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Difference between mechanics and doctors

N

NCWayne

Well-known Member
Royse's 'It's a law' post got me to thinking about a joke I heard years ago about the only real difference between a doctor and a mechanic (other than the salary....LOL)

The difference is a mechanic washes his hands before he uses the bathroom, a doctor washes his hands after....
 
they are just like in every field, there are good and there are bad. now if we could just direct the good ones to the good ones and the bad ones to the bad ones. just saying
 
I thought the doc says to mechanic "OK now lets see you do it while its running".
 
not sure if its this way everywhere, but out here a dr is required to go to medical school and obtain several licences to be a dr, a mechanic can be anybody who has sucessfully changed the sparkplugs on a 1960 chevy and decides he is one, some of them are about that good, which is why i buy old stuff and fix it myself, there are a few really good ones around here, they usually have a 2 week waiting list at least to even get to somebody who calls them today, there that busy
 
There aren't a lot of true mechanics left anymore. There are lots of parts changers that call themselves mechanics. I always say the easiest way to tell the difference between the two is a parts changer will change out a carburetor, a true mechanic will rebuild one.
 
My son had a friend that was an ASE tech. Brought me a customers 67 Fairlane with the 289 in it.Running real bad. Handed me a bag of parts and said where do these go.It was the points and condenser.
 
A mechanic has to know how to work on dozens of different models.

A doctor only has to know how to work on two.
 
So at 42 I'm one of the old farts already, guess my 12 year old daughter is right when she calls me an old man. Though she has volleyball camp this week and has been walking around like a 90 year old. chris
 
A gynecologist became interested in antique tractors, and decided to go to trade school to learn about his new hobby.
After several weeks of training, each student was given a tractor for an engine rebuild.
Test scores were presented and the gynecologist received a score of 200!
The doctor asked the instructor why he received a grade of 200 and was told that he rebuilt the engine in an acceptable time and it ran perfect, so you received 100. The additional 100 was for doing the work through the exhaust!
 
Like my FIL always said. They should have to display their grades from medical school on their diploma they display.
 
I can see why not knowing points and condensers seems odd at first, I laughed too. But how often will today's young mechanics really need to change points and condensers? That technology was discontinued nearly forty years ago, even in tractors.

Class time is limited and schools are expensive. It makes sense to concentrate on teaching new students the things they will most need to know to get started in their future careers. Few of today's new mechanics will be able to make a living tuning points and carburetors any more than we could have made a living repairing magnetos and wooden spoke wheels, things that fell out of favor 25 years before we were born. There will always be a niche market need for a few hundred self-employed people to repair those things. But that's not who today's shops and dealerships need to hire.

Besides, the young mechanic was able to find someone who could fix it right, didn't he?
 
That"s the difference between a dealership technician, and a self employed mechanic like myself. I can"t afford to take the hit from a mess up....so I ask if I don"t know, pay attention, do it right the first time, and don"t mess up.

In more than 25 years of working on equipment, I"ve only had one comeback, and that was about a two years ago. In that case, it was an CAT engine I had rebuilt. Even then the problem was a broken valve in a brand new head that I had installed. In other words a faulty part, a head that was bought complete, and I did nothing but install. Even so I ate the labor and mileage to put on the warranty part.
 
Flat rate dealer mechanics don't get paid on a comeback. They are working almost for free to start, then a comeback puts them in the free zone. Being a dealer mechanic gives you all the consequences of owning the business, but none of the benefits. Why do you think the service gets worse and worse at a dealer when something goes back?
 
I understand the sentiment. The thing is, with the cost of parts and labor now days, it's often cheaper to change a whole assembly, like a carb, rather than to rebuild the old one.

Since I work for myself I will almost always rebuild rather than replace on something that is mine. If it's a customers, I will weight the cost difference, as well as the difference in quality of the rebuilt part -vs- the new part, and do whatever works best in that situation.

As a simple example, I've got a customer with a chipper. He was paying nearly $50, plus two trips to the saw shop, to get his knives sharpened. Doing things that way, the shear bar had to be adjusted ever couple of grinds to insure a proper clearance. Too, the knives all had to be installed the right way to insure the sides that were ground together (and were the same length) stayed together, again to maintain adjustment. I finally convinced him that a new set of knives was less than $100 more than having a set reground. By the time you took into account time and gas for two trips to the sharpening shop, the extra time to insure the knives were all on right, and the clearances were right with each blade change, etc, etc, having them sharpened didn't make sense. Now he simply buys a set, flips them when dull, and gets another new set.

It seems like a waste to throw away blades that can be sharpened, but ultimately it costs more to sharpen them than to get new ones each time.

In the end, things just aren't like they used to be in any way, shape, or form....and it takes a lot of getting used to for those of us that still see the waste (like with the blades), when it's the waste that's making money.
 
I'm only 46, and it amazes a lot of my customers that I know as much about the older stuff as I do. Personally I like the older stuff as it's usually simpler, and easier to work on. Not to mention, the fewer of us there are that can do it, the more I can charge....LOL
 
One of the reasons my Dad left the dealerships and went in for himself was their flat rate deal. In his case he got tired of seeing customers being ripped off paying flat rate price on a job that often took only 1/4 of the time the book called for.

