Changing A Bad Thermostat On Your Car

The Game

Working as a mechanic at different car dealerships has been interesting, both good and bad. There are rewards and punishments, both deserved and undeserved. The rewards are steady work, good pay, and good working conditions. One punishment is having to do warranty work where you get paid by the factory time—which is never enough. And then there’s the issue of boredom.

I worked at Aston Martin, Chrysler, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Lotus, Mercedes- Benz, Peugeot, Rolls-Royce, Saab, Toyota, and Volkswagen dealerships. There were many good times. Oh, the exhilarated feeling of the g-force on my body when test driving a Ferrari or Lambo. The brisk feel of taking a corner at high speeds, the spit wanting to fly out of your mouth sideways. And the pompous air from cruising along in a Rolls-Royce, sitting in the company of all that burl-wood interior.

Being a dealer tech has also doled out some of the most trying times in my career as a mechanic. It hasn’t been so rosy either. By far, the biggest downside of being a dealership tech is boredom. Big time boredom. Routine services, day after day, week after week. B-o-r-i-n-g! Of all the dealerships, working at the Mercedes dealership in Palo Alto made me almost lose my sanity due to boredom.

Einstein said when you keep doing the same thing over and over again, and expect different results, you’re insane. Well, I’m here to tell you that I went insane at that place. Day after day, week after week, doing the same routine service on the exact same types of cars. I really lost my marbles.

I had to invent a game in order to keep from totally losing it. I mean, I wanted to run screaming out the door and into the street! So I invented this game that I would play with myself. No one else knew about it. My game was a memory testing game. Here’s how it worked:

I would roll my Hazet service cart up to my toolbox and load up all of the tools that I would need, in order to carry our a certain type of service. The game was to see if I picked up every tool needed. I would take away points for each additional trip that I had to take back to my toolbox to retrieve a tool that I had forgotten to pick up. In order to win the game, I would have to complete the service, and not have to go back after a single tool.

In a way, this was a great distraction and provided enough of a mental challenge that helped keep me from going bonkers. 

Being a typical Mercedes-Benz dealership, we offered a number of factory services, the most common being a “C” service—which was basically a lube-oil-filter service. And this was the easiest service because you only needed a few tools to carry it out. But a major service, like an “E” service was much more involved, and required a whole host of tools. The biggest part was a valve adjustment. It also included a power steering fluid and filter service, along with a host of other operations.

The Germans are known for their efficiency. The owner of that dealership was very true to form in that manner. I like to be efficient too, and my “getting all the tools” game made me even more efficient than anyone else. And that didn’t go unnoticed by the owner either. My productivity report was consistently the highest in the dealership, primarily because I completed the job with less effort. My tool game saved me countless trips back and forth between the car and my toolbox.

And to fight boredom and looming insanity, I worked my method so I would carry out all the service operations on one side of the car before I went over to take care of the other side. I imagined myself a robot that only moved as necessary. I tried to make no unneeded motions. Each job operation was carried out with absolute determination and precision. And when I was done, every step had been executed exactly in order, every tool needed was within easy reach, and I was standing on the correct side of the car to complete the particular operation required.

For one thing, the owner could also see how efficient I was by the number of cars I was able to service. And by being so efficient, I was able to crank out more cars than anyone else at the dealership. This meant the dollar amount I produced outpaced even the 22-year veteran employee, which made me into a valuable worker. But it didn’t come without its drawbacks either. For one thing, it made me unpopular because I was businesslike and unsociable. I didn’t jabber with my co-workers much, and concentrated only on what I was doing.

I had to. If I engaged in social conversation with another mechanic, I would lose my train of thought and forget a step or miss a tool. Then I would have to go back to the other side of the car or raise the car a second time in order finish something I neglected to do the first time. Or I would have to go back to my toolbox to retrieve another tool. So, in order to keep my concentration, I didn’t talk.

Mind you, this was a union shop. We were paid a salary, and there wasn’t any incentive to work quickly. We got paid the same, regardless of our productivity. “Just stay busy” was the rule of the day. And if you walk back and forth between the car and your toolbox twenty times, that’s ok—because you still look busy. And for everyone else in the shop, that’s what they did.

