Business in the Front, Party in the Rear

When the average person envisions the operation of an automotive repair shop, they're likely thinking about the technicians. Of course, a shop can't exist without the service-technical staff, but it also can't survive without the rest of the team—ideally, like a well-oiled machine.

This includes leadership; a foreman, if you will. Although this role is defined differently from shop to shop, foremen generally play a role in distributing work, continuing education for the rest of the technicians, and are the last line of defense for problem-child vehicles, avoiding negative shop experiences like misdiagnosis and “comebacks.” More often than not, this same person becomes the liaison between the rest of the techs and the service advisors—and even the customers in some circumstances—often handling bottlenecks as they surface.

Having someone in that role is a prudent way to structure how a shop operates because of the built-in fail-safes mentioned above. However, I feel many techs and advisors (and other customer-facing team members) rely too heavily on this structure, and as a result, the foreman is stretched too thin and all of the situations requiring his or her input are delayed. Believe it or not, I feel there's a bigger underlying issue. This structure tends to make techs lazy, and that's bad for business; lost revenue is just the beginning.

Communication Is Key

What I'm describing above isn't a comment that has been shot from the hip. I've witnessed this happen in shops all across the country. And here's where the main issue lies, in my opinion.

Technicians fall prey to the flat-rate pay structure and tend to cut corners. No, I'm not only speaking about taking shortcuts in the repair process, necessarily, but I am speaking about how the repair orders are documented. Let's face it: the less time spent putting pen to paper (or populating a digitized document), the more effective time can be spent making money on other jobs. (Yes, this also occurs in shops without the flat-rate pay scale.)

But here's what many techs and other team members don't take the time to consider:

• For every moment a service advisor must trudge back into the shop to get more information from a technician, that's less effectively applied time the service advisor is producing revenue (answering the phone, scheduling appointments, and selling work).
• This same transaction costs the technician effectively applied time as well, for obvious reasons. They must stop working to answer pertinent questions.
• The missing information from the repair order costs the technician (and the shop) money, as many times certain labor operations have been inadvertently omitted. The work has been completed, but neither the technician nor the shop has collected for these operations (such as programming and configuring an ECU after replacement).
• Consider when an undocumented underlying or additional issue exists on the vehicle. The customer returns for a subsequent visit under the impression that the issue will be rectified free of charge (often already frustrated with the shop). From the shop's perspective, you don't have a leg to stand on. Had the repair order been documented properly—noting the vehicle's existing status or area of concern—at worst, you could've said: “I told you so.” At best, you could've further solidified your rapport with the customer as an honest and thorough facility, looking out for their best interests.
• Repair orders become legal documents in situations when we find ourselves in a court of law. Needless to say, if the document won't hold water, we may be responsible, and the cost may be a lot more than just money.
• And last, but certainly not least: justifying additional diagnostic time. It's hard enough for some shops to get paid for any type of diagnostics (that's a problem they need to focus on, but it's outside the scope of this article). But asking for more money after quoting perhaps one hour of initial diagnostic charge can be like pulling teeth, especially if the advisor doesn't understand the specific reason.
• I’m sure you get my point by now. We need to be doing a better job at documenting. That goes for what the technician documents on the repair order, but also what the service advisor includes on the documentation issued back to the customer for their records. More importantly, we need to be doing a better job at communication in general. This goes well above and beyond the traditional “3 Cs”—complaint, cause, and correction.

A Ticking Time Bomb

A 2010 Cadillac Escalade was towed to the shop with the complaint that the transmission wasn't performing correctly:

• The customer experiences a harsh shift into gear.
• The shift indicator (the PRNDL) was inoperative.
• The engine RPMs were elevated before the vehicle would move, and was slow to accelerate.
• The MIL was also illuminated.

The customer was quoted an initial one hour of diagnostic time to evaluate the concern. The customer agreed to the charge, and analysis proceeded. A scan for DTCs was performed, and among other issues, no communication with the vehicle's transmission control module could be established.

An initial preliminary inspection revealed an open fuse No.19, located in the under-hood fuse block. The technician attempted to replace the overloaded fuse, but the fuse would open subsequently. At this point, he reached out to me for assistance.

Approaching the situation with not only an urge to provide a diagnosis, but also as an educational opportunity, I began discussing with the technician what the indication of the blown fuse signifies. We discussed the circuit's current flow exceeding the fuse rating. And, if this fuse was the correctly rated fuse for the suspect circuit, the circuit was overloaded.

We pursued the conversation further: there potentially existed one of two faults, and it's our responsibility to determine which:

• 1st scenario: Circuit No. 2139 (from the under-hood fuse box to the transmission assembly) was shorted to ground. If this were the case, my suggestion was to think about potential causes (such as harness damage)—potentially a wire that was pinched by a collision/impact, or perhaps an incorrectly routed wire harness from a previous repair.
• 2nd scenario: A short was present internal to the transmission assembly. This could be within the transmission control unit itself, or a shorted solenoid within the valve body. (For this vehicle's transmission, the components are integral to one another—the Transmission Electro-Hydraulic Control Module, or T.E.H.C.M.)

We then discussed potential approaches to easily determine which fault existed. A reminder: a solenoid isn't typically energized under all operating conditions. If a solenoid were the source of the short circuit, the fuse should blow only when that solenoid is energized. If the fuse opened under any operating condition, the fault was either harness-related or the TCM itself.

The Initial Approach

Analysis began by first substituting the fuse for a device that accomplishes two goals for us as diagnosticians. It must first offer circuit protection so we can continue troubleshooting without causing further damage to the associated circuitry. It must also indicate whether or not the fault is present. A simple incandescent light bulb would do the trick.