The New Reality of Wrenching

[Mack Technician]

I'm interpreting growing hostility toward fleet maintenance departments by what is coming from the OEM engineering departments, particularly European.  

Little by little OEM's are tucking away their intellectual property. I have plug and play subscriptions for CAT Electronic Technician, JD Service Advisor, Volvo Tech Tool and Liehberr Lidos + newer Scully. The Scully has cut 75% of all functional options out of the customer version. I requisitioned for a Rep come in for $800 to train us on it and it was so stripped he could not operate it despite the fact he is a company trainer. Not a joke, he could not navigate it in it's depreciated condition without embarrassing himself, he had to leave and come back. American Domestic is still pretty outstanding, CAT ET and John Deere Service Advisor are both good. Jury is out on Volvo. Sophistication is through the roof and info is getting harder to come by. Now the winner is most often the guy who has the right 1-888 internal number to call.

Yesterday I worked on a European unit which converted from tier 3 to interim tier 4 with, I'm guessing, a 6" increase in the engine compartment. Keep in mind they made this jump from internal (AI style) EGR ...........to complete external EGR with multiplier turbos. Basically they just cut the inside of the counterweight out for the DPF.

My co worker snapped a pic while I was working, under the DPF, on the engine's blind left side by pressing myself into the pump group. Luckily he saw the second successful attempt getting in and not the first attempt when my pants snagged and pulled off.  I'm inserted between the DPF on my left hip and the basement of the engine compartment on my right because there is no top access around the emissions system and a superstructure below.  

 

 

A while back I was prodding a salesman from Volvo..."so what are you going to do when we trade-in this junk, Bob? You think you have some end-of-life machinery users in Mexico who are going to want to buy this emissions cripple?". He told me "Not a problem, There is a parts and software kit we can buy from Volvo to basically convert it back to pre-emission. Depends on who buys it. We have to jump through some hoops and show a sale and shipping manifest and stuff like that, but we will sell it."  

In 1995 the Cummins instructor I trained under said "Jason, there were no good old days. These ARE the good days. This engine you are working on will go well past one million miles". He was right, except he did not know he was just in a sweet spot. I'd like to take him on a modern tour of our LB engine that lasted 4,800 hour before it nearly broke in half because the emissions system support failed. 

 Almost done venting....

 

Example...... European Intellectual property warfare

Here is what you get for $600 from Volvo (blue, L180H) . Here is what I got free from John Deere (black, 824K). Despite some books saying 700K, they are all the same 824K machine. My boss brow beat Volvo till they agreed to drop the $600 charge. No comparison between the theory of operation and available info, Volvo is just generalized gibberish.  

[HeavyGunner]

It's a good thing you're skinny because I'd never fit in that engine compartment. This emissions crap has made it tough on everyone who has anything to do with it, from the engineers to the consumer and everyone In between. 

[Maxidyne]

Emissions wise, I think we're past the point of peak effectiveness, which was probably somewhere before EPA 2007- The newer standards are shortening the life of the equipment and the increased cost is pushing buyers back to gas instead of more efficient diesel. As a result, Greenhouse gasses will probably rise rather than decrease. And that's before you figure in the operators who have given up on EPA 2007 and later machines and have bypassed the whole emissions systems.

As for the manufacturers, been looking at some of the publicly traded dealer's financials and no surprise, parts and service is now the most profitable part of their operation. The plan is to deny you and independent shops the ability to fix your own stuff, them force you into their service department to be robbed until you surrender and prematurely buy a new machine.

[BGarofalo]

I genuinely enjoy what I do working on trucks. But, every once in a while you take a step back and think "they don't pay me enough for this crap."  

I couldn't agree more on the European stuff. DAF engines from Paccar are terrible with service information. It's like the black market to get a torque spec. 

Just for future reference for you just about any machine can be deleted of its emissions equipment. I routinely have exporters come to me before loading stuff up on the boat to its new home. I just did a backhoe for a private customer heading back to South America  because he said they can't get def fluid where he's from. 

 

[Mack Technician]

1 hour ago, BGarofalo said:

I genuinely enjoy what I do working on trucks. But, every once in a while you take a step back and think "they don't pay me enough for this crap."  

I couldn't agree more on the European stuff. DAF engines from Paccar are terrible with service information. It's like the black market to get a torque spec. 

Just for future reference for you just about any machine can be deleted of its emissions equipment. I routinely have exporters come to me before loading stuff up on the boat to its new home. I just did a backhoe for a private customer heading back to South America  because he said they can't get def fluid where he's from. 

 

Are you a dealership? It sounded like a tight process that is relative to sales/dealership licensing and OEM plug/play access? 

The European issue has layers for me, one issue is simple translation. The Germans are the least concerned about making service information "Clean". Volvo is very clean, but tight fisted. An example is wiring diagrams. Last month I was working on an HVAC module via the wiring diagrams. The module had every point-of-origin line out of the HVAC module labeled in German. At the end of every line the receiving component was labeled in English. I looked at the color codes of the wires and they are code in colors "ps" "bt" and so on. I went to the legend and looked at the definitions and PS = Yellow. German color abbreviation over English key. Keep in mind.....this is digital info throughout. The only person who should have a listening ear to the complaint is our dealership so I gave them a call. He pointed me to a website for translating German to English and said "this is the one we use".

Next layer is diagnostics. That stack of John Deere manuals is all flow chart diagnostics. Not a single repair flow chart in any European manual I possess. Best you can hope for is decent theory of operation and often you will not get that.  

When the dealership mechanic came and opened his Scully program I got to see how badly they scalped us on the software. They deleted every calibration and most service tools all the way down to not being able to force regeneration.  