But not me. I was different. I was fighting boredom and was busy engaged in my own game. And being more productive for it made me feel good about myself at the end of the day. Otherwise I would become insane, doing the same things over and over again.

Unbeknownst to me, I had earned the owner’s regard for my salient efforts. But, this didn’t make Steve, the service manager very happy. He was best buddies with Chan, the shop foreman. My fastidiousness made them feel threatened somehow, and they were suspicious of my work. They must have figured that I wasn’t doing my job correctly. Maybe because I finished doing each service so quickly. I was beating the allocated factory time by half!

I remember what happened one day when I was parking a car I had just finished servicing. I saw Chan under the hood of a car that I worked on earlier that day. I walked close enough to see that he was re-checking the valve adjustment I had already completed as part of the service.

“He was checking on my work to see if I did it correctly!” I thought to myself as I saw what he was doing. “He doesn’t trust me!” I thought, feeling both angry and insulted. Warily, I walked up to Chan and said, “Everything OK?” He smiled and said, “Sure. Fine. Just fine. Maybe just a little tight, but no problem.” And after that I never heard another word about it.   

Then there was that one morning I’ll never forget. The one that haunts me still, and will no doubt haunt me for the rest of my life. A day that I wish I could erase, that I could cut from the script, that could be edited out of this movie I call my life. Everyone has some skeletons in the closet. This is mine.

That day started out just like any other day. My in-box contained the usual assortment of repair orders. And as usual, they were routine services. Chan got all the interesting work. The rest of us lackeys got the same old routine stuff. The first one was a “C” service with the words, “Customer wait” highlighted on it. Because of my efficiency, I usually wound up with the “customer wait” jobs because I was able to complete them so quickly.

I sipped my coffee while I stood next to the 300D, waiting for the oil to drain. Before I raised the car, I had already unbolted the oil filter canister top and lifted up on the huge filter. I did this to break the filter’s lower seal in the container, so the oil hung up in the canister could drain out. This was done before I raised the car, so that by the time the oil had drained from the pan, the filter and canister would be empty too.

By doing this operation first, the filter wouldn’t leave a trail of nasty oil drips as I carried it from the canister to the drain pan. Less drips, less cleanup, less wasted time. And you don’t even want to think about how nasty dirty diesel oil is to try and clean up! One drop on a customer’s finish could cause a major uproar. You’ll pay hell trying to get it off the shiny painted fender, and not leave incriminating evidence behind.

Clean, clean, clean! It must be kept clean. The car must be spotless when you’re done. You can’t leave any evidence of your work. No smudges, no fingerprints, no tracking marks. Our uniforms had to be clean, our shoes grease-free and our work area spotless—including floors that were clean enough to eat from. And one unintended oil drip on a shiny Mercedes fender could result in a wasted twenty minutes in removing it from the paint including wax and polishing. And even then, you may still catch hell if the owner could see any evidence of your cleanup.

For this reason we always had fender covers draped over the entire work area, and faced dismissal if we didn’t. And if some oil or grease got on your uniform, we were to change into a fresh uniform immediately. We had to look good at all times. After all, a customer might want to inspect the shop and see how we looked! Shoes shined, uniforms clean, hair combed, floor spick-and-span. Boring!

While the oil drained out, I would do the services under the car. Inspect the hoses, water pump, motor mounts, driveshaft couplings, tires, brake pads, and exhaust system. Suddenly, as I turned around I almost ran over the customer! There he was, standing right in my face. And even worse, he started chatting incessantly, like there’s no tomorrow.

By now you’ve probably heard someone say how insurance regulations prevent customers from going into the work area. Well, at this dealership, that wasn’t true. There were certain customers who were allowed to wander wherever they wanted. Either they knew the owner, or the service manager—and were considered “privileged customers”.

Certain people were allowed to walk into the service bay and hang out with us while their car was serviced. Usually, they hung out with Chan. I had never had anyone come into my bay. But on this particular morning this customer was there standing next to me under the car and annoying me.

