hour or so , thanks for fitting me in today, oh yea by the way I also think I may have a bit of an oil leak can you check that while you have it on the lift...

I own a Matco maximus 2.0 , actually it is a pretty good scanner. I for one don't see paying 10,000 for a scanner just so you can have it link you to all these fix sites. If you have a good scanner with some bi-directional communications and you know what you are looking at and what you are doing there is no need to pay mucho bucks for one. I also use a otc genisys running 5.0, between the two they give me all I need. Before I purchased my maximus 2.0 I had snap-on , mac, and matco lend me a scanner or a few different ones for a week or two at a time and I narrowed it down to what worked best for me that would by my suggestion to anyone looking to buy a scanner give it a test drive first.

Great article !! luckily I came into this business at the end of the rebuilding of parts and all the manual checking of components. So I got the best of both worlds. Old cars not a problem points, condensers, setting dwell and timing bring it on LOL. One thing made me laugh the old Growler turn on the big magnet set your armature in it, place your hacksaw blade on it and turn it get a dancing blade a shorted armature ..Replacing the brushes using small drill bits or paper clips to hold them in place as you slip the armature in .. LOL yea none of the new guys would have a clue in fact I like pulling out the old tools every once in a while and quizzing the guys to see if they have any idea what it is or how to use it. Even some of the not so old tools like the off set 10 mm and 19 mm wrenches for the ford escort crank bolts and t/belt tensioners , the long torx bit for the ford van plenum... I can go on and on even a DVOM new guys would say "what is that" LOL

I had a 2011 prius in today, they had to jump start the gas engine battery to get it to me. I checked the gas engine battery it showed low volts results good but low charge. I jumped the car got it running and verified it was charging it was. I could smell that the battery was sulfated so I removed it to replace it, I checked the battery when it was removed from the vehicle and the voltage had jumped to 12.38 I load tested it and this time it came up bad. I checked 2 more times with the same result. I installed the new battery and checked it while connected to the car it had good voltage and load test came out good. I didn't bother looking any deeper or looking at a wiring diagram, but looks like these batteries need to be isolated from the system to be checked, but not sure what the load on the battery was when it was installed pulling it down to 8 volts.

HarrytheCarGeek, I had a similar problem not to long ago, a 3.5 nissan don't recall if it was a maxima or altima, but it kept having multiple cylinder missfires that kept changing cylinders. The car had been two at least two other shops and along the way it had all the coils and plugs replaced the owner was told it had a bad computer. I got the car in the shop took it for a test drive noticed two things right off the bat, when first started the instrument cluster was a second or so behind the starting of the engine (didn't register for a split second), then when driving the car it didn't feel right shifted a little funny just felt off. Pulled the car back in the shop and started with basics power and ground connections, found that the ground cable from the battery goes to a little bracket bolted to the back of the transmission, the bracket and the cable end were very rusted. I took the bracket and cable off took them over to the wire wheel cleaned them nice and shiny gain took some sand paper cleaned the trans up applied a very thin coat of dielectric grease put everything back together presto car started fine gauges right in time with the engine and it drove great. The customer came back two days after picking the car up and gave me a $100 dollar tip said he had spent hundreds of dollars trying to get the car fixed and I charged him 1.5 hours labor . He said the car had not run that well in a long time he was so pleased with the price and the out come. I find that now a days with all the electronics in cars a lot of people over look the basics and that is where we all need to start sometimes the strangest problems are the easiest to fix. We have to learn to crawl before we walk , start with the basics first.

SMMotors, yes like I said I didn't think it is the ecm because of the loss of spark and injection pulse. I also stated that I have very limited data on this car for what ever reason. This is a 1.8L engine not a v6. I did pull the Valve cover and look at timing . It is 2 teeth off on the intake cam. Of course the intake cam has the cam sensor on the back end of it. The other shop got hold of the customer and they don't want to fix the car. I guess it was all just a learning experience . It is strange how some cars you can get a useful amount of data and others you can't, that also plays into what scanner you are using. I do appreciate all the input you guys gave . I am going to look up and see what the parameters for setting a cam sensor code in this car is, since it does not set any codes during cranking. Happy wrenching turning to all

Yes, as I seeks some advice on a car dumped in my lap with not much time to work on it LOL. In my case I may be looking too deep , the car came from another shop and I assumed they had some idea what they were doing when checking it. Possibly not, but any way I have also noticed that sometimes we forget about the basics with all the technical stuff now a days. Sometimes we all need a little help to get us back on the right path. Yes some have seen problems over and over where we are seeing it for the first time we all need a helping hand at times. What we know about one car may not necessarily be exactly the same on a different manufacturer . So extend a helping hand receive a helping hand .