On the flip side the only thing missing on my domestic CAT Electronic Tech is anything that requires a dealership code. If you run the CAT to 140% congestion it will lock up and need a dealer code to unlock. Dummy proofing.

Europeans will not perform product improvements at no cost. Domestic come in with a list of campaigns and fix what is failing. The European companies insert a notation in the parts system. When you tap into the parts system they prompt you to upgrade at the customers expense.   

[41chevy]

Volvo did that with the early Bosch/ Volvo Lambda digital fuel injection, vague diagnostics and the entire harness was white insulation and no number or other means of ID unless you were a dealer with their "secret interface". They've always been closed to none but factory techs.

Both Volvo and most German vehicle makers add up dates during production and only the part depts know of the changes when there is a failure. Cost on customers. Remember their motto " we only make errors that profit the company"

Edited November 22, 2017 by 41chevy

[Mack Technician]

6 minutes ago, 41chevy said:

 

Both Volvo and most German vehicle makers add up dates during production and only the part depts know of the changes when there is a failure. Cost on customers. Remember their motto " we only make errors that profit the company"

Funny you should mention....I got nailed on just that recently! Volvo changed the brake accumulators on the machine mid stream. To make the old production impossible to use they changed the thread pitch. You get them half on and they begin to get too tight to turn. My opinion was "plain dirty", cause they did not change the customer parts info. 

[h67st]

15 hours ago, Mack Technician said:

I'm interpreting growing hostility toward fleet maintenance departments by what is coming from the OEM engineering departments, particularly European.  

Little by little OEM's are tucking away their intellectual property. I have plug and play subscriptions for CAT Electronic Technician, JD Service Advisor, Volvo Tech Tool and Liehberr Lidos + newer Scully. The Scully has cut 75% of all functional options out of the customer version. I requisitioned for a Rep come in for $800 to train us on it and it was so stripped he could not operate it despite the fact he is a company trainer. Not a joke, he could not navigate it in it's depreciated condition without embarrassing himself, he had to leave and come back. American Domestic is still pretty outstanding, CAT ET and John Deere Service Advisor are both good. Jury is out on Volvo. Sophistication is through the roof and info is getting harder to come by. Now the winner is most often the guy who has the right 1-888 internal number to call.

Yesterday I worked on a European unit which converted from tier 3 to interim tier 4 with, I'm guessing, a 6" increase in the engine compartment. Keep in mind they made this jump from internal (AI style) EGR ...........to complete external EGR with multiplier turbos. Basically they just cut the inside of the counterweight out for the DPF.

My co worker snapped a pic while I was working, under the DPF, on the engine's blind left side by pressing myself into the pump group. Luckily he saw the second successful attempt getting in and not the first attempt when my pants snagged and pulled off.  I'm inserted between the DPF on my left hip and the basement of the engine compartment on my right because there is no top access around the emissions system and a superstructure below.  

 

 

A while back I was prodding a salesman from Volvo..."so what are you going to do when we trade-in this junk, Bob? You think you have some end-of-life machinery users in Mexico who are going to want to buy this emissions cripple?". He told me "Not a problem, There is a parts and software kit we can buy from Volvo to basically convert it back to pre-emission. Depends on who buys it. We have to jump through some hoops and show a sale and shipping manifest and stuff like that, but we will sell it."  

In 1995 the Cummins instructor I trained under said "Jason, there were no good old days. These ARE the good days. This engine you are working on will go well past one million miles". He was right, except he did not know he was just in a sweet spot. I'd like to take him on a modern tour of our LB engine that lasted 4,800 hour before it nearly broke in half because the emissions system support failed. 

 

 Almost done venting....

 

Example...... European Intellectual property warfare

Here is what you get for $600 from Volvo (blue, L180H) . Here is what I got free from John Deere (black, 824K). Despite some books saying 700K, they are all the same 824K machine. My boss brow beat Volvo till they agreed to drop the $600 charge. No comparison between the theory of operation and available info, Volvo is just generalized gibberish.  

 

MT, I'm clueless on emission systems. What exactly does "the emissions system support failed" mean?

[Mack Technician]

22 minutes ago, h67st said:

MT, I'm clueless on emission systems. What exactly does "the emissions system support failed" mean?

They had to add a second small turbo with the Interim Tier 4. The bearing cartridge was too small and failed. Blew oil into the intake at a high rate of feed. Exploded cylinders and sheared crown of sleeves off dropping them into the pan.  It had been a 30K-40K hour engine life in tier 3 level.   

 

Intake heater grid........

 

[Lmackattack]

Same issues in the race parts industry when it comes to electronic parts,ECU, Dash reprogramming... etc....    When we had teams asking us for basic pin out or info on items they bought from us we had nothing but trouble with the European companies. Even their tech reps gave us a hard time. Many times We had to go to the Race car series and get them to demand the release of otherwise basic info for our customers. After all the Series was who made agreements with these MFG parts suppliers and then they tried to back door them by charging for info on them. and even when we got the info it was in German or french and we still had to decipher thru the maze of wording and color codes...

 

Im glad I dont work in that industry anymore as its just become a PITA with everthing.

[41chevy]

15 hours ago, Mack Technician said:

Funny you should mention....I got nailed on just that recently! Volvo changed the brake accumulators on the machine mid stream. To make the old production impossible to use they changed the thread pitch. You get them half on and they begin to get too tight to turn. My opinion was "plain dirty", cause they did not change the customer parts info. 

Welcome to the Wonderful  World of Willie Wooden Shoes School of How to Show You Value  Your Customers wallets

[fxfymn]

The real money at a dealership is in the service bays so I'm guessing they are intent on making it impossible for the customer to take it any other place for repair including your own shop.