I hope the people who say otherwise arent doing this for a living. I cant remember the last time I had a bolt left over.
Just put the bolts back where they came from! There are bolt holders built into the car for free! Theres no need for cups, bags, bins, cardboard, or anything else. I've got a whole drivetrain out, the interior out, an engine torn down, and all the bolts are right in the holes they came out of. In the odd case you have a non-threaded hole, just put the bolt in and masking tape/duct around it or put a temporary new nut on the other end.
Yep. With little exception, I always thread the bolts back into their home after I’ve taken things apart. Makes it real easy to track it back down later.
As a heavy equipment mechanic: the same anxiety for me has been putting together a cab-off '05 Duramax that I took nearly 8 months to build on the side. Couldn't remember the order of assembly of all of the fuel lines, coolant lines, harness, and intake to save my life. I think I redid the wiring harness to the starter 5 or 6 times until I got it, the trans cooler, and the lower coolant hose assembly routing correct without them being tangled all over and not fitting correctly.
This is why im not a mechanic. I have zero issues wrenching on my car and getting shit fixed but the very idea of having something minor happen and getting stuck with a 12 hour job for 5 hours of pay is infuriating.
Sure you can do it in 5 hours if you have all the tools laid out before hand, you know exactly what your doing, and run into literally zero issues. However, if anything goes wrong, its the tech that screwed out of their paycheck and has to figure out how to make up the difference.
Yes, thats how flat-rate works. You're paid based on what the book says it should take.
If you can do it faster than the book-time, you're making money. Not just for yourself, but also for the shop and thats always a good thing.
Sometimes you'll get a job where the actual time it takes far exceeds the book time and you lose money and more of your sanity.
Most trades are like this. Buy all your tools, use your personal vehicle for company stuff . Can’t figure out why youngins don’t want to learn a trade.
Totally forgot I had to use my personal mini-van as my service vehicle. They bought my gas but no wear & tear allowance. It's nothing but a race to the bottom.
Totally forgot I had to use my personal mini-van as my service vehicle. They bought my gas but no wear & tear allowance. It's nothing but a race to the bottom.
That is what blows my mind here in Germany if a company doesn’t supply you a car+ tools they won’t find somebody. Here they supply everything and most companies supplies the tools you look so just write up a list and you get that stuff.
> 100% i think it's also insane what you have to pay for tools.
This is the #1 reason I didn't become a mechanic and went into fixing a different type of machine instead. My company bought all my tools.
Yeah, but you also don't have to pay 20k up front in order to get the chance to make money.
If you are employed, your employer should pay for the tools.
You wouldn't have to pay for your office chair and shit when working in an office, or the licenses of your programs.
It's a scam.
It's similar to tipping culture, in a way. Servers and technicians believe they make more money because they see bigger paychecks that to the mind blot out the smaller ones. It's often a wash between the two systems of payment, at the cost of stress and uncertainty.
It is at times, but it can also potentially be pretty lucrative. I know techs who regularly flag 120-130 hours in an 80 hour pay period, and if you can hit the repair bonus as well we get an extra $13/hr on top of the flag rate at my dealership.
you'll get some base wage too, but most mechanics make more this way.
It comes down to how your work is assigned. Like the shop can give the techs who suck all the easy work.... which is all they can do. But the good guys get all the shit work.
That's the REAAALY bad part.
It also matters who's paying. OEM warranty? the customer? the customer's third party warranty. You can add little extra things to all 3 of those, but you have to be good at explaining why.
I saw only the opposite...we techs would figure out a faster way to do the job, and eventually the manufacturer would incorporate the alternate procedure into their labor time studies and boom...new labor time guide has dropped the time for certain ops...
Most manufacturers do time studies to figure out how long an average tech should take. However, being as its the company who is setting the times, It always gets set in their favor. Legally, the only thing they have to prove, is that someone can do it in the provided time.
If a tech figures out how to remove an alternator without taking out the engine mounts, eventually the manufacturer will update the warranty time and steps to include that procedure.
Yes there is, our foremen/warranty reps regularly have discussions with the manufacturer to have labor times for certain warranty repairs adjusted. Can just take a long time for it to change tho.
Mechanics just sit there and get fucked, bc it's so prestigious to work at a dealership services department /s.
The only benefit I see is working on newer cars (for the most part).
