Sudden drop on MPG causes?

wildmanbaker wrote:

10forty2 wrote:

wa8yxm wrote:
Do different shops.... Well, YES.

Some shops have a bunch of 20 something kids just out of grease monkey school who basically have a problem telling the difference between a piston and a valve.

Some shops have a 50 something gruff old guy who has been working on motors since he souped up his go-cart back in his single digit age days and who can tell what's wrong with your engine just by the sound it makes as you pull into the lot.

Ok, I exaggerate a bit, but that is not far from the truth.

When my 8.1 had that same kind of problem no codes were set by the ECC, the Check Light did not come on.. But the 50 something's gruff old guy found it in less than 10 minutes.

No truer words have been spoken!!! Today's new mechanics are nothing more than parts-swappers. They have no idea how to diagnose a problem and actually fix it. They read from a troubleshooting chart either on a computer or in a book and then start swapping parts until the problem stops. And if an engine doesn't throw an error code, there's nothing wrong with it. It can't be, right? I mean the engineers designed the thing so that if something were wrong it would tell you. Technological advancement is not always an advancement. I'll take an old 60's engine without a computer any day. :D

Now wait a minute, yes, dealer shops have very good, in depth scanning equipment.
20 something kids? We all started out at some very young age. The young kids will be able to find the really hard problems without being a parts swapper. The 50 something gruff guy, may also be a good trouble shooter, or just has a lot of good experience. Lets not label people without knowing. Today's "grease monkey schools" are very good, because they know the latest technical equipment.

I respect your opinion and I know that for a majority of problems the computer can tell them exactly what to do. My experience with new mechanics today is that they don't really understand HOW the system(s) work...therefore they can't really diagnose problems. They can only compare symptoms against what a book tells them and then start replacing parts as recommended. I am an Electronics Engineer by schooling and learned to repair electronic equipment at the component level by tracing out voltages/resistances and actually finding the problem component. It may have been the component itself or it may have been the pathway to the component that was causing the problem. Electronics today involves using another computer to find the computer that is causing the problem inside the computer. And the recommended repair is to replace the entire circuit board instead of actually finding the problem component. It's just a different world out there.... ;-)