Humble Mechanic – Page 16 – Humble Mechanic

Sort A Tool Wrench Tray, Product Review

As a professional auto mechanic, tool storage is very important to me. At work, all of my tools are organized in a way that helps me be neat and efficient. It took me years of fine tuning my tool. I sort tools in the following way:

Most frequently used
Size order, like a set of wrenches would be
Type of tools, wrenches with wrenches, sockets with sockets, and so on
By size of the tool, this is based on the size of the drawer they are in.

I have seen tons of different types of tool organizers. Some are great, some are junk, and some are crazy expensive. When the folks at Sort-A-Tool asked me to review their Wrench Sorting Tray, I was honored. So let’s take a closer look at the Wrench Sorting Tray.

About the Wrench Tray
The tray is made from hard black plastic. It can hold up to 28 wrenches. The Wrench tray has a footprint of 13.5″ x 10″ x 1.5″ which means it will fit most tool drawers. Included with the tray are labeling stickers to help you quick identity wrench sizes. One other cool thing is these are made in the USA!

The Pros

The hard plastic is durable and easily cleanable
Separations for each wrench
Holds a lot of wrenches
the spot for small wrenches is raised making it easy to get them out.
There are 2 parts trays built in
Labels for quick size identification
Makes great use of the space
It is portable with the wrenches moving
Almost impossible to put wrenches in the wrong spot
Its small enough to fit in most drawers of most tool boxes
It will not scratch up your wrenches

The Cons
Before I talk about the cons I just want to say all the “cons” I talk about are personal feelings. It comes only from the way I store tools. Keep in mind, they may not be an issue for you

If you use the labels, metric and standard wrenches are mixed together.
It only holds up to a 19mm wrench
The “sizing bar” at the top was a little strange to use for me. I asked my wife to take a look at this feature. She liked it saying “it was easy to find the right spot for the wrench”
There is limited flexibility in storage

Final Thoughts
I really like this tray! As I said above, any “cons” I wrote about were extremely minor. Almost to the point of nit picking. I think this is one of the better wrench holders I have put my hands on. I usually try and look at a product like this from 2 sides “Is it good for a pro mechanic” and “Is it good for a home toolbox”. I think this tray is great for BOTH! You can get them from Amazon SortATool Wrench Tray, They are also coming out with a socket storage tray later this year. I am excited to see it.

Have questions about this product? Please post them in the comments below. If you have a product you would like reviewed, please use this contact me form. I will be more than happy to provide a honest review of any product.

SORTATOOL will get you sorted out! SORTATOOL is a tool sorting and storing product line for professionals and enthusiastic DIY mechanics. The patented wrench sorting and storing tray has been a popular product in the US for over 10 years. A novel socket sorting & storing tray will be launched around April 2014, and additional sorting and storage solutions for all the other things in tool chests and boxes are in the pipeline.

February 13, 2014/10 Comments/by Charles

Humble Mechanic

Miscommunication on MSN article

Hey everyone. I had something come up yesterday, and I want to clear it up.

I did an interview a while back for a writer. She was doing an article about ways to avoid overpaying for car repairs. It was an article meant to give folks some basic tips on saving money. Overall I think that the article was a pretty helpful. It was cool for me to be quoted in the article.

That is until I got a billion emails on Monday. Not really a billion, but it sure felt like it. Some of the emails were wondering if I was misquoted or there was a miscommunication. Some where saying that I was NUTS! To be fair, I could see why someone would think that. Here is what was written:

“You need to know when scheduled services are due,” says Charles, mechanic and blogger at HumbleMechanic.com. “You need to know that at 30,000 miles your car needs to have an oil change and the tires rotated so a dishonest mechanic doesn’t do it at 5,000 miles.”

Now, I am not sure if it is the way that it is worded, or the lack of context, but it could read like I am saying “only change your oil every 30,000 miles. There are 2 ways that I think what I said was misunderstood.

It should say 10,000 miles, NOT 30,000 miles. That would follow VW’s recommend service interval.
It would say SERVICE not oil change at 30,000 miles. Think of something like spark plugs. A service interval MIGHT BE 30,000 miles. You would not want to replace them at 5,000.