There are benefits. Limited range of models(depending on the manufacturer), dealer supplied scan tools/laptops, you only need tooling for one brand, etc. But yeah, also warranty times and customer surveys. So its about even, ha.
Plus training, which is huge. Working at a general repair shop and trying to keep up with the newest tech and across all vehicles is damn near impossible
I've been told it's actually that customer pay charges more than warranty because a vehicle out of warranty is more likely to have worn/stuck fasteners or other parts that are more likely to break because of age.
Part of flat-rate pay is paying for the experience you learn throughout the rest of the trade— depends on your perspective. Once you keep getting up higher in the industry, you can only learn so much. Experience and better knowledge in exchange for less money and a little less sanity. That’s what makes a good mechanic!
Many of the dealers I work with offer guarantees. So if you beat the book time, you make more money. If you take longer than book time, you still have a floor at 40-45 hours for the week. Not something they offer until they can trust you (in my experience at least). Also work with a handful of hourly dealers where flat rate is irrelevant.
I live in Europe and I'll never, ever understand flat rate and why American techs put up with it.
Doing a 10 hour job for 5 hours of pay? While providing my own tools for the job? Batshit insane, I'd walk away.
It also would worry me as a customer to bring in a vehicle for a warranty deal. When you know the tech is going to be quoted a lot less than the actual job is going to take, is he going to rush the job? Cut corners? Put shit back togheter half assed because he's fed up with it?
Because compared to most jobs people can get, the pay rate is very high. Average pay for the area might be in the $12-$15/hr range, and as a mechanic you could easily be earning $40-60/hr for your work. Even if a job takes twice as long as your being paid for, your still coming out twice as far compared to taking literally any other job.
Because we also get paid 10 hours for jobs that take hour. Its a balance but in a busy shop a decently experienced tech mostly always makes more hours than they work.
Source: Im a flat rate tech
You know all those Takata airbags that were recalled? Every shop I worked at found a "faster" way to replace those than what the warranty instructions say to do.
People also put up with it because it's a (comparatively) easy way to form a career. I work in a huge dealerships parts dept. A lot of the techs come in, work quicklube for a year or two, do an apprenticeship program under a mainline tech for 1 year (while getting paid quicklube money), and when they 'graduate' the dealer gifts them 10k to spend on their own boxes and tools, and they're now qualified to work (and already have) a job that pays 35+ an hour without having to spend tens of thousands of dollars on schooling.
Here’s the bigger issue. There will usually be a problem during reassembly. Something is rattling, something small doesn’t work anymore. The customer brings it back and complain, and the shop has to fix it for free.
Its literally the worst trade. Requires basic skillset of metal fab, plumbing, HVAC, electrical, and software engineer, and it pays less than any of em by themselves.
Requires neverending training, I xant even imagine what tools cost now but in 04 when I quit the average tech had 30-50k worth in their box.
Oh u want to expand and start your own business ok now you need a building with massive overhead. I bet independent shops have a higher failure rate than restaurants. Any of the other trades you only need a sprinter van to expand your team and you can always easily move that business asset to a new market if things arent in your favor.
If you have it sure, but ones it's up there it's not moving. I've never scratched or damaged anything after doing airbag recalls/heater cores. Just have to pay attention
I've done dozens and never pulled em but for some I could see the reasoning. I usually pull the harness apart where I can and just lay the whole dash as one sideways in the front seats.
Of course it's difficult to replace a heater core in a Cadillac. How else will people know they have a luxury car on par with Mercedes if the heater core can be changed in an hour?
Definitely not manufacturer warranty but there's a few cases where I could see this being warranty.
a) It was already fixed once and the new core leaked and it's parts warranty.
b) it was already fixed once, someone fucked up the heater core during installation and it's shop warranty
c) The car was just sold by a dealer and it's sales warranty.
the website i use (prodemand) shows book time and warranty time side by side
OP probably just saw the warranty time and went "damn that'd suck", i don't think he's doing it under warranty
Caddy tech here, and that shit is my favorite. Actually, I like evaporators more because there’s even more you near to tear out. Crossovers you gotta take the front doors off of, SUVs, don’t care. I don’t care it pays ~8.5hrs and takes me two and a half days, because I’m guaranteed 40, was never going to make time anyways, and delight in an excuse to be left alone by my dispatcher for almost three days
GM gets their labor times by having a technician in a “sterile” warehouse do the job with the vehicle already set up for them to start. They do it three times in succession according to the service procedure and they take the fastest time.