At first, I was amused and entertained by this break in my routine. I didn’t see it as a threat, as I should have, and listened politely as he jabbered away. But, I had suffered so much from boredom, I looked at him as a sort of reprieve. It was just like Einstein said. I was looking for a diversion to change things. And because of it, I made a terrible mistake. Instead of politely asking him to excuse me while I finished his car, I listened to him. I let him distract my attention.

Soon, his incessant jabber became more annoying. It was as if he had saved up all of his questions for years, and was pouring them out machine-gun style. He was asking me “Would you check this?” and “What about that? Why are you doing that? What does that mean? It that good or bad?” On and on he went. His mouth never stopped.

It was like he had diarrhea of the mouth, he just couldn't stop talking. And unbeknown to me, my attention was being sidetracked. His incessant questioning demanded my attention. It became so irritating that I wanted to tell him to shut up.

To make matters even worse, he kept standing very close to me. Now that really gave me the heebie-jeebies! Every time I turned there he was in my way. I had to walk around him to get at the various things I needed to do. He reminded me of a overly-friendly puppy that’s always in the way—right underfoot. He was a pest and I couldn't wait to finish so I could get away from him.

But! Since he was a privileged character, I didn’t want to treat him with disrespect. After all, he may be the president of some local big company, or a personal friend of the owner. “Stow your anger. Kids gloves. Treat customer with kids gloves. Just get finished and he’ll be out of your hair,” I thought to myself.

Finally the service was completed and I would be rid of my pest. Ironically, I couldn’t wait to return to my private and boring routine. Next, I took it for a short test drive around the block, as was the dealership policy. Then all hell broke loose. I was barely a block away from the shop when the engine began making a knocking sound that grew in intensity.

This was a sound unlike the usual diesel clackety-clack. It was much lower and deeper. Then the red oil pressure light winked on and I suddenly realized what I had done. I was hearing the rod bearings. They were making that noise because there was no oil pressure.

I had been in such a hurry to get away from the irritating customer that I forgot to put oil back into the engine! The jabbering customer had broken my routine. I had become distracted. The customer’s battery of questions and jabber had not only distracted me, but caused me to rush. And I forget the most crucial step—to refill the oil! Now I was in big trouble—and would probably lose my job because of it!

With my head bowed, I sat in the service managers office waiting for the dealership owner to arrive. Then, when he came into the room, I pleaded with him to let me keep my job. I offered to repay the dealership for the ruined motor and to install it without pay. With an expectant wife, this would have been a very bad time to be without a job! 

Well, everything turned out okay. I was so well liked by the dealership because of my work habits, I was allowed to keep my job. The owner of the car got a new engine, and I never saw him again. I agreed to pay back the dealership for the ruined engine, which I did by working overtime after hours, off the clock. It took me over a month to earn enough to pay for my mistake. A mistake I should have never have made. A mistake I’ll never forget!

The lessons to be learned from this nightmare are:

If you’re a shop owner, don’t let your mechanics be distracted while they work.

If you’re a mechanic, remember that one break in your train of thought can result in a big mistake.

Even minor distractions can cause disastrous results.

Mechanical repair involves a process of many small steps. Concentration is needed to keep from leaving out even one step.

Develop a routine that had double-checks for critical service operations. For example, pull out the dipstick and leave it sticking out until you’ve refilled the oil. That way, if you forget, you’ll (hopefully) see the dipstick hanging out before you close the hood.

Fixing Bumper Dents With Hot Water

Gotcha Gremlins

Tim never thought he would have a problem with fixing cars. He had a knack for finding the problem, usually within the first few moments and considered himself a very clever mechanic who took pride in his work. People brought their cars to him from every part of town and his boss admired his work.

Just about the time you think you've got it all figured out, along comes a problem car that refuses to be fixed. This happens to every mechanic who has been around the business for any length of time. It's as if the gremlin of car problems sends a tough one your way just to keep you on your toes and knock you down a peg or two if you are getting too cocky.