Now days, if the dealerships would hire, (((or could find them to hire them, is more the problem0))) more guys that were actually mechanics, and not parts changing technicians, they wouldn't have to worry about so many comebacks. Not to mention with the poor quality of many parts now days, it doesn't make things any better. Top that off with customers that know so little about anything related to their vehicles, and the dealerships having to kiss their hind ends in an attempt to keep them happy, even when the problem isn't their fault, and things go even further South.

Personally I couldn't deal with the general public like dealerships do. I do my best to inform, and educate my customers who don't know. If I tell them about something that needs to be repaired, or that I find while doing another repair, I always let them know, and then note it for myself, and often on their invoice, and let them make the decision to repair or not to repair.

In the end, it's all about doing the job right the first time, but if there is a problem, you've got to man up, and admit your fault, and make things right. Do this and you'll have a customer for life.
 
You've got that right. I've seen a few machine over the years that had been so screwed up that I would have liked to bury them.....but they weren't running to dig the hole...LOL
 
Funny thing, the mechanics dumb enough to do that are the ones that need a doctor the most.....
 
(quoted from post at 17:20:30 07/23/14) That"s the difference between a dealership technician, and a self employed mechanic like myself. I can"t afford to take the hit from a mess up....so I ask if I don"t know, pay attention, do it right the first time, and don"t mess up.

In more than 25 years of working on equipment, I"ve only had one comeback, and that was about a two years ago. In that case, it was an CAT engine I had rebuilt. Even then the problem was a broken valve in a brand new head that I had installed. In other words a faulty part, a head that was bought complete, and I did nothing but install. Even so I ate the labor and mileage to put on the warranty part.
Click to expand...

[b:55f881e9f7]" I"ve only had one comeback, and that was about a two years ago."[/b:55f881e9f7]

I wish I could say that!
Years ago, when I was a mechanic, all the major auto manufacturers were coming out with new automatic transmissions. That was in the late 60s & 70s.
Lot of come-backs that weren't necessarily my fault because I rebuilt to factory specs as instructed through my training.
I don't believe Ford, and especially GM, tested these enough before using them!
 
I think I should rephrase that last statement. Knowing what a carburetor is and having worked on them regularly. With me, the irony was that just as I became an "expert" on something (electronic feedback carburetors for example) they became obsolete. About the time I got out of the business I hadn't worked on any type of carburetor in 10 years and forgot most of what I knew anyway. I fretted about fuel injection but over time came to prefer it. Just a matter of what you're familiar with I guess.
 
A guy that makes a blanket statement like that ought to have some idea of what he's talking about. Read Sprint 6's post, that's exactly the way it works at a dealer.
 
After reading all the comments, I must agree, there is little need to teach a student about points, condensers and carburetors, but there is still a need for someone who can work on them. When I worked parts at a dealership one of our regular customers came in one day and asked, "Do you know anyone who can adjust the valves on my wife's Nash? Heck, half the mechanics there were so young they didn't even know what a Nash was, much less how to adjust the valves.
 
Dealerships can't hire a real mechanic because they won't pay them. Oh, they hire them in at a high hourly rate, but then use flat rate to whittle their effective labor rate down to just above minimum wage. That is why I no longer work at GM dealers. I had all the knowledge, tools and equipment, all they provided was a leaky building built in '63 and some worn out equipment. I took MY tools and MY knowledge and started on my own. Haven't looked back.
 
I can understand that. Now days I have a feeling it's pretty much the same way. With everything being pumped out as fast as it is, and with something new every year, I imagine it would be all but impossible not to have a lot of comebacks for things. More than likely it's the engineers fault, not the mechanics, but the mechanic gets the blame anyways.

I know I've run into more than one situation where I have told the customer that it's back like the factory said it should be, but that it was probably going to break again, and it eventually did. I don't consider that a comeback as it's not my fault, I just think of that as job security...LOL
At the same time I've seen something that I knew was a problem, and that I could improve upon and did. In one instance it was on a machine being made by a small mfg, and I knew most of the guys there from calling for parts. I got a call one afternoon after they bought a machine back from one of my customers asking me where I had got the pieces I used as they was much better than the products they had been using. Kind of made me feel good....
 
Sounds like Dad. In his case it was a local CAT dealer. He was making OK money, but got tired of working his tail off and getting paid what he got paid, and being expected to beat flat rate, with no bonus for doing so....while watching the customers paying 4 hours worth of labor for a 1 hour job...and the company making all that extra money off his back and showing no appreciation for it.
 
Back in the mid 60's to late 70's, I worked at a large independent garage. We did nearly all dealership automatic transmission. I had to go to school for training on the new models and I guess dealerships found it cheaper to pay a private garage. I don't know how that would work today?
All my schooling paid of with a very good salary--plus commission for rebuilding automatic transmissions.
I felt that I was at the top of the pay scale making $175.00 a week and that was very good in that time period but I only worked on transmissions.
With all the computer controlled automatics today, I dought if anyone could professionally repair all that is used--At least I couldn't!
 
Mechanic says, it is an 80 year old machine, totally worn out, unlikely to survive any serious usage. I can make it last a few more days if you are willing to pay for it and understand the reality.

Doctor says, let me run a few more tests, we can probably extend her life a few more weeks, even if she it won't be conscious for most of the time, but medicare will pay me and the hospital so it is your duty as a loved one to approve this ...and it is ......no cost to you.
 
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