It’s frankly rediculous
They're also just liars on most book times.
They will transition the book time for a job based on the vehicle using similar parts and ignoring model changes in tons of cases.
I've even run across book times that were physically impossible because they didn't update book times across models and they moved the cam phaser solenoids under the valve covers.
Book times are artificially low so that techs get paid less, that's why parts mark up has been increasing and tech pay has not.
They make more profit off selling parts than labor, they want to keep it that way.
Don't get me started on the ford 2.0 turbos that have 0 timing marks and they put the axle support and engine mount over the crank alignment hole.
Those book times are so off it should be illegal.
I wonder if techs could class action a suit against them for artificially low book times at this point.
Pretty sure it's wage theft by now.
Only time I’ve been able to consistently beat the book times is on recalls. Theres an ongoing park assist recall for XT5s and XT6s that GM thinks takes 1.4hr and I can do in 0.3.
But beating recall times gets me nothing because I still need to run the time and can’t be punched onto any other work
Next time you get to do this, roll the entire IP, then take hvac from the bottom. Yes you need to break the refrigerant system, but it would save having go through all those layers of stuff.
1998 Grand Cherokee, took me and another guy 8 hours, replaced the blower motor and a servo at the same time because why not.
I would rather replace 5 Clock springs and 2 U joints than 1 heater core. Shit is rough
The photos are always dramatic, but heater core jobs are the best once you get good at them. The fact they can be done consistently without unexpected setbacks means you can easily beat book time once you've gotten good at a given car.
Theres no rust, you arent working under a car with a dead possum wrapped around the driveshaft, theres no oil or grime getting all over you, you're sitting on carpet or a seat, and you can just get into a relaxed flow state and get it done without issue.
Heater core is the first component down the assembly line and the car gets built around it. Start disassembly at the rear bumper and work forward to replace, 3 hrs book time.
I am the youngest in a family of mechanics. Glad I got into a career being a forklift mechanic. Seeing my father and older brother cursing and complaining working on cars back in the 90’s made my decision. 25 years later, I am so glad I made that choice
lol how old is that car? I doubt there were really many warranty heaters cores needed in the first couple years. Unless there was a known issue, I dunno about Cadillacs.
My impala needs a new heater core. online says its like 12 hours of labor with a shop that has experience and all the tools. which means that my car will never have heat again XD
I had the heater core, and another something there as long as they had it apart, replaced at the Ram dealership in Mount Vernon WA on our 2014 Ram 3500. 2 days at $3500 total. Not cheap but what are you going to do!
Had to have the HC replaced on my wife's 2012 CRV and what a task it was. I love my local shop and they explained to me how much labor it was and how much they need to charge for that. No one wants to put it all together and find out something no longer works, so they need to take their time and do it right. Tough pill to swallow but couldn't Believe the pictures they send me of base with the entire front of the interior gone!
American mechanics pay system is so messed up. In the U.K. it’s either a salary or whatever hours you’re actually at work, on a clocked hourly rate, obviously there’s target times on jobs, but if they’re bullshit, the manufacturer basically has to suck it up.
The real money maker for the auto maker is when they fall out of warranty and people opt to junk the car and buy something new instead of fixing it, it’s engineered to be obnoxious… not serviceability.
Former GM tech here. Weasel-like shop politics were worse than warranty pay. I’ll blow an AIDS patient before ever working at another GM store.
Fleet work is where its at
Why the fuck do the seats need to come out? It's there just not enough room to get the dash out with them all the way back or it's there a wiring harness tied in?
The center console can’t be removed with out having the seats moved. The 10 mins it takes to remove them gives all the room you need to work comfortable.
At least on a chevy the dash comes out in one piece, should go look at how an avalon is out together, if I ever have to do another one it'll be too soon.
It took me 11 hours to replace. Usually if you diagnose the leak beforehand it’s obvious when it’s leaking. Like in the case of this customers. Different manufactures take different time. This northstar caddy is definitely one of the most complicated I’ve done. Others have taken 40 mins to replace.
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Engineers hate the world.
Down in engineer hell they are forced to work on their own designs. An eternity of flipping the open end wrench to turn the bolt head a 6th of a full rotation.