The time was right for Tim to get put in his place by that gremlin. The car was a late 80's Camry and it had a multitude of seemingly unrelated problems. The owner insisted that all the problems started after he tuned it up. All he had done was slap in a set of plugs, check the timing, change the oil and filters and sent it on its way.

Now it had a bad case of the hesitations. Once it got up to speed, it performed just fine. Also, it kept running down the battery and was hard to start. As soon as the car was back in his stall, he checked for stored codes in the computer.

There were no codes. One thing he did notice was the radiator cooling fan kept running, even though the temperature gauge was in the normal range.

He decided to check a wiring diagram to find out what would make the cooling fan run all the time. He kept asking himself, "Why me, what did I do to deserve this?" The wiring diagram wasn't much help. The cooling fan running all the time seemed to escape logic -- at least as far as he could tell from the wiring diagram.

For some reason Tim decided to start with the thermal sensing switch. As luck would have it, when he grounded the wire going to the switch, the fan stopped running. Closer inspection of the wiring connector turned up a clue. The connector had been wallowed out and was probably not even touching the switch.

Using needle-nose pliers, he tightened the connector and plugged it back onto the switch. To his relief, the fan quit running.

What about the car's new-found hesitation? Maybe a good 'ol injection cleaning was in order. An hour later, after hooking up the cleaner and giving the injectors a good dose of cleaning solvent, the problem remained unchanged.

"Maybe it has something to do with the timing?" he thought. He tried bumping the timing up and back a few degrees, both without any real effect.

"How about an exhaust restriction?" he thought. Minutes later he was under the car breaking loose the catalyst. A test drive revealed no change. "What would my vo-tech teacher say? What would he tell me to do? Probably say, 'back to basics boy'." Okay. Back to the basics. After checking the compression, he spent the rest of the day with the scope and exhaust analyzer.

Maybe it was a lazy oxygen sensor. He ordered a new one and decided to call it a day. On his way home, he was going to stop in and ask his friend, Sid, about the car. Sid was a Toyota specialist. Tim was glad he stopped and talked with Sid because he was given a whole laundry list of things to check. He could hardly wait until the next day to dig in again.

First he replaced the O2 sensor, but it only helped a little, but the sag was definitely still there. Going down the list, he removed and checked the air boot between the vane air flow meter and the throttle body. No cracks. Next he carefully removed and cleaned all the engine compartment wiring connectors, paying special attention to the one under the battery and on the airflow meter.

Still, the test drive proved nothing had changed.

"What about the vane airflow meter itself?" he thought. He took it off and inspected the action of the air door. Even though it didn't hang up or have any roughness in its movement, he decided it should be replaced.

Later that day with the new airflow meter secured in place, the problem persisted. "It must be the stupid computer after all," he reasoned. The following day he installed a new    computer and found out his hunches were still wrong, wrong, wrong.

The car owner was getting really mad about all the time he was taking with the car and was making nasty threats to his boss. The boss was getting very testy, especially since Tim had already sunk a small fortune in trying to capture the Camry's evasive gremlin. Tim decided to pay Sid another visit.

Sid said it sounded like a carbon problem. "Camry's are supposed to grow carbon in the combustion chamber, intake manifold and intake valves. Pull the manifold and clean all the carbon out.

It's probably full of carbon." Sid was right about the carbon. It had a good share of it, especially on the intake valves. Using spray carb cleaner and several small wire brushes he was able to clean the intake area pretty good without having to remove the cylinder heads. He figured he had it for sure this time.

"Wrong again honey!" he said out loud as he stepped on the gas and the car lost power.

"Man, this one has really got me down... time to pay Sid another visit, this time with the car!"

Sid's mouth dropped open when he saw him pull up in the car with a sour look on his face. As Tim got out of the car he held up a thumbs-down sign.

At first Sid was speechless. "Nothing has helped? You did everything I suggested?" Tim replied, "Nothing. Nada. Nix. Zip. Zilch."

