knuckledeep
my trailer queen is trashy
Lifetime Member
They had to drive it to verify slippage in order to get the full kit mine are not slipping so wont get new clutch material but thats fine i have an extended warranty in case
The tax deduction isnt all that i have to biy at least 10k a year in order to make a dent for the tax deduction. You cant claim all your tools they only cover a small percentage over a certain dollar amountYeah but think of it as an investment in one's future. Tax deductible and buy them only once. Earn an income for decades.
I think you have to hit a certain percentage of your annual income in order to claim them.The tax deduction isnt all that i have to biy at least 10k a year in order to make a dent for the tax deduction. You cant claim all your tools they only cover a small percentage over a certain dollar amount
Well @Plumber32 i am tring to start my own shop fixing atv motorcycles and sxs. Parts i do not care about making money on the heart of the money is in the labor. I know i fl people are cheap and want cheap i read on facebook other shops in jax are having a tough time for the same reason. If you play with toys they cost i would rather pay more and make sure its done right the first time. Its also hard to jump in and dedicate everyrhing qhen i still have bills to pay so for now its a side venture.
At the last shop i worked at there was the 2 experienced guys (myself and the shop foreman) and a 3rd lube tech/apprentice type guy...usually right out of some tech institute, primarily because the owner was too cheap to pay for 3 good techs. This position was a revolving door...
It became sort of running joke between the foreman and i that these guys would come in with 10,000 Snap-tool boxes or a multi thousand dollar scan tool, yet would have to come borrow my .75 plug gapper.
My fav was a guy who told us he was an "electrical guru". These guys are priceless since, as someone else mentioned, electrical has no flat rate since it can take 5 minutes...or 5 hours, and not everyone does real well with this area. So, when we put him on the 1st electrical problem to come in, i was filled with confidence when he came and ask to borrow my DVOM. Awesome!
The point being that good techs are rare these days. Book learned is one thing. Having the ability to understand things is another.
Spinning wrenches has always been a love/hate thing for me, but the temptation is always there to give it one more try...
You said it. Things like the clutch updates are a good example. I'm afraid I'd just buy a 2018 just to avoid having bought a machine that the local dealer was into. I trust no one to work on my stuff, and I am amazed at some of the people who pass themselves off as mechanics.Awesome story! An electrical guru who lacks a volt meter ey? Got to give him credit, he really IS good! LOL
Finding good help is and will always be any owners problem. My plumbing company could have expanded many decades ago if only we could find competent help. Nobody wants to go into blue-collar work.
It's a nationwide problem and in fact there was a really good news article about it last week that said across the board, construction, electrical, plumbing, heating and air, mechanics, you name it, everybody has associated blue-collar work with nasty, unskilled work. They got it in the back of their mind, that that kind of work is beneath them and very few seek a trade anymore. Truly it's a nationwide crisis. They said that for every five people who are retiring, one new person enters the trade.
I'm not a do it yourselfer because I actually enjoy changing my fluids on my vehicle or doing repairs, the truth is I don't trust anyone else to do it. You never know if the guy changing the fluids doesn't know his head from a hole in the wall! I could tell you HORROR stories of things I've seen and what other plumbers have told customers. STAY AWAY FROM NATIONWIDE COMPANIES!
My manager just bought a brand new 2017 Duramax and brought it in for his first free service at the dealership!
A day after getting it back, his low washer fluid light went off, Low coolant light went off and DEF fluid light went off!!!
This mind you, at a dealership which is supposed to be the end-all for such things. When you can't even trust a dealership to do something as simple as properly service your vehicle, it's all over with and time to give up on this world.
When you have a dealer like that you don't even know if they put in synthetic oil, they could just be putting in regular oil and saving the synthetic for them selves who knows!
Being a do-it-yourselfer in today's world is not just an option, it's more or less mandatory if you want faith that the work has been done properly, or at all..
You said it. Things like the clutch updates are a good example. I'm afraid I'd just buy a 2018 just to avoid having bought a machine that the local dealer was into. I trust no one to work on my stuff, and I am amazed at some of the people who pass themselves off as mechanics.
You said it. Things like the clutch updates are a good example. I'm afraid I'd just buy a 2018 just to avoid having bought a machine that the local dealer was into. I trust no one to work on my stuff, and I am amazed at some of the people who pass themselves off as mechanics.
Can someone describe the symptoms of a slipping clutch?
We were out riding pretty much most of the day yesterday and I started to notice a few new things. While accelerating the engine would seem to rev higher as it was trying to shift into a new gear. We have it AT so I can't tell which gear. This didn't happen all the time but only in lower speeds. We let the machine cool down for a few hours and it has seemed to stop.
I also noticed that it was a little harder to shift it from H to Park.
I'm going to do a little more riding today to see if I can reproduce the symptoms. There's less than 500 miles on this.
lol, My buddy calls me his mechanic because I do all his repairs for free saving him a ton of money, of course because he buys only Polaris. So I simply reply, I’m not a mechanic, but I can! I worked for an Ag business working on farm equipment and doing small engine work, and doing so had to purchase my own tools, prior to that I was a do it yourselfer, but never even considered myself a mechanic then either!
