Some thoughts on Right to Repair

You may have read that Massachusetts is voting this June 28 on a piece of legislation called Right to Repair (R2R) which is touted as a law that will force carmakers to give independent repair shops (the so-called little guys) the same access to car repair data as franchised dealers.

The claim is that this law will save consumers tons of money while giving them a newfound freedom of choice. Unfortunately, it won’t.

Here’s why that law is a waste of time and money.

Right to Repair is a proposed law to give small shops access to repair information. Giving access implies that access is denied today. It isn’t.

Small repair shops already have equal access to service information. I know that because I own a shop and I access that info every day. The National Auto Service Task Force was established almost ten years ago in response to widespread consumer complaints about access to service data and test tools. Thanks to NASTF efforts and Federal legislation, any shop can log onto Ford or BMW or any other carmaker’s database and buy daily, weekly, or monthly subscriptions to service data; the very same data their dealers have.

The only data that is restricted on those websites relates to vehicle security and the coding of keys. That same data is restricted to dealer technicians to prevent vehicle theft. It’s sometimes a hassle, but the carmakers are required to do that for motorist’s own security. Would you want any schmuck to be able to order keys for your car off the web? I thought not.

There was a time when carmakers did hold back information and it was very frustrating. They also restricted access to their proprietary service tools. All that changed thanks to the Federal government stepping in about ten years ago. In my opinion, the information access problem is essentially solved. The problems that remain are being worked out cooperatively by the NASTF, with no need for new state laws.

The proposed R2R law purports to ensure customers can choose where to get their cars fixed. Customers have always had that right. The smarter question to ask is, Who is qualified to fix your car? If you have a high-end car like we work on, your choices are indeed limited. However, you are not limited by “right to repair” issues. You are limited because there are not many people who are both qualified and possessed of the specialized tools to properly service a late-model Mercedes, BMW, or Land Rover.

That brings us to the biggest issue in the aftermarket auto service industry: technician and shop competence. I can’t tell you how many times I hear xxx ripped me off, or xxx screwed me, or xxx fixed my car and it’s worse than before. 99% of those complaints stem from incompetence, in my experience. Only a tiny fraction results from dishonesty or malice.

At Robison Service everyone in the shop attends brand and system specific training every year to stay current. We would be lost without that training and the backup of tech support from Bosch and our test system manufacturers. But training is costly, and few independent shops do it. Dealers have to do it to keep their franchise. We have to do it because we’re committed to being the best.

The second (related) issue is tooling. The days of fixing 99% of the cars with a box of hand tools are long gone. It’s an electronic world, and you’ll need ten to twenty grand for the diagnostic tools for any high-end car, if you want to have dealer-level capability. Otherwise, you’ll be telling customers you can’t do this, or that. You will never hear we can’t do that, you have to go to the dealer at Robison Service. But that certainty comes at high cost; hundreds of thousands invested in tooling and more every year.

Luckily, the tools are cheaper for ordinary cars, and training is more available. Even still few independents avail themselves of it.

Training and tooling are the two principal reasons independents can’t fix cars properly. Both those things are available, at the same cost a dealer would pay. The playing field is already level, thanks to Federal legislation passed in the 1996-2002 time frame.

Another claim is that drivers will be protected because they will get notice of recalls and service bulletins. Once again, that is a problem that’s long been solved. Every manufacturer service website provides that service when you input a VIN. In addition, Alldata and Mitchell (the two principal aftermarket service data suppliers) offer the same thing. All you have to do is buy the subscription. Like us, and every other properly equipped shop or dealership.

Finally, they claim this bill will protect jobs. How? We are not losing our jobs now. This bill will not cause more cars to be fixed in Massachusetts. The problem with jobs in auto service is that we have sky-high unemployment where I live and work. Many of our customers are struggling to stay above water, and car repair is a low priority. That reality drives service workflow for most shops.

I don’t think passage of this bill would hurt me, or my shop. However, it certainly won’t help. What it represents is a waste of time, and political posturing, when we have real and pressing problems to solve elsewhere. Let’s drop this and spend time solving our employment and housing crises. Bills like this are nothing but red herrings to draw people from the real issues.