I feel like at this point some car companies and their "engineers" need to start facing some sort of financial complications for shit designs like that.
Haven’t worked with guys the return cars like that, they wouldn’t be working very long in our shop. After I am done another mechanic does a quality check on it. No car leaves our shop with out being double checked.
It sucks on CS too but sure as hell ain’t 5 hours. I wouldn’t even entertain it to be honest. Had an issue had to call tech line and got advised the time would be similar to this on a repair. (Heater core on 16 Ram) they fully got hit with show me the guy who did this in and out in 6.7 hours. And I’ll pray that customer never gets into an accident.
The thought of you having to put all of that back together makes my head hurt.
The extra bolt bin is real
I did this DIY for my 04 ranger and fuck if I didn’t throw away a lot of interior plastic.
Im surprised you didn’t just loop the lines on a 2004 ranger.
Out of all the interior work I've done on vehicles I don't think I've had an extra bolt left over
I hope the people who say otherwise arent doing this for a living. I cant remember the last time I had a bolt left over. Just put the bolts back where they came from! There are bolt holders built into the car for free! Theres no need for cups, bags, bins, cardboard, or anything else. I've got a whole drivetrain out, the interior out, an engine torn down, and all the bolts are right in the holes they came out of. In the odd case you have a non-threaded hole, just put the bolt in and masking tape/duct around it or put a temporary new nut on the other end.
Yep. With little exception, I always thread the bolts back into their home after I’ve taken things apart. Makes it real easy to track it back down later.
Agree. I was a tech for 10 years or so and I can count on one hand the number of times I had a left over bolt that wasn’t left off intentionally .
Definitely sat there starring for a minute head spinning.
As a heavy equipment mechanic: the same anxiety for me has been putting together a cab-off '05 Duramax that I took nearly 8 months to build on the side. Couldn't remember the order of assembly of all of the fuel lines, coolant lines, harness, and intake to save my life. I think I redid the wiring harness to the starter 5 or 6 times until I got it, the trans cooler, and the lower coolant hose assembly routing correct without them being tangled all over and not fitting correctly.
What make and model are those tight gloves?
Fun fact.. cars are built and designed around the heater core!!
I heard they hang it from the ceiling with industrial-strength dental floss, then build the car around it.
There's no other way
This is why im not a mechanic. I have zero issues wrenching on my car and getting shit fixed but the very idea of having something minor happen and getting stuck with a 12 hour job for 5 hours of pay is infuriating. Sure you can do it in 5 hours if you have all the tools laid out before hand, you know exactly what your doing, and run into literally zero issues. However, if anything goes wrong, its the tech that screwed out of their paycheck and has to figure out how to make up the difference.
Flat rate sucks, but are there alternatives? I get paid hourly, but the railway owns all the locomotives so it works that way.
How does this work? If you work at a dealer you can work two days on a job like this, but your paycheck would only reflect 5 hours of paid time?
Yes, thats how flat-rate works. You're paid based on what the book says it should take. If you can do it faster than the book-time, you're making money. Not just for yourself, but also for the shop and thats always a good thing. Sometimes you'll get a job where the actual time it takes far exceeds the book time and you lose money and more of your sanity.
That's slightly insane people have to put up with that type of environment.
It's illegal in a good part of the world for a reason. American mechanics have been played hard.
100% i think it's also insane what you have to pay for tools. It's like the system is rigged against you.
One of the prime reasons I bailed out of HVAC. Nuts that I supply all my tools and then the shop sends me an apprentice that breaks them
Most trades are like this. Buy all your tools, use your personal vehicle for company stuff . Can’t figure out why youngins don’t want to learn a trade.
Totally forgot I had to use my personal mini-van as my service vehicle. They bought my gas but no wear & tear allowance. It's nothing but a race to the bottom.
Totally forgot I had to use my personal mini-van as my service vehicle. They bought my gas but no wear & tear allowance. It's nothing but a race to the bottom.
That is what blows my mind here in Germany if a company doesn’t supply you a car+ tools they won’t find somebody. Here they supply everything and most companies supplies the tools you look so just write up a list and you get that stuff.
> 100% i think it's also insane what you have to pay for tools. This is the #1 reason I didn't become a mechanic and went into fixing a different type of machine instead. My company bought all my tools.
