Dealerships Beginning To Turn To Colleges For Automotive Technicians

Ditto. Are cars more complicated or college degrees more dumbed down? Likely both!

Actually - this is not a new phenomenon - The introduction of electronics where they were not before - has retired lots of older mechanics - and or sent them back to seminars and other ways to learn the technology. CARS are more complicated - no doubt - there are more electronics controlling the auto transmission alone in a car - than there were just 40 years ago in any car. Today - mechanical repairs to a car have dropped off dramatically to the point that MOST warranty repairs are now electrical or electronic in nature. You would not believe what I have seen with cars that have been "worked on" by previously good mechanics who do not understand current electronics.

Example - there was a time when - if you had a short in a wire - you simply spliced the wire ends together. Today - with Multiplex two way speaking wiring systems - some shorts require WHOLE harness replacement. A splice creates too much interference to work. In others - there are KITS and special procedures you have to use to simply reconnect two ends of a wire together.

I once worked on a car that shifted seemingly whenever it felt like - and the dealer replace both the trans (which had blown up into pieces) and the computer - and still did not solve the problem. What had happened was - an aftermarket ALARM had been installed in the car - and the installer used a power line from the Throttle position sensor to tap into for voltage. However - this unit has a blinking red light on the installation - and every time it blinked - it sent a signal through the TPS circuit - which effected when the transmission shifted. While I got lucky finding that one early - the customer got a rude surprise - since NONE of the computer or transmission repairs were covered by warranty - the car was a LEASE car - so he HAD to fix it - and the bill for repairs came to over $9,000. I would assume he sued the alarm installer for that - but that still required time without a car - because the rental was not covered either. And I could write all day about wierd things that have happened (How about a radio on-off button opening car windows for instance)

And there are LOTS of people with College educations who would not know enough about vehicle control systems to make it as a auto mechanic too - even if they are in the electronics field. While there are still normal maintenance procedures that can be done by almost anyone - cars still need oil changes - I suspect that electronic diagnosis will become a mechanic "specialty" in the future - and will cost far more than other repairs.

Because cars are more technical than ever, technicians need to be trained at a much higher level than ever before. The basic things mechanics used to deal with, they simply don't deal with anymore, but they are in fact troubleshooting entirely new issues with cars.

I would bet that dealers with higher customer satisfaction are likely to have more educated people as employees.

@MD: By your own conclusion It's fair to say your dealership has very low customer satisfaction.

Time for a beer :)

@HenryN just the opposite. Our dealerships are the gold standard.