Suddenly Sid's face brightened. "Let me look at the rotor." Tim said,

"Sid, this is not an ignition problem. The stinkin' car just hesitates -- and is a bear to get started when it is cold. Maybe the cold start injector, maybe the throttle position sensor. But why the rotor?"

Sid replied "Just a hunch..."

Sid unscrewed the distributor cap mounting bolts and grabbed a jumper lead from his box. He clipped one end of the jumper to the coil secondary terminal and held the other end just above the center of the distributor rotor.

"Crank it over!" he yelled. Tim twisted the ignition key while the starter motor cranked.

"Hold it!" shouted Sid. "Come check this out."

"Here, Tim, hold this lead just above the rotor. Now I'm going to crank the starter. You watch for a spark."

Tim said "Yep, got a spark. So what? I know the spark is good."

Sid countered, "Yeah, but the rotor isn't supposed to conduct like that. It's grounded right through to the distributor shaft.” “Look,” he said as he pulled the rotor from its place and examined the underside.

Sure enough there was the faintest trace of rust where it mounted on the shaft.

"But how can that cause hesitation?" Tim asked.

"Easy," Sid replied. "When you give it the gas, there is a need for more spark to fire the richer mixture. The extra resistance in the spark plug gap makes the secondary seek another path to ground. The rotor leaks just enough voltage to cause a slight misfire and hesitation."

"And when I hook it up to the scope, everything's normal because it isn't under load," said Tim.

Sid reached into a top drawer and pulled out a used rotor and gave it to Tim. "Here, lets put this back in the car and you take it for a spin and see if the problem is gone. If not, come right back." Tim didn't return.

The car owner was charged for the injector cleaning, carbon removal, distributor cap, rotor and oxygen sensor. His boss put the computer and airflow meter somewhere in the stock room, hopefully for some future need. Tim got paid two hours for his efforts and went home with a lesson he will never forget. Chalk one up to the car gremlin.

Is Your Car Hesitating. It May Need A New Throttle Position Sensor

HAUNTED HIGHWAY

Once upon a time there was an emergency room nurse who worked the midnight

shift. Every now and then, on her way home, her car would die. It always

happened after she had traveled far enough from the hospital to be truly

stranded. And since it happened late at night, it always left her terrified for

her life. But, fortunately the car never left her stranded. It always restarted

right away and got her home. It would happen only once.

Maybe it was the fact that she worked in the emergency ward. She had terrible

visions of being mugged by Jack the Ripper. Maybe it was her job that made her

think this way, after seeing so many gunshot wounds and huge knives sticking out

of bleeding bodies. She feared someone was making her car die, since it always

happened just about the same distance from the hospital.

To make matters worse, she had taken the car to just about every shop in town

and no one could find her problem. Various mechanics had already replaced the

computer twice and every sensor at least once _ some several times. A couple of

new distributor caps, rotors, ignition wires, ignition modules, fuel pumps, and

a multitude of fuel filters had been installed. She had already sunk a bundle

into the car in an effort to fix the problem.

Still, the problem remained. The car would just die and drift to the side of the

road. Not every night, just sometimes. And after she sat for a few moments in a

panic with her heart racing, the car would always restart, as if it was haunted.

Funny, it seemed as if nobody wanted to believe her. All the mechanics who

worked on her car treated her like she was crazy. They would keep the car for a

few days, even a week and never have it die for them. Maybe she was crazy, or at

least she began to doubt her own sanity. Then the car would do it again and she

would once more have the fright of her life.

One of the other nurses at the hospital overheard her talking about her car's

dilemma and suggested a mechanic who specialized in hard-to-find drivability

problems. In desperation, she called up and made an appointment to have Vic look

at her car. When she told her story, Vic responded with assurance that he would

be able to fix the car _ "once and for all." She wanted to believe him, but had

already been ripped-off by so many shops before.

But then he did something different. He told her that he would be connecting a

device to her car that would be capable of recording the problem. She was to

continue to drive the car and when it stalled, push a button on what Vic called

his "flight recorder." He then connected a funny-looking box up to her car and

gave her detailed instructions on what she was supposed to do when it happened.

