Jim Warman

Taking it a step further, Larry... Let's just say that a 6.4 came in with gas in the tank... It ain't warrantable - no how. There is nothing that Ford could have done different to prevent this... However... let's say we did the cheap thing, patted this yokel on the back and said "see, we saved you a ton o' cash"... Now... let's say that many of these parts have anti-wear coatings... let's say that it takes a long time for something to "announce" that it's been a while since it's had the benefit of these anti-wear coatings... I'm neither metallurgist nor chemist... but I do know that bad things happen to nice people. Let's say that this "announcement" comes at the expense of very, very many other spendy parts - and now the guy is screaming warranty... and Ford wants to inspect the old parts.. We can roll the dice on a repair... but when push comes to shove, guess who is going to be the bad guy. Every time I ever set out to try and save someone a few bucks by using parts I should have changed... I took ten out of my pocket for every buck saved. If you guys want to gamble, don't let me stand in your way... Hell, maybe your doctor can save you a few bucks by not trying one or more pills or treatments... Bottom line... I love dealing with customers that simply want the damned thing fixed... fix it so it stays fixed. Callous as it may seem, I don't want to attract customers that pinch pennies every time they turn around. And before I am branded a thug and a thief... I have customers that are on fixed incomes. It is my job to help these people spend their money WISELY - not to doom them to a life of frustration and repeat or associated repairs. Cheap out on a job and have it backfire - you can bet the guy will be in the coffeeshop telling everyone what an ass YOU are....

Look at it this way... if you get punted - it gives everyone else something to talk about

We are as slow as sh!t... I've been home before seven most every night this month... They even let one of my diesel guys have a day off when he asked for it....

Buncha pansys... What? You afraid of being cancelled? /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smirk.gif

Emissions and fuel consumption are two very different things. Though it flies in the face of logic, some of the fuel consumed in the engine doesn't go towards making power - it is consumed to reduce tailpipe emissions of certain "bad" things... soot, oxides of nitrogen, that sort of stuff.

*Unskilled labour*??? OK... I guess all the US techs know where they stand now... We just hired three techs from Mexico through something similar - the jury is still out. After the months and months of false starts and run-arounds with some of these cross border employment agencies, I have my trepidations. Dropping my own fate into their hands??? Ummm, lemme think about that for a while. Occasionally, I'll look at something like monster.ca just to see what other shops and areas are paying... Thinks can be bad enough as they are - I don't need to go looking for another headache.

Is there a chance that THIS might ever get back on track again?

Alex, while I think about it. It is traditional that dealership door rates can be as much as 25% above those of an independant shop. Many customers, however, abide this "surcharge" as long as they get what they feel they deserve... Fixed right the first time on time The car returned to them as clean (or cleaner) than when they dropped it off The car appears to be untouched - everything appears as it did the day it was new The tech is knowledgeable, well trained and has all the proper tools and manuals at his disposal The tech has a reasonable facimile of factory support A clean, comfortable, well appointed waiting area Sadly, too many shops have missed the mark on most if not all of these points. Every shop has it's few star players... and every shop has those techs that have stretched their talents to the limit or even techs that have made a poor career choice. The good guys can only do so much to mitigate the bad done by the not so good guys (why, in Gods name, would someone use a $2000 polished aluminum custom bumper as a step?). Let's add that our "superior product knowledge" should allow us to live up to part of why we are so much more expensive. We don't work on a mixed bag of brands... we "specialize" in the products listed on that big sign outside. This, plus familiarity with the dominant platforms in our area, should and does have us wasting less time and money in our diagnosis. And should make our diagnosis accurate (watch around your shop... see the guys that change modules... and then scramble to find the open circuit they need to fix on the QT to make everyone think the module fixed the concern?). Along with all those other points, the customer is also paying for "thorough". And let's not forget the support staff. Even a small dealer is going to someone processing work orders, someone doing warranty claims, accounts receivable, accounts payable, employee payroll and such, someone washing cars, someone doing handyman stuff around the building - the list goes on. Everyone in the building is part of the PR team. The coin to feed this monster has to come from somewhere.. and that is "user fees"... the door rate. From my experience - yes, dealers charge more per hour. But just about anything we do should take less hours than the aftermarket (one only needs to hear some of the horror stories surrounding 6.0 repairs in independant shops.. the driller on the rig my som works for - 6 weeks for a no start and tons of wasted money). What angers me is that there are may of us that care... that try to stay abreast of technology... that are constantly perfecting their craft. But so many others simply have a "job" - as long as they get a paycheck, they don't give a rats rosey red if he is giving his customer his moneys worth... And if we don't give the customer his moneys worth - we are going to look like we "overcharge".