Xrac, that is what I plan on doing Monday. b1qwbird, no access to a lab scope, but that is my thoughts at this time. I will set it on tdc and pull the valve cover and see where the cams sits. Jeff, I talked to the other shop yesterday they didn't try another computer, but I don't believe it is the cause. Thank you guys for the input, I am very strongly leaning towards timing being the issue as you see I am was leaning towards that on my last post. The reason I have not checked that so far is I would of thought the other shop would of done that, but you know what they say to assume makes and ass out of u and me. So that is my fault. When I was talking to the other shop yesterday they did say that they car came in a few weeks ago throwing a cam code they replaced the sensor , a week later it did it again so I am very much leaning towards the timing. I am think as b1qwbird said it is so far off that it kills the spark and injection and it does it before it has met the parameters for the setting of the cam sensor code. I will check things out Monday and let you guys know what I find. My problem is that we had 2 feet of snow the other week and were terribly slow and now we are extremely busy and I need to turn some work out so I have sort of put it on the back burner not to mention it is someone else's problem they dumped on me. anyway I will let you guys know what I find thanks !

okay so I checked grounds all good, have no codes setting in the computer, even though when all systems are scanned comes up with nats 5.0 I think this is strange since this is not a chipped key even pulled the column cover to verify no receiver on top of tumbler. As I mentioned in the first post this car has been at another shop. I may be over looking some thing here. On some key cycles you get a injection pulse and spark for a brief second then it is gone. cam signal and crank signal always at the computer manually verified this.The injector harness unplugged shows voltage on both sides. All other data looks good. not 100% sure how the pedal sensor works with the tps, they both start with the same voltage where a lot of other cars I have come across the pedal starts at 5 volts and works down as it depressed and the tps starts low and goes high. I am unable to verify how this system works if it works like this I would assume so since I get a percentage of throttle opening, but I may be wrong. Could it be in some sort of clear flood mode? I don't get to see much data on my scanner very limited. my other thought is that may it of jumped timing? It does not set and cam codes, but there also doesn't seem to be any data stream for cam sync either so I guess monday I will verify timing . I Just really dont think it is the computer there is something I am over looking . been a very busy week so have not had a lot of time to spend on it. ANy insight would be appreciated thanks.

I had a car towed to me from another shop, 04 sentra no start this shop had it for 2 weeks can not figure it out. (the other shop had replaced almost every sensor on the car including cam and crank sensors twice) so I crank the car I have a rpm signal good crank sensor good, manually check the cam sensor good operation. Decide to check no spark or injection pulse, cranked it several times every once in a while at the start of the cranking I would get a quick injection pulse and spark. Unplugged an injector found power on both sides of the injector harness, checked the rest of the injectors same thing. So Bad injector driver in the computer? I do not have the wiring diagram at this time since our internet at work is down (switching to another company) so I can't access shopkey pro. Then I started thinking why is my spark doing the same thing? Security of some sort? The car has a metal key not chipped so I wouldn't think so . I had my scanner scan all systems of the car and it has nats v5 , now I still don't have any internet so I can't find any info on this does anyone have any insight about nats v5 before I condemn this guys computer? or is it just some fluke thing that nats v5 shows up and it really isn't anything at all? I did check codes with the scanner for security it says no codes. so I don't know with out some wiring diagrams and info on the security system. The only other thing I have not checked since on wiring diagrams is grounds for the computer. thanks

yes life is not always sunshine and daisies there is some nasty stuff in there!