He told her to go about her business as usual, but at the moment it happened,

she was to quickly press the big, red button on the recorder and keep her foot

steady on the gas pedal. He said that if she pumped the gas pedal, or brake, it

would make it harder to find out what went wrong. "Giving it gas makes a whole

bunch of other things change and it makes it harder to spot the real problem."

She said she would do her best.

On her way home the very next night it happened again. Just as instructed, she

pressed the big, red button on Vic's flight recorder. As always, she freaked out

and steered the dying car to the roadside edge. As always, it restarted with

just a twist of the key. She could hardly wait until the next day so Vic could

find the problem and fix her car.

Much to her surprise, Vic wasn't even interested in her story. He told her to go

to the waiting room and let him examine what had been captured on his flight

recorder. A few minutes later he came into the waiting room and said, "The

others may not believe you, but I do. I saw your car die on the flight recorder.

It definitely died... and you were going about 45 mph when it happened."

She felt her face flush as she breathed a big sigh of relief. For the first

time, she felt taken care of. Vic told her to take the car home and make arrangements to drop it off for further, more thorough examination. She offered

to call a friend and leave it. Vic said OK.

Carefully, Vic poured over the data captured from her dying car. In much the

same way that an airplane flight recorder remembers what happened before the

plane crashes, his recorder remembered what was happening when her car died. It

was all there; he just had to make some sense of it.

Because there is so much different information to examine, Vic copied the

readings from the recorder onto a sheet of paper. He especially wanted to see

what happened when she pushed the button. Sure enough, at the second before she

pressed the button, the engine dropped 400 rpm. In the next moment it went back

up to 2400 rpm and a couple of seconds later it dropped to 500 rpm. Then in the

next second it would come back to life and then die again. This time it would

not recover.

Frame by frame he examined the data. One thing seemed obvious: it was somehow

related to the fuel system. Each time it faltered, the mixture went totally

lean. Each time it recovered, the mixture went rich. It was just like it was

running out of gas. Or was it? He immediately thought of the fuel pump. But

could a failing pump turn the fuel off in one second and back on in the next?

No. If the pump were to die it would take more than a second for the engine to

run out of fuel. It would be much more gradual.

Fuel filter? No, he reasoned. Fuel filters don't come and go. They just plug up

and stay that way. Fuel filters never unplug. Ditto for a catalytic converter.

And he knew the ignition module wasn't at fault because he watched the engine

lose rpm's over a time span of a couple of minutes. If the module were to fail,

the rpm's would just drop to zero _ all at once.

What about the injector? Could it be sticking? Maybe it sticks shut every now

and then. Maybe the injector has a weak spring and sometimes just decides not to

open and stays shut. But why only late at night? Why does it work fine once it

stalls? Why couldn't anyone else witness it? He thought about the other repair

orders, each full of attempted repairs and each with a hefty price tag.

No one had replaced the injector on this 4-cylinder throttle-body fuel injected

car. Still, the fact that it only happened late at night nagged at him. After

studying the recorded data, Vic only had an educated hunch. Armed with his best

guesses, he was ready to look at her car and begin checking out his theories.

The first thing he wanted to examine was the injector.

Remember, at this point he had not even lifted the hood of the car. Now he did

so, and removed the air filter to get a better view of the injector. "So far, so

good," he thought as he reached for the injector harness plug. He was about to

connect his injector tester to the single throttle body injector when he saw it.

It was grossly green, slimy and looked very nasty. The injector connector was

being eaten up by what looked like green fungus!

"That's why it only happened late at night! The humidity in the air was enough

to make this connection have too much resistance. And when the car died and sat

for a few moments, the heat from the engine would dry it out, giving it a good

connection for the rest of the way home," Vic told her.

He carefully cleaned and tightened the injector connector and fixed the nurse's

car without replacing a single part. And the nurse lived happily ever after!

Scotty Kilmer Car Talk: Your Car Questions Answered

Monthly question for May 2014-What is it?

Can you identify what is being displayed in the following picture?What tool is it or what is it used for?

Answer was posted on the mailing list!

Hint: A Tool