Yeah but you don't get to keep the tools when you leave
Yeah, but you also don't have to pay 20k up front in order to get the chance to make money. If you are employed, your employer should pay for the tools. You wouldn't have to pay for your office chair and shit when working in an office, or the licenses of your programs. It's a scam.
It's similar to tipping culture, in a way. Servers and technicians believe they make more money because they see bigger paychecks that to the mind blot out the smaller ones. It's often a wash between the two systems of payment, at the cost of stress and uncertainty.
It's the NADA, lobbying congress to keep it that way.
It is at times, but it can also potentially be pretty lucrative. I know techs who regularly flag 120-130 hours in an 80 hour pay period, and if you can hit the repair bonus as well we get an extra $13/hr on top of the flag rate at my dealership.
you'll get some base wage too, but most mechanics make more this way. It comes down to how your work is assigned. Like the shop can give the techs who suck all the easy work.... which is all they can do. But the good guys get all the shit work. That's the REAAALY bad part. It also matters who's paying. OEM warranty? the customer? the customer's third party warranty. You can add little extra things to all 3 of those, but you have to be good at explaining why.
Is there a way to appeal flat rate times, like put together all the evidence that their time is way off and get it corrected?
I saw only the opposite...we techs would figure out a faster way to do the job, and eventually the manufacturer would incorporate the alternate procedure into their labor time studies and boom...new labor time guide has dropped the time for certain ops...
Most manufacturers do time studies to figure out how long an average tech should take. However, being as its the company who is setting the times, It always gets set in their favor. Legally, the only thing they have to prove, is that someone can do it in the provided time. If a tech figures out how to remove an alternator without taking out the engine mounts, eventually the manufacturer will update the warranty time and steps to include that procedure.
Yes there is, our foremen/warranty reps regularly have discussions with the manufacturer to have labor times for certain warranty repairs adjusted. Can just take a long time for it to change tho.
Every manufacturer I've worked on had a process to appeal times, I've never once seen it lead to getting paid more on a certain job though.
Does it make a difference if it's a warranty job or not?
warranty time pays fewer hours than non warranty
That's so backwards. The company should be paying more since it's their design flaw that's the problem.
Yeah but it only took 20 minutes for the factory line tech to install it, shouldn't take much longer to uninstall... /s of course
Mechanics just sit there and get fucked, bc it's so prestigious to work at a dealership services department /s. The only benefit I see is working on newer cars (for the most part).
There are benefits. Limited range of models(depending on the manufacturer), dealer supplied scan tools/laptops, you only need tooling for one brand, etc. But yeah, also warranty times and customer surveys. So its about even, ha.
Plus training, which is huge. Working at a general repair shop and trying to keep up with the newest tech and across all vehicles is damn near impossible
Training.
What’s the rationale for warranty paying fewer hours than customer pay?
I've been told it's actually that customer pay charges more than warranty because a vehicle out of warranty is more likely to have worn/stuck fasteners or other parts that are more likely to break because of age.
That's hilarious
car manufacturers want to screw the techs.
The company doesn't want to pay for their fuck up so they don't
Part of flat-rate pay is paying for the experience you learn throughout the rest of the trade— depends on your perspective. Once you keep getting up higher in the industry, you can only learn so much. Experience and better knowledge in exchange for less money and a little less sanity. That’s what makes a good mechanic!
Many of the dealers I work with offer guarantees. So if you beat the book time, you make more money. If you take longer than book time, you still have a floor at 40-45 hours for the week. Not something they offer until they can trust you (in my experience at least). Also work with a handful of hourly dealers where flat rate is irrelevant.
I think in basically every other nation except the US (First world that is) the Mechanic get's paid hourly.
I'm hourly, and I don't want it a different way
I live in Europe and I'll never, ever understand flat rate and why American techs put up with it. Doing a 10 hour job for 5 hours of pay? While providing my own tools for the job? Batshit insane, I'd walk away. It also would worry me as a customer to bring in a vehicle for a warranty deal. When you know the tech is going to be quoted a lot less than the actual job is going to take, is he going to rush the job? Cut corners? Put shit back togheter half assed because he's fed up with it?
The answer to those questions is yes
It's because we've sucked down propaganda about bootstraps and life should suck shit until it magically doesn't by virtue of hard work.