A few images of Robison Service

And now . . . find us on the new Thumbtack website

Import Car service in Springfield, MA.

Technician tenacity

Today’s technicians today have to be patient, tenacious and smart in order to diagnose many problems on today’s cars ….

This one is a good example. A client brought us her 2006 Audi A6 Quattro. She said the check engine light was on and car seemed to run a little sluggish.

Master technician Bob Toti began by attaching our VAG tester (the special Audi test tool) to the vehicle’s diagnostic port to read any stored faults. The tester showed two current faults: a cam sensor bank on 2 fault and a small evaporative leak. He also found an intermittent or old low pressure fuel sensor fault.

Whenever you find “current” faults you can verify them by clearing them and seeing how they reset themselves. That’s what we did in this case. Bob found the cam sensor fault came back immediately so he focused on that problem first. After verifying that the voltages at the sensor were okay and wiring from engine module was okay too, he swapped with the identical sensor from bank 1. The result? The same fault occurred. At this point the tech verified that the engine module was reading information from that sensor, but was this information correct?

Master technician Danny Ferrari now took over solving the Audi cam sensor fault mystery while Bob concentrated on other work in the shop.

Using actual values in the VAG, the tech found the intake cam in bank 2 was out of position by almost 10 degrees, when the spec was less than half a degree.

Careful and thoughtful technicians found that this little
bit of screen stuck in the valve was giving the customer
big headaches.  

This car’s cam advance system is able to advance or retard all the 4 cams by letting oil in and out of four solenoid valves. For some reason one of these cams was working at the wrong advance angle, or at least that’s what the sensor was telling us. The next step was checking the actual cam advance valve by opening up the engine and comparing the observed position of the cam with the position reported by the sensor. That check showed the sensor to be telling the truth – the cam was really out of position. But the question of why that might be remained unanswered. So we removed the adjusting solenoid. When we took it apart we found debris tucked into the valve, between the sleeve and the moving part of the valve. The debris looked like really small bits of metal screen. The debris was causing the position problem by not letting the valve close all the way.

Replacing the valve fixed the problem. A long road test after repair did not reveal any other faults. The other codes – the ones we’d read on first examination – never returned. We changed the oil and sent the car down the road with a very happy owner.

Why would this valve go bad on a 28,000 mile car? I wish I knew. There was no evidence of neglect or abuse inside the motor, though some of the stresses that might have led to this failure would not leave a visible trace. It’s also possible the car was filled with the wrong oil earlier in its life. Perhaps the valve was defective from new. It’s a one-of-a-kind problem in this shop. And more and more, that’s what we see. One-off problems other people can’t fix are becoming our stock in trade.

Rattles in late model Land Rovers

Does your Sport or LR3 sound like the spare tire is loose under the vehicle?  Have you looked and looked but found nothing loose?  If so, there's a good chance your problem is a worn sway bar.

What is a sway bar, you ask?  I'll tell you . . .

A sway is a torsion bar connecting the left and right sides of your suspension together.  The bar simply swings up and down when both wheels move together.  When one wheel goes up, as when it hits a curb or pothole, the bar resists that movement, adding to the spring rate.  When one wheel goes up and the other goes down, which is what happens when the vehicle leans into a corner, the sway bar resists doubly as its ends are twisted in opposite directions.

Sway bars are what keep your car flat when it makes a hard corner.  Without them, the body would lean on the springs to the point where you felt you were about to turn over.  Anyone who drove an old 1980s Rover without sway bars will remember this feeling well.

The Sport is a pretty high performance rig, so it has particularly beefy bars.  And of course these are heavy vehicles.  To handle all that the bars on my 2006 truck are almost an inch in diameter.  When they twist against the mounts during cornering, they twist hard.

For many years we have seen sway bar links wear out; not just on Land Rover but on BMW, Mercedes, and most other high performance cars.  The links are the rods with ball-and-socket joints that connect the sway bars to the suspension, out by the wheels.  We're accustomed to finding those worn out and rattly, but when these newer style Rovers began coming in with heavy clunks those links were surprisingly tight.  What gives?