I am not 100% sure where the miscommunication came. We talked about a lot of things. I may have said something in a confusing way. Or it may be just a simple typo. The problem with folks that live and breathe a topic, they tend to skip over really simple but important things. It is a huge flaw of mine. I am trying to work with her to get the article changed. I want there to be no confusion.

I also had said that people need to follow their owners book. I also said to take what the owners books says with a grain of salt. Giving the example of people that live at the beach may need to replace an air filter more often. Just like in the south US, I replace my pollen filter more than the book says, and more than I would if I still lived in Illinois.

Here is the thing to remember. Many people that write for big publications are writers. I respect the heck out of that. But often times they are writing about a subject they have no background in. My buddy John is a big time pro writer. He writes about video games among a ton of other things. He really know what the hell he is talking about. But often times people writing “5 ways to XYZ” have no clue what they are talking about. That means if there is a typo, they would not know the difference.

Here is a link to the article if you are interested. I spent about 3 hours last night responding to comments. To the point that MSN would not let me comment any more. I guess they thought that I was a spammer. If you read that article, and have any questions about what I said, please contact me, or post in the comments. I will be more than happy to address any issues you may have.

The plus side is, the article drove a ton of traffic to the blog. I like the fact that it helped our community grow.

CheersCharles

February 12, 2014/4 Comments/by Charles

Humble Mechanic

2014 Chicago Auto Show

I was lucky enough to spend a few days last week at the Chicago Auto Show. It is the oldest auto show in the USA. For me the Chicago show has a really special place in my heart. As most of you know, I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. The show falls right around my birthday, so when we went, it was extra awesome. The folks at the show tweeted out something about the show in 1987 where Walter Payton was signing autographs. I remember that show. 🙂

This year, I attended the media days for the show. This takes place the 2 days before the show is open to the public. Day 1 is was media day. That was when the manufacturers did their be reveals. Day 2 was social media day. This was a lower key day with plenty of cool manufacturer activities.

Overall I had a great time at the show. It really took me back to being a kid and seeing all the cool cars, and future technology that is showcased. To the point that I know I missed things. I really get caught up in the awesome. So I may be missing some specs from certain cars. 😉

Doing a ride along at the Toyota TRD course.
A pro driver took me around the course, up and down hills on rollers, and even fording 2ft of water. Plus the folks at the Toyota booths were some of the nicest people I met all day.

Unveiling of the Rockstar Beetle driven by Tanner Foust
I am an extremely causal fan of racing at all levels. I will tell you that the excitement around this car was crazy! The swarm of reporters around the cars and drivers was the biggest I seen. For me the coolest part of the release was the sound of the Beetle. I am digging around to find some of the video I shot.

Hyundai Chop Shop
This was so cool. Hyundai paired up with the TV show “The Walking Dead” and developed an app where you design your own zombie survival vehicle. They had 3 cars all decked out in zombie defense gear. If you have a smart phone check out the app. It is such a cool idea.

Engine displays and cut-a-ways
It should come as no surprise that I was excited about engine displays. The surprising thing for me is the number of engines the show had on display. Most were nonworking models. A few displays were behind glass, and had actual moving parts with lighting. It is so cool to see the inner parts of an engine in that way.

The city life
One awesome benefit of this show is seeing family and friends. It is always great hit the city, have some great times with friends and family. And like always a stop at Lou Malnati’s Pizza, Bad Apple, and Half Acre brewing are a must. This year I even got to check out Hop Leaf for the first time. All some of my favorite spots in Chicago.

I know you have all been waiting for more pictures so here we go. I also uploaded a bunch of pictures to my Flickr account. You can see them all at 2014 Chicago Auto Show Pictures #FuelCAS. It is hard to show a ton of pictures on my site. That is an upgrade that I am working on. I uploaded about 200 pictures to Flickr!

I also want to mention that the folks that ran the Toyota booths and Chevy booths were by far the nicest. Some other manufacturers could learn a lot from the way Chevy and Toyota did it. It really bummed me out that some of the “brand ambassadors” didn’t know the brand, and seemed like they didn’t care about the brand. It really hurts when it’s a brand I care so much about.