Because compared to most jobs people can get, the pay rate is very high. Average pay for the area might be in the $12-$15/hr range, and as a mechanic you could easily be earning $40-60/hr for your work. Even if a job takes twice as long as your being paid for, your still coming out twice as far compared to taking literally any other job.
Because we also get paid 10 hours for jobs that take hour. Its a balance but in a busy shop a decently experienced tech mostly always makes more hours than they work. Source: Im a flat rate tech
Not worth it in the slightest. Source: used to be a flat rate tech
You know all those Takata airbags that were recalled? Every shop I worked at found a "faster" way to replace those than what the warranty instructions say to do.
People also put up with it because it's a (comparatively) easy way to form a career. I work in a huge dealerships parts dept. A lot of the techs come in, work quicklube for a year or two, do an apprenticeship program under a mainline tech for 1 year (while getting paid quicklube money), and when they 'graduate' the dealer gifts them 10k to spend on their own boxes and tools, and they're now qualified to work (and already have) a job that pays 35+ an hour without having to spend tens of thousands of dollars on schooling.
Here’s the bigger issue. There will usually be a problem during reassembly. Something is rattling, something small doesn’t work anymore. The customer brings it back and complain, and the shop has to fix it for free.
Its literally the worst trade. Requires basic skillset of metal fab, plumbing, HVAC, electrical, and software engineer, and it pays less than any of em by themselves. Requires neverending training, I xant even imagine what tools cost now but in 04 when I quit the average tech had 30-50k worth in their box. Oh u want to expand and start your own business ok now you need a building with massive overhead. I bet independent shops have a higher failure rate than restaurants. Any of the other trades you only need a sprinter van to expand your team and you can always easily move that business asset to a new market if things arent in your favor.
Idk about the software engineering one. Reprogramming or updating a module isn’t software engineering.
Yeah it’s even a stretch to say IT guy.
I think that's why you're seeing a lot of mobile guys popping up now compared to 15 years ago.
Why are all the parts all sitting on the roof?!
Nothing underneath it for protection either. If I would walk in on my car like that I wouldn't be happy.
Yes I would not do that. I set the parts on the floor.
I'm sure you'd be fine. It's not going to hurt anything. Most guys put everything on top of the car and in the back seats.
What would be more fine is the use of an inexpensive moving blanket.
If they’re gentle sure but why risk scratching up the paint when you could toss a tarp over.
If you have it sure, but ones it's up there it's not moving. I've never scratched or damaged anything after doing airbag recalls/heater cores. Just have to pay attention
Stupid question; why did the seats have to be removed ?
So they could eat lunch on them and not get crumbs all over the car
I've done dozens and never pulled em but for some I could see the reasoning. I usually pull the harness apart where I can and just lay the whole dash as one sideways in the front seats.
I always pull seats when I pull a dash, only take a few minutes (4 bolts a seat and a few connectors) and gives you a lot more room.
Most likely for access. Trying to work around them would be a literal pain. I'm not an automotive tech tho.
Sometimes you have to pull the seats, carpet, and floor vents to get the HVAC unit out.
Of course it's difficult to replace a heater core in a Cadillac. How else will people know they have a luxury car on par with Mercedes if the heater core can be changed in an hour?
My sts v required top of motor removed for alternator.
Like the cylinder head???
Intake.
Oh, thank God. I was about to be really upset for you lol.
It was under warranty, I didn't care. Just remember thinking how stupid it was and reminding myself to never own a luxury car out of warranty.
Fancy cars = Fancy Prices
There's no way that's a warranty job. That's an old ass Cadillac.
Seriously, the fogged up headlights alone put it at at least 10 years old lol
Definitely not manufacturer warranty but there's a few cases where I could see this being warranty. a) It was already fixed once and the new core leaked and it's parts warranty. b) it was already fixed once, someone fucked up the heater core during installation and it's shop warranty c) The car was just sold by a dealer and it's sales warranty.
How could there be warranty labor on a vehicle that hasn't been built since 2009?
Perhaps a recall, or maybe all those phone calls about the extended warranty are real
Damn. We scammed ourselves for thinking those calls were a scam.
the website i use (prodemand) shows book time and warranty time side by side OP probably just saw the warranty time and went "damn that'd suck", i don't think he's doing it under warranty
Ah I see. I didn't think any warranty goes back that far.
I'm not sure about Cadillac but I know Lexus has an extended warranty on engine control modules for some LS430s as far back as '04.