Speaking of broads... I washed my car three times this week.... I don't know where she finds all that fargin' mud but there seems to be some unwritten law that we need to bring all of it home...

While it doesn't deal with the 6.0 filters, I have found THIS to be an eye opener regarding oil filter construction.

Just in the last couple of years we got our very own local Cambodian Tire... oops, Canadian Tire. Many years ago, one of their lead mechanics and I used to work together... That's right - at one point in time, I was spending far too much time on the phone trying to be the nice guy. (By this time, they had already cost themselves a 6.0 long block). Finally, through unexplained acronyms, vague PID references and a certain amount of misinformation - the help requests have dwindled to less than one a month. We have three local tire shops - two of which do mechanical repair. Both of these feature ex-employees that didn't quite cut the mustard. Thursday, I get a call from one. They are about to change the spark plugs on a 5.4 3V and he has heard some horror stories about the task. At one point, he was going to suggest to his management that they sublet the "repair" to us... but he finally decided to forge ahead and try to "borrow" our tools if things went bad. Our SM decided he'd "rent" them our tools.... My stance is "over my cold corpse". I can only imagine how badly these can be damaged - and how long it takes Rotunda to send us stuff I order. The other tire shop worked on a truck belonging to the driller for the service rig my son works on. An 03 "no start". They started by replacing the head gaskets... then the EGR valve... then the EGR cooler... then the FICM... then the HPOP... over a three week span, I am unsure of what all was done. Neither am I sure of the customers final bill. But I do know that when the truck finally made it out of the shop, it quite three days later. I was supposed to go to the young chaps house with a PDS and offer what wisdom I could but my son called me off - on a slow afternoon they replaced the ICP sensor and tyhe truck hasn't missed a beat since. Currently, one of our Mexicans (hmm, I think I haven't told you guys the story about this) is replacing cam phasers on a sublet job from still another local shop. Now - we've had to use the excuse that our alignment rack is "down" on occasion when we sublet an alignment (the truth is that they have overbooked me and it'll be three weeks before I can come up for air)... But how do you explain subletting a cam phaser job to your customer? "Hey, Moe, we're daft so we're sending your truck to a place you didn't go...". Yes, Alex... the world is a truly interesting place. And there is no explaining some of the things that go on in it. Nor can we explain how customers come to some of the decisions they make. Worse yet, there is no explaining how anyone wanting to call himself a tech can venture into a repair adventure without at least a little background knowledge of the system he is working on. Occasionally, we get "off breed" stuff in the shop. I'm at the point where I have reservations about doing even some of the simple repairs in case we run into something the requires documents and/or experience that we just don't have. You can often hear me telling one of our SAs "we don't want that job...". There is, I am told, an ancient Chinese curse... "may you live in interesting times".

I remember seeing Verify6.0 as a labour op some time ago. My bad - never checked into it further (you know the scene - "I'll do it in my spare time") and I'm reasonably sure our warranty clerk wasn't flagging it. I'm a voracious reader (loving bride loves "reality" TV - I don't - so I read... and read....) and one can never hope to read all the stuff that Ford ggnerates - let alone retain a decent portion of it... Add old age into the matrix and you can have a lot of fun.... I can remember what I was doing 30 years ago but I have a hard time recalling what I was doing yesterday.

Just tossing an idea around, Stephen... I built a noid light and haven't had the opportunity to use it yet... but a reasonable guess would have the light being dim simply because the <ON> pulse doesn't last very long (meaning it doesn't have time to come to full luminescence). At the same time, the off pulse could be, by design, much longer to ensure that the injector turns off. FWIW, current limiting could be one function of a short pulse. If they'd quit throwing all this damned new stuff at a guy, he'd have time to make a study of some of these finer points...

