Thoughts after the 6.4L Classroom course

[DwayneGorniak]

I'm just curious as to how many of you have gone to the classroom course and what your thoughts of the product are after the course. I have done the course and made it through successfully, Thank God. It's the first Time in my twelve year Ford career that I have been to a couse and ever seen one quarter of the class fail. Kinda shocked me.

[Jim Warman]

Dwayne.... I'm gonna sound like a real dork..... How does a guy flunk an open book test?

 

I would guess that Daryl was your instructor.... he's putting through two classes a week and the class I was in (was well as the classes both our other diesel techs took) covered all the material well.

 

Some guys were hooping themselves on the practical. The truck had an EGR code as well as (IIRC) a fuel pressure or pump code and some guys were going after the EGR valve for a bit at first but, along the line realized that this wasn't a good choice.

[DwayneGorniak]

Yeeppp. And half of the info on the exam wasn't even mentioned in the course. Oh, and he didn't like the video of the flame thrower. He checks this site out himself. I guess I should add that Ford has really thinned out the training instructors and put quite a demand on the remaining instructors.

[LARRY BRUDZYNSKI]

Doesn't make any sense cutting back where we need it the most, the dealer level training. What would be nice is if the dealers would send at least 1 of the parts guys to a training class so that when the techs come in for parts that we would have a idea as to what they need.

[Keith Browning]

I feel for the instructors. First, dealing with a corporate environment where you never know if you will have a job when you wake up and now being spread really thin. I remember my instructor commenting that between him and one other instructor they are booked every week for the next year. I think they even have to travel all over the zone, NJ, NY and Boston. As for the 6.4 class I wish it got into more advanced hands on. The excercises were fine but more hands on really would have been worth an extra day. But, I have yet to see a single broken 6.4 as of today. Only two false MIL's... and 28 recalls!

 

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[Mekanik]

I'm with JW here. I don't know you can fail an open book test. As for the class goes, my only problem was that I walked in with about 3-4 questions and I walked out a few days later with the same questions unanswered. I don't think it's the fault of the instructor. He hasn't been told what I wanted to know and he wasn't going to lie to me.

[Keith Browning]

Now that you mention it, I left with unanswered questions myself that I still haven't found any answer to nor do I expect any at this point. The potentially scary thing is that if you get into a conversation with a HotLine Engineer, you might hear them admit that "they" learn a lot from "us" in the field and from our calls. Works both ways and I guess thats a good thing.

[Mekanik]

Yes, but you and I are not getting paid for research and development.

[G. Bedford]

Did you ever stop to think maybe those guys were "smart" enough to fail the class? /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif

[Jim Warman]

Gary might be on to something, there.....

 

As for the course... all it can ever do is lay some groundwork for us... This is kind of like having a chaperone whilst we dip our foot in the water for the first time - whether we learn to swim or not is entirely up to us.

 

None of the courses that I have been on have been the "end of the process". Rather, they are the beginning and we learn from there..... sometimes all on our own....

 

It's been that way since I first learned that you don't polarize an alternator and with every technological change since then....

[DwayneGorniak]

You know, the thought has crossed my mind that they just may be the smarter ones and we are suckers for punishment. But I guess only time will tell.