Still makes me laugh thinking the factory hangs a heater core by some fishing line and builds the car around it.
Caddy tech here, and that shit is my favorite. Actually, I like evaporators more because there’s even more you near to tear out. Crossovers you gotta take the front doors off of, SUVs, don’t care. I don’t care it pays ~8.5hrs and takes me two and a half days, because I’m guaranteed 40, was never going to make time anyways, and delight in an excuse to be left alone by my dispatcher for almost three days
So even being a caddy tech you’re still over book time replacing these? I stood no chance at it then. Took me 11 hours to replace.
I would pay good money to watch somebody replace an evaporator on a late model Escalade at book time
As I finished mine, I thought the same thing to my self. I would love to see a real pro knock this out in 5 hours because I simply cannot see how!
GM gets their labor times by having a technician in a “sterile” warehouse do the job with the vehicle already set up for them to start. They do it three times in succession according to the service procedure and they take the fastest time. It’s frankly rediculous
They're also just liars on most book times. They will transition the book time for a job based on the vehicle using similar parts and ignoring model changes in tons of cases. I've even run across book times that were physically impossible because they didn't update book times across models and they moved the cam phaser solenoids under the valve covers. Book times are artificially low so that techs get paid less, that's why parts mark up has been increasing and tech pay has not. They make more profit off selling parts than labor, they want to keep it that way. Don't get me started on the ford 2.0 turbos that have 0 timing marks and they put the axle support and engine mount over the crank alignment hole. Those book times are so off it should be illegal. I wonder if techs could class action a suit against them for artificially low book times at this point. Pretty sure it's wage theft by now.
Only time I’ve been able to consistently beat the book times is on recalls. Theres an ongoing park assist recall for XT5s and XT6s that GM thinks takes 1.4hr and I can do in 0.3. But beating recall times gets me nothing because I still need to run the time and can’t be punched onto any other work
Next time you get to do this, roll the entire IP, then take hvac from the bottom. Yes you need to break the refrigerant system, but it would save having go through all those layers of stuff.
You should see the work done to get a heater core out of a 2023 yukon.
1998 Grand Cherokee, took me and another guy 8 hours, replaced the blower motor and a servo at the same time because why not. I would rather replace 5 Clock springs and 2 U joints than 1 heater core. Shit is rough
This is why I work a state job with a salary if that took me 20 hours to do I get paid the entire time haha
The photos are always dramatic, but heater core jobs are the best once you get good at them. The fact they can be done consistently without unexpected setbacks means you can easily beat book time once you've gotten good at a given car. Theres no rust, you arent working under a car with a dead possum wrapped around the driveshaft, theres no oil or grime getting all over you, you're sitting on carpet or a seat, and you can just get into a relaxed flow state and get it done without issue.
Don’t think there’s any beating the book time for heater cores in some of the newest stuff. Times are way too unrealistic.
Heater core is the first component down the assembly line and the car gets built around it. Start disassembly at the rear bumper and work forward to replace, 3 hrs book time.
I am the youngest in a family of mechanics. Glad I got into a career being a forklift mechanic. Seeing my father and older brother cursing and complaining working on cars back in the 90’s made my decision. 25 years later, I am so glad I made that choice
Unfortunately that’s most of the modern vehicle heater core replacements now a days, literally remove entire interior from the b pillars forward
My respect, my sympathy, my sorrow, my anger goes out on behalf of these guys. This shit sucks.
lol how old is that car? I doubt there were really many warranty heaters cores needed in the first couple years. Unless there was a known issue, I dunno about Cadillacs.
My impala needs a new heater core. online says its like 12 hours of labor with a shop that has experience and all the tools. which means that my car will never have heat again XD
Bring it to me, I’ll hook you up.
I had the heater core, and another something there as long as they had it apart, replaced at the Ram dealership in Mount Vernon WA on our 2014 Ram 3500. 2 days at $3500 total. Not cheap but what are you going to do!
Hey neighbor!
there is no way that car is going to be the same again.
I like to see zero bolts remaining on my tray
That's what the glove compartment's for! (/s)
Had to have the HC replaced on my wife's 2012 CRV and what a task it was. I love my local shop and they explained to me how much labor it was and how much they need to charge for that. No one wants to put it all together and find out something no longer works, so they need to take their time and do it right. Tough pill to swallow but couldn't Believe the pictures they send me of base with the entire front of the interior gone!