If you are a social media fan, I recommend following the following awesome peeps on Instagram. Most of them have blogs, and are on twitter too. Seriously check these folks out!

Maria Talks Chevy on Instagram
Probably the standout star of the CAS instagram scene.
The Greased Bunny on Instagram
Another rock star for Chevy on IG
The Rock Father on Instgram
A fellow blogger and great pics on IG
CleanMPG on Twitter
Wayne has great info on MPG
Miss Motor Mouth on Twitter
More great auto coverage
Chicago Auto Show on Instagram. They are on FB and Twitter too
The folks running the SM did an AWESOME job. There were a ton of IG and Twitter contests. It made a great day even more fun!
Digital Megaphone on Twitter
They ran an awesome IG video contest. I entered, and got crushed by some awesome videos. I was WAY out of my league.

February 10, 2014/9 Comments/by Charles

Humble Mechanic

Thoughts on 2014 Super Bowl Ads

I am sure by now you have seen non-stop coverage of the this years Super Bowl. From the game coverage, commercial coverage, and cooking shows, we have been full throttle for The Super Bowl. I even read an article about why the Puppy Bowl is better than the actual “Big Game”. Yeah, I really did.

This year, like most years, I don’t really care who wins. I think the game has become an overdone spectacle. Even the commercials are ridicules. All that changed for me last year when I hopped over to Twitter and followed the action there. There are some brilliant folks that were on their game last year. Like this little gem from OREO, when the power went out. I am all about the banter that companies have back and forth.

This year didn’t disappoint either. Overall I thought the commercials were good, not great. I got the feeling like companies were all about getting a big movie star, but no content. But there were a few gems in the mix. My favorite was the commercial from Jaguar.

I was really looking forward to seeing what VW and Audi would bring to the table. The VW “Wings” commercial was not too bad. The idea of “when a VW hits 100,000 a German engineer gets their wings” is funny. What was even better was what Victoria’s Secrets had to say about it. 😉 I also had to throw my 2 cents in too.

No rainbow? RT@VictoriasSecret: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Thanks, @VW. #SB48 pic.twitter.com/WwZaUOGSCR

— Charles S (@HumbleMechanic) February 3, 2014

Audi had a commercial that I didn’t really get. I guess I got it, but didn’t care for it. Oddly enough Budweiser had the best Audi ad of the night. It is always hard for me to like a “Bud” ad. I don’t like the beer. I don’t like the company that owns them. I don’t like a lot about all “Big Beer”. But when it comes to Super Bowl ads, Budweiser has it on lock down. It is also easy to win me over with really cute puppies. Note the Audi ad at 47 seconds

Overall I had a great night watching the game, and hanging out on Twitter. If you are not big into things like Twitter and Instagram, I urge you to check it out. At least for “Big Game” type events. What did you think? Did you have a favorite commercial? Post your thoughts in the comments below. I am sure I missed some good stuff.

One More Update
I will be doing some traveling this week. For some crazy reason, I thought going to Chicago in February was a good idea. LOL Actually I will be doing some coverage of the Chicago Auto Show. For those of you that don’t know, I grew up just outside of Chicago. So the Chicago Auto Show is near and dear to my heart. Look for some cool stuff regarding that. Also, I am sure I will be complaining about how cold it is. 😉

February 3, 2014/2 Comments/by Charles

Tdi Diesel fuel system High Pressure Fuel Pump Failure

Humble Mechanic

Volkswagen TDI Cold Weather Issues

Happy Tuesday everyone. As you read this, my area is getting ready for a big snow storm. For the southern USA, this has been a crazy cold winter. We even seen temps as low as 8F. I know that some of you folks are cracking up right now. But for me that is record cold. With such cold weather, we have seen a huge run of issues with VW diesels. So today is a little about diesels and a mini Shop Shots, all in one. I have always had mixed thoughts on VW diesels.