It turns out that the bars themselves get loose in the mounts.  When they get loose, they rattle. At first we thought there was an easy fix - install new bushings.  However, the bars themselves are wearing down from friction with the bushings, so new rubber just fixes the problem for a month or so, and you have a comeback.

We have actually cured some trucks (including my own) by making sheet plastic sleeves that we fit between bar and bushing.  You're probably imagining something pretty high tech, but actually, we cut a strip out of an old windshield washer solvent bottle and wrap that around the bar.  Cheap and effective.  If you don't like that, or it does not work, your next step is to replace the bars themselves but that is a several-hour task involving lifting the truck body from the subframe to get the bars in and out.

Once you've heard a few of these noisy bars you learn to recognize the sound, and repair is pretty quick.. But we struggled many hours to find this one the first time . . .

Exceptional or Ordinary? You decide . . .

How do you solve math problems in your head? Perhaps a better question is, do you solve math problems in your head? With the availability of electronic devices to do it for us, I would not be surprised to learn that many people never try.

I was reading Darold Treffert’s book on savants, and I was intrigued by a few examples of savant thinking. I tried solving some of the problems in his book to get a feel for how “comprehensible” they might be to me, with no recent practice calculating. Here is a simple example:

You have a carriage with a wheel that’s six yards in circumference.How many revolutions will the wheel make while traveling two hundred twenty miles?

This is how I answer that question in my head. I’d be interested in how you might do it:

Six yards is eighteen feet. I see that as a short line.

So one hundred revolutions of a six yard wheel would take me 1,800 feet. That’s a much longer line in my head, one that curves.

Three hundred revolutions would take me 5,400 feet – more than a mile. Now the line has curved back unto itself, making a circle.

How many rotations are there to a mile? Less than three hundred. A mile is a smaller circle. I can see those circles, on inside the other.They do not quite match.

I adjust the length of the longer line that forms the big circle. Try 290 . . . that’s 5,400 less 180, or 5,220. A mile is 5,280. Now I see the line laid flat, like a straight stretch of highway. Two hundred ninety revolutions leaves us sixty feet short of a mile marker. So what’s the fraction?

Three eighteens go into that sixty-foot remainder with the same six remainder. Adding that to the 290, I see the answer is 293 and a third. The six-yard wheel does not fit a one mile line, but it fits perfectly into a three-mile ring. If you put a mark on the wagon wheel, and mark any point where it touches the big circle, those points will touch every time the wheel rolls past. I like that.

If you roll the same wheel around a one-mile ring the points will only touch every third trip around, which is unsettling to me. I like smooth fits, so I will solve the next step using three-mile units.

I can now see the answer: 880 revolutions. A perfect fit. Six yards, three miles, and eight hundred eighty turns.

How many three-mile eight-hundred-eighty revolution units are there in 220 miles? My mind visualizes stacks or piles for this next step.Seventy units reach two hundred ten miles. I quickly see how seventy-three and a third are needed to reach the two-twenty goal.

Stacking seventy-three piles of 880 in my mind takes a little time.Eventually, the stacks add up and I see the result is 64,240. Now I just have to add the third (of 880) and I’m done. To do that, I add three hundred to the pile, making 64,540, and then take back six and two-thirds.

64,533 and 1/3 is the answer to the question.

As a further experiment, I scaled up the distance, to 2450 miles and then 20,315 miles to see if I could keep scaling up the numbers. There must be some limit to that, and it certainly took me longer, but I solved those bigger problems in a few more minutes. Solving the longer distance problems involved one and then two more levels of “stacking” in my mind.

It does not seem that hard to me. I often did similar calculations as a kid, for fun. I’m sure I could do it again, pretty quickly, with some practice.

I test my answer with a calculator. The process to do that is considerably simpler.

I multiply 220 (miles) by 5,280 (feet per mile) to get 1,161,600 – the total distance in feet.

I divide that by 18 (the wheel circumference) to get 64,533.333 – the revolutions turned.