OK... we're just shy of a buck and a quarter a litre right now... (regular). I used to have designs on a SooperDoodie V10 but now that dorky little 4.6 is lookin' pretty good - and I refuse to give up my 4WD (even though I rarely "need" it - but it sure beats the hell out of a jackall and a come-along when I go somewhere I didn't need to go). I curse this engine every time I hook up the holiday trailer but the deal I got on the truck was just way too good. A digression - our RV guy was PDIing a 27 footer that weighs about 80 pounds less than my 21 footer.. hmmmm. What I tell my customers... I am buying from the same pumps they buy from... at the same prices they pay. Yes - it hurts but we have but two options.... "Suck it up, Princess..." - or - "We have a whizz-bang Fuckus on the lot - mayhaps it might feel better at the gas pump..". Yes - I AM Curmudgeon . There is no way to "candy coat" the truth and have it remain being the truth. In another thread, Keepthhhhh brought up the IHC layoff article. When my loving bride and I first set up house-keeping, we paid 99 cents for a dozen loaves of bread... Now I can't buy one loaf for a buck. The question bears asking - did ANYONE expect prices to go down? If your wife wont do it (go down) - prices certainly wont /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smirk.gif Ranting and venting are good things... They give us the chance to cleanse ourselves... if only for a moment. Remember - one of our "duties" is to educate the customer on some of these realities. Who uses it? "Customer expectations exceed design limits" - I love that...

I got a fever, and the only prescription... is more cowbell!!!!

I almost wonder if we just couldn't see the writing that must surely have been on the wall... Crude hit over $135/barrel today and THAT has to be some sort of wake up callfor all those wieners that couldn't live without a big diesel pick up sitting in the driveway. Notice on some of the public forums that guys are worrying about the resale value of their trucks because of high fuel costs. Through my years, I have seen automobile fads come and go - pony cars started small but didn't take long to get the biggest engine in the line-up... and we all had to have one. Boogie vans - you weren't cool if you didn't have a boogie van. There's always been "that" auto that everybody wanted and most everybody had. More recently, there was the minivan craze... all you ever saw on the roads... And we come to the latest fad. Could this mark the end of the era of big pick ups for Joe Average? No more diesel Excursions sitting at the mall?

Kevin, you might want to check real close in your tool room. We received the 6.0 test plates as a drop ship item back in 2003/2004.

I can't add anything that Keith hasn't already said. Well, other than adding dye and then turning the customer loose to return at some undetermined future date for further inspection is nothing more than a waste of good dye. He wont return until he sees HIS evidence of the leak and by that time there will be dye everywhere you look. FWIW, in my humble experience, one of the most solidly built pieces on any of the Navistar engines has got to be the rear crank seal. I've changed a very few across the 7.3 - 6.0 platforms and those mostly at customer request (we were in there doing other stuff). There are very few leaks on any of these engines (7.3, 6.0 and, apparently, 6.4) that wont wind up with the owner first noticing a "wet bellhousing" - from there, he will do his damnedest to infect everyone with "RMS fever".

I've taken to calling on hotline lots... for absolutely no reason other than being able to attach a printout of hotline recommendations along with the contact ID. This isn't going to be the end of the warranty nazi mentality, but we need to hedge our bets every chance we get...

We have two of these come in to town on a near daily basis - not sure who the owners are or what they do (or where they get the cars serviced). I live in the middle of the Alberta boreal forest... it is common to see a deer carcase in the ditch..... even the not so odd moose carcase. I don't think that I would enjoy using one of these cars to put that carcase there.... Keith, it looks like you'd need a roof rack just to carry home a two four of beer (that would be Canadian beer..).

The nickel shit costs a lot more than a nickel.... Kopr Kote is great for wheel hubs but that's a matter of taste, I guess... For the little bit we rub on a hub (I'm a poet!!!), cost probably don't mean much, anyway. A consideration.... our local conditions can help us decide what we need and where we need it... For those in snowbound areas... some areas use calcium chloride on the roads. Here in Alberta, we have a ready supply of sodium chloride (common salt). That simple difference can make a lot of difference depending on the wheels, the hubs, the anti-sieze and, perhaps, even the paint used on the wheels. The more experience I get, the less I seem to know.