Like I said you are getting a mini Shop Shots today. This is a picture of the inside of the high pressure fuel pump HPFP on a TDI Jetta. While this is not a cold weather problem, we have had a run of them at my dealer. For those that think this is due to gas, I assure you none of the last 5 or 6 had gas. The metal bits in the fuel are from the gut of the pump. We have even seen a Passat TDI and a Touareg TDI with fuel system failures. These repairs run from $4000,-$8000. VW has been covering most of them so that is good for customers **DISCLAIMER** I am not saying that VW is, or will cover this repair for you, or anyone you now.

Moving on to real cold issues with the Common Rail TDI. I posted this on Facebook last week. This is an updated charge cooler, intake pipe and some tubing. The issue is moisture freezing inside the cooler. This can prevent the TDI from starting. It can also go as far as causing major engine damage. We a Jetta at the shop now that we suspect having a bent connecting rod. It seems a small bit of ice can get up to the engine and cause the damage. Based on conversations, this is not the first one out there. I will be sure to post a picture of the damage when the engine is a part

There is one more issue I have seen that seems to plague the TDI in cold weather. That is turbo charger failure on the Common Rail TDI Passat. We had a car towed in with a glow plug light, check engine light, and no power. The faults were something related the car not having any power. (duh, it had no power) I did some checking and everything electrical checked out. Finally I removed the intake pipe and found that the compressor wheel was completely seized. It should turn freely, heck when spinning at top speed, some turbos can spin up to 100,000RPM. I do not have any pictures of that yet. I should be making the repair on Thursday.

After reading this, you must think I hate the VW TDI. That is just not true. I think the diesels are great. They have good MPG, tons of power, and are super clean. But there is no denying they are having some serious issues. The one good thing I can say is, VW has been great in taking care of TDI owners.

January 28, 2014/28 Comments/by Charles

Humble Mechanic

What A Mechanic Can Do With A Scan Tool

Hey everyone. I really have scan tools on the brain today. I know that we have talked about scan tools before, but I want to talk about them again. To say they are important to fixing cars would be the understatement of the year.

The main reason I have been thinking so much about scan tools is, I got a new laptop. You might be thinking “Charles, what does you getting a new laptop have to do with VW scan tools”. Well I picked this laptop up specifically to use as a VW scan tool. I picked up a small netbook from Asus. It is a pretty cool little laptop with a touch screen. I did shop around some, and realized we are at a transition point with laptops. They are trying to combine a tablet and a laptop. Sadly they are doing a so-so job. Just a heads up if you are planning for a new laptop soon.

There are a few reasons I wanted to get back to a laptop based scan tool at work.

Source: Ross-tech.com

With every factory update for scan tool, something gets messed up. This usually involves programming VW keys
You can count on the program running slower.
We almost always have a scanner down at the shop. Now we have 1 totally down, and one the Bluetooth doesn’t work.
There is also times were the working scan tools are all being used. I am no fan of waiting for a scan tool.

For the past 7 or 8 years, I have been using an aftermarket scan tool software from Ross-Tech called VCDS. It is scan tool software and cable built specifically for Volkswagen-Audi group cars. This software is awesome. It has always been ahead of VW factory software. We can do things with VCDS that would never happen with VW factory scan tools.

A few weeks ago, I had a 2013 Beetle come in with an ABS light. I pulled the codes and found I had a fault for the right rear speed sensor. After using the factory scanner to monitor the wheel speed, I felt like I was getting nowhere. I hooked up VCDS and graphed the readings of each wheel. Every so often, I could see the right rear wheel speed drop by a few mph. I wish I had the screen shot of that. Faster readings, more information, and the ability to see more info at one time, what is not to love.

There are some limitations to VCDS. It may come as a shock that VW has proprietary information. The main thing they keep under wraps is immobilizer information. We still need the factory VW scanner to program keys. I also can’t use VCDS for warranty work. VW has a diagnostic system called Guided Fault Finding GFF. Any car under warranty that requires any scan tool work must be done with GFF. This system runs all faults for the car, and creates a plan for a tech to perform. Sometimes it is great. Other times you spend 30 minutes pressing buttons and getting nowhere.

