Thread: Ducted air con repair story

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

Kryn, that is simply not true. My son has specialised in electronic diagnosis in cars for many years and I can assure you there is a real skill involved and most technicians have not got the patience to learn it. The plug the computer in part is true but finding what is wrong can sometimes take days an in a few isolated cases the problem is simply too elusive to find and wholesale component replacement has to be resorted to.

Hi Chris, Guys,

I'm not sure that I entirely agree with you !

Most modern electronics is designed to be modular with easy to replace units. Lots of so called technicians simply keep replacing units until the faulty one is found. Diagnosis down to component level is vary rarely seen, it is simply not cost effective.

I'm going to agree with Kryn, Chris and Baron as they all make valid points on the state of Tradesman/Technicians and their installations of, and interactions with modern equipment.
One observation that I have made is that very few have both a solid grounding in the basic fundamentals and the technological side of machinery. Those that do are worth their weight in gold. Speaking mainly from experience in the automotive and industrial sectors, I find that the old guard, who knew the mechanical fundamentals often have little appetite for learning the new electronic controls, while the new breed are relatively well versed in electronic controls, but often fail to understand the basic mechanical systems they control. My Son is a third year mechanical apprentice and I am constantly amazed at what he is not taught, (I am also friends with one of his TAFE instructors, a brilliant mechanic in both electronics and the fundamentals, who just shakes his head when talking about the current syllabus that must be taught). I could go on, but you get the picture.
Moving on to the issue of lazy/unthinking tradies that take shortcuts and create problems down the track. I once worked for a vehicle body builder specialising in truck trays and van bodies. There is one particular model of truck that we fitted bodies to that due to the positioning of the front crossmember of the body that we built, it is impossible to remove the vehicle's gearbox without first removing the body (no small job and even worse if it happened to be a refrigerated van body). In the three years that I worked for that company, I tried to change our design, so that this problem would no longer exist. The response was always, "that's not our problem, we won't have to pull the gearbox out and it will take longer if we put a cutout in the crossmember." The same attitude is prevalent in many trades, particularly in situations where an installer is paid a set rate per installation. I remember making the observation when my house was built that most of the tradies seemed to be working against each other and making life difficult because "it's not my problem". No thought for the person that comes behind of has to do maintenance.
Baron is dead right when it comes to making modern equipment modular so that a component or circuit board can just be swapped out easily. That ability was an absolute game changer when it entered industry and downtime was slashed provided spare boards were kept in stock. The down side though is that technicians have in the main lost the fundamental knowledge of what a component controls and what can be substituted in order to get a piece of equipment up and running. I am reminded of the example of an Ausa forklift fitted with a Kubota diesel engine that we had on a mine site. The starter motor had given up the ghost and there were no replacements in Ausa's parts inventory - 3 months from Japan or something similar. Eventually the fitters were convinced to take the starter off and see what the actual problem was, which initially they didn't want to do as "it's easier to just put a new starter on". It was discovered that the starter was in quite good condition except for worn out brushes. You guessed it, Ausa didn't have a listing for brushes to suit. The suggestion to try and cross reference the starter through Kubota's tractor dealer network was dismissed. Eventually the head storeman, who happened to be a qualified motor mechanic and auto electrician as well as having a loaded semi coming on site in the next few days, with no way to unload it, spat the dummy and took a starter for a Landcruiser out of the store, stripped it down and took the brushes out to see if they might fit. They were right for thickness, but not width. This of course amused the fitters who "knew it wouldn't work and would be a waste of time", he then grabbed a file and proceeded to massage the carbon brushes until they fitted the Kubota starter. Of course the fitters said that couldn't be done either, only to be told that there was no reason it wouldn't as they are only a block of carbon (with a few choice expletives added in). That starter motor was still running fine 3 years later. That is the difference between a parts replacer and a tradesman who knows the fundamentals of how and why things work.
Cost plays a role of course and it will usually be cheaper to swap a component than to repair it these days, but when the chips are down and that part is months away, the fundamentals come to the fore.
I feel that most trades are being dumbed down in many ways, including my own trade of Boilermaker Welder and ultimately there will be a price paid in the loss of skills and knowledge, there are some very fine tradesmen and women out there, but they are typically those who have decided to seek knowledge rather than run of the basic trades training as it is today.

Originally Posted by BaronJ

Hi Chris, Guys,

I'm not sure that I entirely agree with you !

Most modern electronics is designed to be modular with easy to replace units. Lots of so called technicians simply keep replacing units until the faulty one is found. Diagnosis down to component level is vary rarely seen, it is simply not cost effective.

The modular part is true but the getting there in cars is a whole other problem. There is no replacement or other work done unless they are very sure of what the problem is and I have seen Master P. work on a car for days before giving a final diagnosis. The reason for in depth investigation is simply the cost of throwing parts at it and in some cases the parts once put in a car cannot be put into another car due to once only VIN requirements where the part is tied to the VIN in a once only operation. Wiring harnesses that can cost $5000 are not willy nilly replaced for obvious reasons and I have seen him strip the interior of a car down to the shell looking for problems. The idea of the computer does everything and parts are thrown at cars to solve problems is false though I know it is a popular misconception for some reason. All warranty repairs have to be agreed to by the manufacturer and if the technician gets his diagnosis wrong the service dept has to wear the cost and all manufacturers now provide diagnosis support for this reason.

I had my own workshop 30+ years ago and then as now diagnosis is still required & done and more so today as cars are far far more complex, back then we rarely had to stretch our brains as cars were laughably simple when I think about it. In all my years in the industry back then I can only recall two instances where we came up against a problem we had no answer for. One we never solved and replace the whole gearbox and one was a wiring problem in an early injected Fairlane which even Ford failed to find the issue and we did so purely by accident as it was a cold solder joint. That particular car had been sold many times and was notorious in Ford circles for its problems but then Ford had an engineer who specialised in building dodgy electronic systems.

I post this here as information only to help correct the view that many have of the car industry and how they go about things these days and I mean no offence to anyone particularly Kryn.

Originally Posted by Karl Robbers

I feel that most trades are being dumbed down in many ways, including my own trade of Boilermaker Welder and ultimately there will be a price paid in the loss of skills and knowledge, there are some very fine tradesmen and women out there, but they are typically those who have decided to seek knowledge rather than run of the basic trades training as it is today.

A view held by many but then I suppose the blacksmith thought the same thing when welding started taking over his job. Who would want to weld pipelines internally when a machine can do it far better and yes I did welding as well and no I don't regret machines and robots taking over for many jobs that were simply just so horrible to do. I never did it but working in a pipeline grinding back welds using a grinder supported by springs because it was simply too heavy does not sound like a job I would jump at.

Back to what apprentice technicians are taught today, they simply don't need to know all ancient stuff about points & plugs and how to build gearboxes and diffs because it is not needed and in most cars simply can't be done anyway. There is a good reason the support industries like engine reconditioning and auto transmission places are no longer around and that is because there is no work for them. Motors commonly last the life of the car and not 60,000 miles and the transmissions these days have more wire in them than an old Holden had in the whole car and most probably can't be fixed anyway. Ford tried re-building autos in the last Ranger and it failed dismally even though it was farmed out to a specialist, Mazda decided it was not worth the trouble and simply gave Ford the bill for the transmissions they put in the BT50 version of the same car and there were thousands of them done. Time has marched on and our view of the world has to change.

My apologies to all for derailing this thread, it is a topic worth discussion elsewhere though and if anyone wants to add to the debate a new thread would be better.