It’s a lot faster to get this answer with a calculator, for sure. But is the ability to figure this out in one’s head really exceptional? In today’s world, I would not be surprised if kids never develop these skills. When I grew up, though, pocket calculators did not yet exist and I had to know how solve problems like this. I suspect many people of my generation could solve a problem like this in their heads, but perhaps I am wrong. What do you say?

Some thoughts on spark plugs

Advances in technology have lengthened the maintenance intervals for many pieces on our cars. One of those pieces – the one I am writing about today – is the spark plug. All gas engine cars have them.

When I started in the car business, it was common for plugs to need cleaning every year, and replacement by 15,000 miles. As technology improved and engines got cleaner, the plugs started lasting longer. First it was 30,000 miles, then 50,000, 60,000 miles.

Today, many of the new cars we service have 100,000-mile spark plugs installed at the factory. That 100,000-mile rating was derived by installing the plugs in test vehicles, and then driving them hard and fast to pile on the miles. At various intervals the plugs were removed and inspected for wear. After a number of engineering tweaks, Bosch, Beru, NGK, and other spark plug manufacturers came up with a plug that would last the 100,000 miles and still perform acceptably. Based on that, the carmakers established the current change interval for spark plugs.

So the question today is: How often should you change your plugs, if you have a car with the 100,000-mile change interval? Should you follow the manufacturer’s recommendation, or do something else? Why?

The first thing I point out to new clients when we discuss maintenance is that there is a time component to service as well. Spark plugs may hold up fine for 100,000 miles if driven on the highway every day, but short trips and occasional use will wear them out a lot faster. A person who drives 10-12,000 miles per year may not hit 100,000 miles for almost ten years. That’s way to long to leave a set of plugs in the car.

Carmakers recognize that. If you look in most owners manuals you will see a time specification for plugs. They’ll say something like five years or 100,000 miles. I strongly suggest you pay attention to this time limit when considering long-life wear items like spark plugs.

I have read of spark plugs breaking off in the cylinder head when removed after many years. I’ve never experienced that on a five year old car, but there may well be parts of the world where corrosion is worse (near the ocean, as an example) and it you live in such a place, you’d be wise to consider that fact and adjust your service intervals accordingly.

When changing plugs, the next decision a motorist faces is what plug to buy. If you are at the dealer, the decision is simple: you’ll get original equipment plugs. If you’re at a Bosch Car Care Center, you should get the correct Bosch plugs, and if you’re at an independent or chain store, you best find out what they propose to install to be sure you are comfortable.

Thirty years ago, selection of spark plugs was simple. A dozen part numbers would service a majority of the cars on the road. Today many cars have special plugs and it’s important to install the right one. Every parts store has cross-reference catalogs, all of which lead you to believe any “crossover” plug will work. In my experience, that’s often true for older cars but often wrong on newer vehicles. We’ve seen Land Rover, Mercedes, and BMW cars with ignition misfires that were ultimately traced to “supposedly correct” but off-brand spark plugs.

If you have a late model car, be sure you fit the right plugs.

The last point I’d like to address with spark plugs is what happens if you don’t change them in time. As plugs age, the voltage to fire them increases. A plug that needs 20,000 volts to fire when new may need 80,000 by the time it’s used up. If you go beyond that, the voltage may rise to 100,000 volts or higher. This increased voltage puts much greater stress on ignition coils and wires. Premature ignition failure is the usual result of running plugs too long.

Six spark plugs might cost $80 for your BMW or Mercedes. Six spark plugs and six coils (because you waited too long) could cost $700, maybe more. As you can see, changing plugs before the ignition fails makes very good economic sense!

Electronic Module failures

We are seeing a disturbing trend with many high end cars built in the 1980s and 1990s. Their auxiliary control modules are failing, and replacement parts are not available. You can still buy engine control modules for Jaguar, Land Rover, and Rolls Royce cars, but many of the other electronics have been discontinued.

We can fix some issues on these controllers, but one thing we can't fix is extensive corrosion damage from failure of the "permanent" backup batteries many of these modules carry inside.

If you have a collectible European car, and it's 12-15 years old, it's time to pull the modules apart and address this issue BEFORE you have irreparable damage. As much as it may cost to fix something that's not broke, it will cost way more once it is broke . . .