Many yuears ago, in one of my very brief hiatus' from this business, I managed a group of companies locally. The core business was an ESSO franchise bulk fuel/lube distributor. It was in the mid 80s and environmental considerations were the latest big news. On the microbial level, there is a whole ecosystem in the bottom of a diesel tank... I'm unsure of the pecking order, so please bear with my personal view of what the chemists told me. To a point, diesel fuel and water will emulsify (please look HERE to understand the term properly). This emulsification isn't good for the motor - but it ain't good for the microbes, either is what I was told... However, if we trip on down to the INTERFACE... that point where it ain't quite fuel and it ain't quite water... this interface is teeming with microbial life.... These microbes do whatever it is microbes do (hey... I dropped out in grade 8 - I do what I can!!) until they expire. Without a retirement plan or decent burial coverage, they are left to drift down through the water that is mostly water where they may be consumed by yet another microbe. These microbes also suffer from poor retirement planning and, when they expire, they drift to the bottom of the tank where yet another microbe is willing and able to become part of the "food chain". Important to consider... my early and fleeting experience with these ideas involve fuel tanks capable of dispensing 32,000,000 liters in one year. I can't remember the exact capacity of our bulk storage tanks, but it wasn't uncommon for me to have more than 10 Super B train deliveries in a week during "drilling season". They can use microbes to help with oil spills.... more food for thought. Realizing that there are some microbes that seem to thrive in petroleum rich environments may lead one to imagine that some microbes might be a source of something we might be better off calling "pseudo-diesel" rather than bio-diesel. Purely conjecture... but I come from an era that few here might understand... and I have seen massive change in the world. If you can dream it, it just might happen.

My frosted side says "if some is good and more is better - too much oughta be just about enough".... My plain side would start to worry about "sympathetic resonance"... But THAT could go either way. When in doubt - make sure you can blame any problems on the engineers.

Well, the temp has dropped by 20F and the wind has died to 44KPH... Local radio is still off the air. Their tower is a few miles out of town and probably hasn't had power restored yet (I would have thought that this would be one priority - information can be gold in tense situations). Smoke from the west (the source of or wind) has diminished to something a little more comfortable... This had the feeling that it could turn out like 1998 or, even worse, 2001 (in the 01 fire, the tarmac on the highway to Edmonton was actually burning). I'll feel better when the bombers start landing here again. In other news... I've always ben a big fan of capital punishment. But age has mellowed me to accept that deciding who dies by OUR "legal" exacts a heavy burden - that of proof... It is all too easy to sin in haste and repent at leisure. And let us not forget (and I'm failing miserably at not souinding like a Liberal here) that it the society we live in that had a hand in creating these miscreants and monsters... And just to show you how much of a Liberal I am, I firmly believe that there are drivers that shouldn't be allowed to, gun owners that should be ex-gun owners, people that shouldn't be allowed to breed (especailly with each other) and people that shouldn't be allowed to own tools.... In an ideal world, people would automatically do what is right and us Tories could just motor through life knowing that things would be as they should be... But society is f@cked and we kinda need the Whigs to help (even if they always seem to want to use our money). Society is full of those that can't cope/function/differentiate between right and wrong. A Tory response to someone with a drug/work ethic/gambling/alcohol problem would be "straighten up and fly right ya goofy bastard". The Liberals... well, there just ain't no problem ya can't fix with money.. And man!! How was that for an old mans convoluted meanderings??

Sometimes, the good news never stops... Been a coons age since I had to do something like head gaskets - but tomorrow, the schedule somehow decided my number was up... A 550 and yes, you silly boy - of course it has a V-Mac compressor AND a positive air shut off. But, there may be a reprieve in the offing... Surrounded by burning forests, we are under threat of evacuation... What started out as a wonderful spring day soon had 40KPH winds. In spite of all the snow we got over winter (and in spite of the late spring dump we just got over), the bush is tinder dry. The local radio station is off the air so we are currently working off second hand info from network TV. I hestitate to drop by the firehall and visit with the crew that I'm sure is hanging around waiting (no need to put myself into a situation where I know I'll be conscripted as a pump operator). While the winds have moderated over the last hour or so and a quick scan of the horizon shows one fire as being "knocked down", we are still on alert... You know it's a bad sign when the fire bombers stop using your airport. I haven't heard a fire bomber since first thing this AM.. And how's your week going /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif