Jim Warman

Check your mail.... sometimes not everyone is amused....

Slim... this is where we need to be a bit vigilant (I am actually hesitant to reply.... ) but you US techs are treated quite differently from techs in other "worlds". Indeed - we are all created equal, but some of us are "more equal" than others. The cars and trucks we work on.... They are a mass produced, mass merchandised commodity. It isn't that they aren't built to run in my bailywick... they do that well... but they will live longer and better in yours... This is demographics and climatology.... No smoke. No mirrors. Just plain common sense... We can build a product that is VERY successful in maybe 70% of our market... and fall flat on its face in the other 30%.... We can improve the product.... but we might lose in the "bottom line". Now.... knowing that we may face a different reality between Georgia and northern Alberta... In the past, I have tried to liken it to what we see when we open our back door.... Very few of us live in circumstances that can be called "identical" - and this is an important realization.... Getting back to your point.... "Does the DRR process work?". Possibly... will somebody please cite an instance where an SLT or a TSB has resulted in "increased efficiency".... aka "a bigger cheque". Would the DRR "style" of process work better "at arms length"? Group several techs together and do a "wrench on" type study to deny Fords claims on blatantly inappropriate time stamps? With results in hand go PUBLIC with the news? Take Ford to task over it? What we seem to be able to agree on is that we will wait around for someone else to do something about it.... I am not far from the end of my career.... I am earning a nearly decent wage.... You young guys have 20 or more years of earning and learning left in you.... I have seen .5 of "remove transmission" written beside 2.0 of "clean mud".... Back in my day we had a word for that.....

I didn't think that what I may or may not do in the privacy and security of my own house was the topic of discussion... however, since it seems to be of some interest 4 or 5 hours is about all a period of sleep will last for me... I don't watch much TV... Now... for decades large corporations have been using psychology against us - yes against. Ever notice that when you go into an IKEA store, you don't get out without passing just about everything in the store? That is one of the more blatant uses of psychology... others are more subtle... you never notice that you are being manipulated. The DRR process for example. It's placebo effect is far more effective than anything else it can do. You get angry over an SLT. You submit a DRR and instantly feel better. Some drone at Ford phones you to see how really mad you are - are you going to be a trouble maker? - and to tell you they have no plans to review that SLT at this particular time... You get a little miffed but not bad.... You spent all of your anger pounding the keys while submitting the original DRR and there is little left to bubble up again. If they do actually perform a review, it isn't done at "arms length". That is to say Ford is assessing their own SLT... The friggin' fox has the keys to the henhouse. My loving bride is having a tough night with the Crohns disease that has afflicted her for over 35 years.... She has gone to bed early and I am trying to be quiet so she can rest. No family life again, tonight...

And????? Enquiring minds want to know.... Are we part of the problem.... or are we part of the solution?

Maybe that me4ting with the hood did more damage than we previously thought. Dwayne, if you wore glasses, they would, indeed, be rose coloured... The DRR process exists simply to fill a need.... that is the appearance that the mothership cares.... Without DRR, we have no hope... with it, we can "believe". We can believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel (even if it is an approaching train).... We can believe that there is a chance that "we" can make a difference.... Even if we receive a "personal" phone call to tell us our concern has no "merit". Of course, there are those of us that believe the ads that say "no credit refused".... " no credit? no problem".... yeah, right..... Watch out Ralph... you might have company What really get's my nuts in a knot is that there was a bunch of guys that were trying to tke the DRR process to a whole new and very public level.... And very few of you fucking wieners responded. Let us continue to let the fox mind the henhouse.... Go HERE and check up on something that has very nearly died because of lack of "interest" - or is that fear of retribution? Don't be looking at Kieth... he never set out to replace this idea - when he started, flatratetech.com was already fucking this idea up.... Mark Ward did very well from empty promises - but that is a whole 'nother story.... Kieth set out on a course and he has kept his mandate - period. You want DRR? Get this class action suit back on it's tracks.... I got punted from the Ford message boards for speaking my mind.... I see the same shit you pussies do.... God.... I wish I had the tiny balls that makes one "politically correct". I can see it now. "You're right, Ralph.... Ford doesn't say 'install head studs' so we should never mention it.... James is a wiener....". Yes... I am getting bitter in my old age....

Larry, I really hate to play the devils advocate, but we should have seen so much of this coming... The western world has been very affluent for many years.... a car in every garage - a chicken in every pot.... We've been fucking each other over for so many years that we can't tell the fuckers from the fuckees.... Look around... The unions... oh, those lovable little union rascals... have been overinflating wages and benefits for years... in every walk of life they have infiltrated... They spend much of their time protecting under-achievers in the name of solidarity..... Being good doesn't matter... mediocrity with tenure... now THAT is "stock in trade". Locally, we are paying burger flippers about $13/hour.... floor sweepers (when "THEY" were hiring for the position) were make over $20 per hour in the lumber mills... Certainly, the employees of American Axle do not deserve what is heading their way, but at some point we have to wonder what our jobs are really worth.... If we were writing the cheques.... what would we pay for "this" service or "that" operation... UAW members.... they cheer like mad bastuhds when they get concessions... But putting tab A in slot B is only worth so much.... If these people were really all that much better than trained primates, a Pre-delivery inspection would consist of looking for shipping damage only. Instead, we are that final step in quality control... the trained apes get pay and benefits that surpasses the earning power of most of us... yet we are entrusted with that very last step in quality control... UAW members slept comfortably knowing that we will do our best to make them look good. A discussion on this topic wouldn't be complete without discussing the third world.... That worker in another country that doesn't care about satellite TV or haviong a car less than 4 years old or having a second car or having any of the numerous toys that we have grown to consider "necessities". The guy whose only desire is to put a ready supply of grub on his families table... shoes on his kids feet so they can walk to school.... Look around your house (look around MY house)... look at the shit we bought on sale.... shit that we paid much more for that the third world artisan/craftsman/sweatshop worker got paid for. People that would love to make in a week what we make in an hour... The third world is waking up.... and it is going to be an enormous monster.... It is going to sap the life out of so many production line jobs because, for so very long, North America was upside down... Upside down - people that require little training, average skill sets and below average problem solving skills get paid more than those that have to undergo extensive, regular training - possess better than average mechanical aptitude - possess better than average logic and problem solving skills. While I feel sympathy for the plight of the people whose jobs are being revised in terms of earning power and such, I find it hard to generate tears for people that have been part of the problem for so long... At this point. someone should feel free to step in and tell me why trade unions are unlike schoolyard bullies - trying to grab everyones lunch money... The world has entered an age of equalization... I think we are going to see some remarkable changes.... but, at the same time, I think we will see more "fast food" auto repair shops.... The world (and this trade) is in a state of great flux... "Be afwaid.... be vewy, vewy afwaid" - Elmer Fudd.

I nearly shit myself when I checked my e-mail.. whilke it isn't DIY, it might as well be. Gleaned from iATN William from Pennsylvania writes: I am sorry to post such a bad question. How in the &^%$ do you replace the left front marker bulb. we got the top screws out however this assembly can not be removed. please help TECHNICAL INFORMATION Engine: 4.9 L / 300 CID / 6 cyl / Gas / OHV Fuel: Fuel Injection Ignition: Distributor-Breakerless Trans: 5-speed Standard Transmission Mileage: 85,000 mi VIN: 1FTDF15Y4R Affected Item: LF MARKER ASSEMBLY -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My initial urge was to reply "look".... In retrospect, I get the feeling that the real question is "OK, now I have the craftsman super wowee deluxe to set... what do I do?

I recall a multi-million dollar lawsuit from several years ago.... a man and his son were "tinkering" with an automotive, lead-acid battery and it exploded. I don't recall the award but it was the battery manufacturer that was found to be at fault... Now, we see batteries festooned with warnings.... who reads them? We live in a politically correct world.... here, we reward stupidity....

I believe that we need to be careful of what we wish for - we just might get it.... A DRR SLT review will have one of three results.... the time alloted will increase - the time will remain the same or we may be very, very sorry we ever submitted the DRR... The DRR process is important... but we really need to determine the "need" before we submit them...

The cab driver that didn't like my price on front brakes... and installed his own brake pads with the metal side in... The old guy on a fixed income that thought I was being tight when all I "offered" him was a 10% seniors discount - and he and his son wound up installing the rear drum adjuster screws on the wrong sides - by the time his car wouldn't move any more, even the backing plates were hooped. The numerous people that learned why fan pulley bolts on some water pumps are spaced "wrong" the hard way... And you shouldn't drill the pulley to make it "work" (up until the motor overheats). The guy and his teenage son that connected the rubber fuel line from the engine mounted pump to the PCV hose nipple. FWIW... did you guys know that it is possible to bolt the centre section back into a model T rear axle upside down?

Haven't seen it on InFord yet.... I would imagine that this will be a US only deal, anyway.... Breathing sigh of relief.... for now....

Continental makes tires? I know they make round black tire shaped objects...... But they don't make tires.... Grit your teeth, buy Michelin LTS and never look back...

One thing to remember... Canada makes up for about 10% of Fords worldwide sales... 10%.. a drop in the bucket... In the grand scheme of things, Ford doesn't give a moose turd about us.... Of special note.... Ford has decided that their warranty costs are too high... rather than build a better product, it seems to be easier to reduce warranty costs by not paying for warranty... I have this foreboding that it will get worse before it get's better....

I think too many people are using air tools to assemble things... but I'm an ass that believes good should come before fast...

At great risk... your guy reminds me of a friend of mine... "It's only my Mums car... it doesn't need to be real good"... I always give him a hard time over that. It's his Mum, fer-cryin'-out-loud... the only one he's got, too... she should be worth the best he can get. My Mum passed away in the early 90s.... I can't give her nice things any more...

I'd have to double check but it seems to me tha we are finding that "as per TSB yadda-yadda" is not sufficient.. We are seeing problems as in being told we are following the wrong TSB... though it appears that some TSBs are vanishing into the system... Writing I performed step 3 doesn't appear to be sufficient... instead we write I performed <labour operation>... And let's not forget to write down our old FICM calibration.... oooooh, I guess we didn't do that because we followed TSB 09-07-11 when warranty will insist that we should have followed 08-26-03.. too bad, so sad... here's yer claim back. OK, so you followed 08-26-03.... but warranty says you should have followed 09-07-11... too bad, so sad... here's yer claim back. But, and this is if they feel real magnanimous, you might get a "mercy fuck" in the form of getting paid for the lesser TSB... Yes, Yossarian.... I get the feeling that Catch 22 is alive and well and living in the halls of Fords warranty administration... "That's some catch, that Catch 22".(apologies to Joseph Heller).

Perhaps I'm reading too much into it then... What I see is an opportunity for warranty to abuse a document or two... to deny a claim based on nothing more than how something is worded. Had a FICM claim bounced lately? Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean Im not being followed.

This TSB showed up in a broadcast message back about the 1st or 2nd.. It took them wizards almost a week to get it translated into something that allowed us English speaking guys to read it. This TSB 09-07-11 babbles on about reprogramming things without really offering authority to reflash things. While this TSB specifially mentions 0-26-03 as "Other Applicable Articles", it seems more that this TSB is designed to cloud the issues and offered the mothership more opportunities and/or reasons to deny warranty claims and to cook up chargebacks. Anyone else care to comment?

where else to put this... This truck simply screams "I have a small penis... look at me!!!!".

Has anyone been here and seen

Here's what we did... A few bucks worth of rectangle tuning, flat iron and cold rolled... And, or course, the 6.4 adapters. If you want some better pics, let me know...

The bailout? Let's start with the "traditional" car companies... the Detroit three..... $400 turn signal switches... $12 caliper bolts (the little ones on the back of older SDs)... $30 brake adjuster hole plugs... These would be the car companies that spend each and every day raping their customers.... These companies should be rich beyond our wildest inmaginations, cash reserves to rival the US treasury and the Canadian treasury combined... Sadly, both management and trade unions have been busy raping the companies for decades... Managers getting multi-million dollar bonus packages.... all the while, their house of cards is getting shakier and shakier... Unions being awarded contracts written in hell... remuneration packages that have an employee cost the company over $60 per hour each for putting tab A in slot B..... (can anyone say "DING! Fries are done..."?). And the managers give themselves another million dollar pat on the back for averting a strike.... In the late 60s, the Japs made some overtures in North America... more amusing than anything else, who was going to buy a car with a name like "Cedric" or "Bluebird" or the mighty sports car "FairLady"? But the Japanese went home and did their homework and came back with the Civic, the Camry and the Prelude... For some reason, they weren't taken seriously enough then, either... So - what happened... how could these three companies suddenly come to the realization in a very few very short years that they suddenly don't have any money left? I think the first thing we need to see is why management got paid bonuses for running a company into the ground... why would any of us want to lend these people OUR money when it looks like they couldn't look after their own... No, I'm not saying let them drown in the dark... but I am saying they cannot be trusted.... At the same time, politicians are too busy being politicians (and isn't it funny that our countries are nothing more than businesses with us as both shareholder and employee) to be business people.... But we are, apparently going to trust politicians to oversee how untrustworthy people are going to use the money... OUR money.... that we lend them. We need not look any further than the savings and loan bailout. Quite frankly, I am scared shitless... these guys couldn't organize a blow job at a queers convention.... We can't simply "do nothing".... but I get the feeling we are handing the keys for the henhouse to the fox.... I have to go now.... I'm going to the store to stock up on vaseline....

Given what we've seen of these rngines, high oil level (to a point) isn't a surprise... An "interesting" sidebar... when I took our "HELLUVA" truck apart, I found the low pressure turbo locked... bear in mind that the last time I ran the truck, it ran good.... very good. As far as maintenance records are concerned... I can hardly wait to see some dork bring in a stack of blackstone reports in place of a stack of oil change receipts.... My "HELLUVA" truck has been overfull in the crankcase three times....

Robert.. I'm sorry if I appear to have leaned a little hard on you... but you didn't make it real clear what side of the street you were playing on.... With GM preaching insolvency and the rest of the "original" auto industry in tatters, we need, more than ever, to have the appearance of utmost professionalism. FWIW, DP does what all the others do... they pour extra fuel into the combustion chamber up to and including as much as the fuel system will allow... emissions controls defeated right there. We must remember that a big part of the emissions controls is the fuel curve.... A couple of years back, I purchased a Mustang (bone stock) convertible for my wife... I am still waiting for the time some poohawk in a fire-breathing penis enalrger dumps a pile of soot into that car....

Larry, smoke is likely the least of our worries... It's the shit we can't see that can hurt us the most... CO is colourless and odourless..... I've had CO poisoning.... You do NOT want to go through this... Oxides of nitrogen react with sunlight and form a brown haze... I live way out in the sticks.... often, I drive to Edmonton or Calgary.... Used to be, on a calm day, that there was an unmistakable dome over either city... an indication of some of the airborne pollutants... Today, it is rare to see these types of phenomena... Automotive pollution controls WORK. The vast majority of consumers do not tamper with the emissions controls on their vehicles.... I have no problems with souping up a toy.... how many fucking times do I have to say this? However... your daily driver should never, ever be a toy.... Look at it this way.... I park in the staff parking area. Every morning, I walk to the staff entrance. If I spot trash on the ground, I pick it up and place it in a trash recpticle. If I do this often enough, it becomes remarkable since many others walk this same path, pass the same trash and pass the same trash recepticle..... yet the trash was still there for ME to bend down and pick up.... Now... let us say that I saw someone place trash on the ground along that path.... they didn't stop to retrieve it... they never gave it a second thought... By now, I would hope that everyone sees where THIS part is going... we haven't touched on legality.... we havent mentioned morality... We have mentioned someone trying to clean shit up.... and we have mentioned people that expect others to carry their burden.... The Hollies crooned "He ain't heavy, he's my brother...". Fuck that.... He ain't my brother and he's far too fucking heavy... time for him to do HIS part to help save this fucking dirtball our grandchildren are going to be stuck with.... I would hope the term "responsible adult" would mean something.