I asked the customer if he had heard any noise on start up. He said he hard something on Saturday, but it went away pretty quickly so he didn't think anything of it. He comes from DC where they have a rat problem in the city. I did notice some rat poison under the hood and asked him if he had put it there. Of course he had, so I asked him if he has a rat problem with his car before, " no and didn't want one so he was being proactive " I explained to him he was attracting them to the car since rat poison attracts rats that is how they get them to eat it.. He laughed said he never thought of that but he is going to stop doing it now. I asked if he wanted to keep his new pet of course once I showed him the pic he almost puked LOL.. Some people just have weak stomachs I guess . Reminds me of a little old lady with a huge delta 88 like an early 80's model. She pulled up outside of my bay one morning with a huge buck with a nice rack stuck under the front of her car. She begged me to get it out she said she has been dragging it around all weekend. (the thing was pure road rash) . So I took a look and said I really didn't want to jack it up and pull it out . I told her I would try get it out for her, I got in her car and started to back it up to get it out from in front of my bay since I didn't want to drag the carcass around to the curb so the county could come pick it up I would rather take it out by the curb. Lo and behold as soon as I started backing up the deer came right out, great now I have to drag the thing. She looked at me and said "why didn't I think of that?" I asked her think of what she said backing the car up.. I said to her you never backed up once while driving the last two days, she replied no I always try to find a parking spot I can pull right out of , she said since she was a little lady and the car was so big it was hard for her to back up. I think the rat today was noting compared to the nasty mess of a state that deer was in LOL.

Came across this poor guy, guess he was just trying to stay warm!

Yes it has been his life long commitment and he still continues to do this. He is president of the inctr (international cancer treatment and research) over in Belgium, a non profit organization. He is an amazing person ! Although I don't get to see him much since I live here in the US. I do talk with him weekly . I do donate every year around this time, He and my step mother also donate to there own cause, There are still a lot of good people out there!

https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/cure-250-children-with-burkitt-lymphoma-in-africa/ For as long as I can remember my father has dedicated his life to this cause! He has helped to make huge strides in the advancement of treatment and greatly increasing the cure rate.. Every year he raised money for these children to help get them the treatments, food, and lodging for them and there families as they go through treatment. A little bit goes a long way if you could follow the link at the top of the post and if possible give what you can. It is amazing to see someone dedicate their whole life to helping children that would other wise get no help. It has to be one of the finest examples of humanity, so if you can, please help. I hope it is okay to post the link here if not please let me know and I will remove it asap... Thanks, SKM

It is nice to hear all of you that take care of your employees, I have worked at the same place for 25 years. I went from a very generous bonus to 0 for two years now get a very tiny one that won't even fill the gas tank on my car. Everyone receives the same measly amount, doesn't matter how good or how loyal or how long you have been there. Anyway even though I don't receive much of anything I want to commend those owners out there that respect and treat their employees kindly.. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OF YOU !!!!

HOHO! I mean HAHA! Love it !

I would have to lean more towards something causing the pads to be drawn away from the rotor causing a few pumps to get the pedal back up, yes stuck slide,(I have seen one slide stuck on a caliper and the other free causing a low pedal before) wheel bearing, warped rotor, booster possible if a vacuum situation causing a suction through the m/c drawing fluid out of calipers/pulling pistons in, but that is the only way I see a booster since the connection from the pedal to the master cylinder is all mechanical and the booster just assist the pedal effort. too much vacuum on one side you get a grabbing pedal , a leaking booster you get a hard pedal . For the pedal to fall to the floor with out loosing hydraulic pressure the master cylinder would need to be moving away from the booster as you push the pedal.. just my 2 cents. but anything is possible now a days .. LOL

I have 50% commission on the labor only. No parts and yes of total labor I was given 50% commission after 18 years there, all other mechanics where 35-45 depending on their certifications. Once under new owner ship they hired everyone at 50% of the labor.. so after 25 years and all my certifications and then some I get the same pay as a guy been there almost 2 years and shouldn't be doing anything more than changing oil , installing batteries , and doing tires has no training or schooling (a self proclaimed mechanic) . No one else at the shop have any certifications or inspection licenses or emission licenses, I am the only one, but treated the same as someone who should be a lube tech.. It is a terrible situation I could go on for hours , but I have vented enough for today and it is friday so I won't have to worry about it for another two days.