What can a mechanic do with a scan toolThere are some super cool things I can do with VCDS or the VW scan tool. There is way to much to list, but here are some of the coolest:

Read faults of most car computers
See activation of most buttons on the car. Like the horn, or cruise control buttons
Activate outputs like the horn, turn signals, engine fans, door locks and more
See the values the computer sees. We can see if the car thinks the doors are locked, what temperature the car thinks the engine is, what the tire pressure is, even engine compression on some cars
Force tests to run. We can force the car to run certain tests. This is mostly for checking things that make your check engine light come on. We can run the test to make sure your gas cap is on properly
Turn on or off some features. I can change things like, the confirm beep when locking or unlocking doors, auto lock at 15mph, and tons more. The newer cars have a lot of things you can change.

What a mechanic CAN NOT do with a scan toolThere is this idea out there some folks have. That is we can hook up the computer and it tells us what to replace. That largely comes from mechanics hooking up the computer and throwing a part on a car. Also most customers simply don’t know. Here is what we can not do with a scan tool.

Predict the future. Sure I can get an idea of a car’s health. But it is not a crystal ball.
Just plug it in and find the problem.
When a fault is stored, it gives a system that has failed. It is up to the tech to interpenetrate and diagnose the failed part.
Change the design of the car. If you don’t think the seat heaters get hot fast enough, there is nothing I can do with the scan tool. The car is built the way it’s built. I can do some fine tuning, but the scan tool will not make a red car blue.

I hope this has helped clear up any question you might have about scan tools. There are also tons of aftermarket scan tools from Snap-On, Matco, and others. If you work on Audi or VWs, I recommend VCDS. If you think that $350 is expensive for a scan tool, try buying a $5000 VW scan tool. If you have any questions about VCDS, or automotive scan tools, please post them up in the comments.

January 14, 2014/3 Comments/by Charles

Humble Mechanic

Training a New Technican With A Twist

Hi everyone! I mentioned yesterday that I have a new tech that I am training. Today I want to tell you guys about him.

In years past, we would hire rookie techs from the Volkswagen program with Universal Technical Institute. The best part about guys from the VW program was they were trained by VW. They knew the cars, the scan tool and the repair manual. The VW program with UTI was cancelled years ago. Up until the last year that was no issue for my dealer. We have not needed to hire any techs. But with recent turnover we needed to find some new guys.

When hiring a new mechanic, shops have a few options, each have pros and cons

Hiring an experienced tech
Hiring a tech with experience is great. Especially when they already know the car line. They should have the skills, the tools and the knowledge to step right in. The down side, they have the potential to bring drama in the shop. I have seen a lot of experienced techs come in to the shop and do great. I have also seen them bring crazy problems.
Hire a rookie
You might think that hiring a rookie with no tools, little knowledge and no experience would be suicide. But bring someone who is fresh can be a great fit. They are hungry, moldable, and do not have the baggage.

This is the new guy’s GREEN tool box

Okay, on to my new guy. This kid is fantastic. He just finished up at UTI in November. While there he worked at a BMW and Benz shop. The kid is sharp as a razor. We are about 3 weeks in to the training, and he is where other guys were after a year.

There are a lot of things that set him apart from the other techs I have trained. HE IS DEAF! That is right, my new tech is hearing impaired. Now, your first thought is probably exactly what mine was. How can a mechanic do their job, without hearing? The truth is, there will be limitation that he will have. Just like we all do.

Communication This is actually going better than I thought. We have been communicating by typing back and forth in wordpad. We have also been hand writing some. Only downside is, we both have really crappy handwriting. The cool part is, he is teaching me sign language. I never seen myself learning sign language as part of my job as an automotive technician. Sure it has been different. But I have to say, I am excited. Our deal is, I teach him to fix cars, he teaches me ASL. I think I have an easier challenge than he does 😉

I am looking forward to keeping you all updated on my new guy. Plus he has a sweet bright green tool box. If you have any questions about the new guy, feel free to ask. I will tell you all one thing, if you have sometime stupid to say about him being deaf, don’t bother. Not only will I not approve the comment, I will also ban you from the blog. This kid has worked his ass off to be where he is. I respect the hell out of him. He is going to be one heck of a tech.

January 7, 2014/17 Comments/by Charles