By Jeff Glucker
There are some parts of your car or truck that you know everything about. You are the one who installed that part or refurbished that area or rebuilt that entire section. But there has to be a part or section of which you know a whole lot less. What is that part?
Do you fully understand how your vehicle’s suspension works? Are you all up on your knowledge of the inner workings of your transmissions? Maybe you’re good to go on the mechanical bits, but what about all of that electrical stuff?
Share with us the parts of your vehicles of which you know the least about…
I don’t have automatic gearing because I don’t trust those elves. When exactly does a shift occur?
Related (asking for a friend): I also don’t understand how workshops work: are they charging so much so they can compensate for their føkk-ups?
Let’s say your mechanic earns $35/hr. Pay is only about half of what an employee costs a company to keep on the books, so right there your mechanic is costing the shop $70/hr. Since they’re a mechanic, the insurance costs (beyond Workman’s Comp) are considerably higher, and there are shop supplies to keep stocked (that are a bit more expensive than the toner cartridges and staples for the office workers) so let’s say it’s more like $100/hr. Every job a mechanic takes on is assigned a certain number of hours to complete, but rarely is the job done in less time than that, so some margin has to be built in. Now we’re up to $120/hr, but of course, this is capitalism and someone has to make a profit, so $150/hr.
Any part that hasn’t broken yet…
In that case by now I should be omniscient.
Fuel injection. Not just my own Econoline, but all fuel injection, everywhere, ever.
Gas goes in tank, shit happens, pollution comes out tailpipe. That’s all I know. Fuel maps, Mass-Air systems, fuel rails, throttle body injectors, O2 sensors. Gobbledygook from top to bottom.
I only recently learned that a diesel controls the engine by timing the moment of injection, and thus ignition, but how it does that I haven’t a clue. (This weekend I learned the difference between a diesel and a semidiesel, but that’s another topic.)
On the spectrum here at the Hooniverse, I might be one of the least capable mechanics. To my mind, it’s all pretty magic, and I don’t have a strong desire to understand how things work by taking them apart. Neither by learning how they can fail. What I least understand though is probably everything that is controlled electronically. Straightforward how a wire transmits information, but everything in bits, bytes, fibreoptics and such remains shrouded in mystery.
Quite often, the female in the other seat.
Touareg.
So… all of it.
Touareg.
So… all of it.
I am at least conversant on most stuff in my vehicle (2020 Gladiator) and my wife’s (1997 Wrangler) except the automatic transmission. Never have really gotten into how those magical boxes work . . .