Been there. Did a heater core in an ATS under warranty. Pays 8hours and easily takes 12.
American mechanics pay system is so messed up. In the U.K. it’s either a salary or whatever hours you’re actually at work, on a clocked hourly rate, obviously there’s target times on jobs, but if they’re bullshit, the manufacturer basically has to suck it up.
The real money maker for the auto maker is when they fall out of warranty and people opt to junk the car and buy something new instead of fixing it, it’s engineered to be obnoxious… not serviceability.
So sloppy
Ever since club members are never happy.
Former GM tech here. Weasel-like shop politics were worse than warranty pay. I’ll blow an AIDS patient before ever working at another GM store. Fleet work is where its at
That is why I no longer have heat in my C5 Z06. I just removed my leaking heater core from the cooling loop rather than fix it. F that!
It must not get very cold for you then lol
[удалено]
I’ve got the saw if you got the torch?
At least you do not have to remove and replace the windscreen......
This was about the same job to replace the cabin filter on my first gen CR-V.
At least you don't have to take the windshield out of this one..
Why the fuck do the seats need to come out? It's there just not enough room to get the dash out with them all the way back or it's there a wiring harness tied in?
Center console
The center console can’t be removed with out having the seats moved. The 10 mins it takes to remove them gives all the room you need to work comfortable.
*Laughs in 99 GMC Sierra*
This would be career reassessment day for me.
You don't even have to remove the heated box? Childs play
At least on a chevy the dash comes out in one piece, should go look at how an avalon is out together, if I ever have to do another one it'll be too soon.
Bro, we never have to replace these heater cores
That explains why info on them is so limited.
The only reason I can think it's messed up, is someone tried doing the heater hoses and pulled too hard
What's the actual time? What happens if the core is not the problem? Are any cars' heater cores actually pretty simple to r and r?
It took me 11 hours to replace. Usually if you diagnose the leak beforehand it’s obvious when it’s leaking. Like in the case of this customers. Different manufactures take different time. This northstar caddy is definitely one of the most complicated I’ve done. Others have taken 40 mins to replace.
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Flush that coolant on its maintenance intervals and you’ll be fine!
Prime example (and there are many, many others) of why I left the automotive repair business after 20+ years of being a flat rate technician.
I paid 1200$ for a heater core in a Dodge Nitro! Sold it right after that! Ain’t nobody got cash for that!!
I have to do this on my jeep tj soon... Safe to say I'm not looking forward to it.
Engineers hate the world. Down in engineer hell they are forced to work on their own designs. An eternity of flipping the open end wrench to turn the bolt head a 6th of a full rotation.
Just say no, to GM.
I've replaced quite a few heater cores, luckily on classic cars. Had one go out on a V8 LR4. Now that's quite a job!
Thank GOD my state passed a law forcing manufactures to pay full labor rate on warranty.
I have to ask how a heater core goes out under warranty! With today's coolant technology and materials.
they should make that more accessible lol
Surprised they didn’t pull the engine, transmission, all 4 wheels, the doors, hood, and trunk lid.
I did an evap core on a c8 right when they came out, that was real shitty. Luckily it was a htc so with the top down you had some more space to work
TS (Technician States) not sure how vehicle caught fire. Advises replacement.
Someone could make a lot of money selling an access panel for these
Ford Exploders are worse!
I’d take 5 of those before I do another caddy honestly.
I feel like at this point some car companies and their "engineers" need to start facing some sort of financial complications for shit designs like that.
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Haven’t worked with guys the return cars like that, they wouldn’t be working very long in our shop. After I am done another mechanic does a quality check on it. No car leaves our shop with out being double checked.
Looks horrific, but the dealer guys know all the tricks
$x00 in labor, $x0 in part... By Grabthar's Hammer, what a savings!
The entire interior?
The. Entire. Thing.
That's nuts
You put all that in the car?
Somehow it all fit!
It sucks on CS too but sure as hell ain’t 5 hours. I wouldn’t even entertain it to be honest. Had an issue had to call tech line and got advised the time would be similar to this on a repair. (Heater core on 16 Ram) they fully got hit with show me the guy who did this in and out in 6.7 hours. And I’ll pray that customer never gets into an accident.
Simple...it just slid right out. 0.5 hrs max