But when I did something I took pride in my work and did it right! Got a few complaints from the boss, but after compliments from customers those complaints stopped!
Damn I figured seasoned techs were at least making north of 20/hr..
I have quite a bit of experience in this, don't ask me how being a retired plumber, I'd rather not get into it. LOL.
Now, I'm not saying it's a great deal, all I'm saying is this, every service department in any "auto" dealership ( I don't know anything about motorcycles and UTV's) that I have ever come across gets paid out of the book.
I don't know too many situations except for diagnostic and things like that, where techs get paid for the direct hours they worked.
If the book say 1.9 hours for a repair, and warranty DOES go by the book, and the tech can do it in 1 hr, he is picking up ONE hour for free.
I wouldn't really say that techs don't like warranty work because it really just depends on the type work. One of the many reasons that techs don't like warranty work is because there's no upsell possibility. With regular repair they can sell things, warranty
forget it!
But in a lot of situations when a recall came through, the warranty would call for 2.4 hours, and the techs could whip those things out in under an hour and were making a fortune! In that case they favored the warranty jobs versus regular.
It was not uncommon, nor would any heads turn, if a technician worked 8 hours that day but got paid for 13.
It's one big game back there with the owners and management pitting themselves against the mechanics. In my opinion, ALL owners of dealerships are very cheap and want to get by paying their salesman as well as techs, the LEAST amount possible!
I could tell you some stories... especially when the owners are telling you to do something one way that will make them more money, but the techs less, but you've become friends with all of the techs and you want to do it the other way around. That's when it's time to get really creative! Truly it's walking on a tight rope 50 stories in the air!
Another thing is, not everybody has to buy $20,000 in snap on tools. Snap on just charges a ridiculous amount of money for their equipment and I can honestly say I have never had a Craftsman brand break on me, even if it does, has a lifetime warranty and they swap it out!
Buy even cheaper and if it breaks you can buy six of them for the same price as one snap on!
My point is, if you're going to go in to business, start off with cheaper tools and If the business starts to succeed you can always upgrade later.
Going in business as a mechanic is extremely tricky and expensive because you need a retail outlet with lifts and things like that. Going into business as a plumber is a piece a cake, couple thousand in tools and a truck and you're ready to roll!!!
It's difficult for techs to just go into business on their own. That said, I have never ever ever ever in my life made an appointment to get service work done where they weren't always a couple weeks out. The local small engine repair shop who works on SXS's is a waste of time every single time you call this guy literally a month or two out. So that just simply tells you that demand is greater than supply.
I've always thought about opening up a repair shop for SXS's ONLY, no sales, no parts, just service. Personally I think a man could make a small fortune! I'm in western North Carolina and if any techs out there are considering such a thing, maybe we could hook up and work something out
PM me for a possible joint venture!
Well said brother. My sentiments exactly.Awesome story! An electrical guru who lacks a volt meter ey? Got to give him credit, he really IS good! LOL
Finding good help is and will always be any owners problem. My plumbing company could have expanded many decades ago if only we could find competent help. Nobody wants to go into blue-collar work.
It's a nationwide problem and in fact there was a really good news article about it last week that said across the board, construction, electrical, plumbing, heating and air, mechanics, you name it, everybody has associated blue-collar work with nasty, unskilled work. They got it in the back of their mind, that that kind of work is beneath them and very few seek a trade anymore. Truly it's a nationwide crisis. They said that for every five people who are retiring, one new person enters the trade.
I'm not a do it yourselfer because I actually enjoy changing my fluids on my vehicle or doing repairs, the truth is I don't trust anyone else to do it. You never know if the guy changing the fluids doesn't know his head from a hole in the wall! I could tell you HORROR stories of things I've seen and what other plumbers have told customers. STAY AWAY FROM NATIONWIDE COMPANIES!
My manager just bought a brand new 2017 Duramax and brought it in for his first free service at the dealership!
A day after getting it back, his low washer fluid light went off, Low coolant light went off and DEF fluid light went off!!!
This mind you, at a dealership which is supposed to be the end-all for such things. When you can't even trust a dealership to do something as simple as properly service your vehicle, it's all over with and time to give up on this world.
When you have a dealer like that you don't even know if they put in synthetic oil, they could just be putting in regular oil and saving the synthetic for them selves who knows!
Being a do-it-yourselfer in today's world is not just an option, it's more or less mandatory if you want faith that the work has been done properly, or at all..
But it's still better than gettin the belt from a Polaris!! (ya know...shaft drive from Pioneer vs belt drive from Polaris. Bah-Dum Chisss!! My attempt at humor...sorry)Motorcycle technicians in general get the shaft compared to the same auto tech. Most of these units aren't a necessity, cars are.
But it's still better than gettin the belt from a Polaris!! (ya know...shaft drive from Pioneer vs belt drive from Polaris. Bah-Dum Chisss!! My attempt at humor...sorry)
Most motorcycle dealers don't pay flat rate. Seasons would be hard on flat rate for us. Great money in the summer and broke as he'll in the winter.
The symptoms you will experience if the (starter clutch, 1st, 3rd, 5th, & R gears) is slipping in AT mode or even manual for that matter.
On take off may or may not spike in RPM upon initial take off, then shift into 2nd normally, them spike in RPM shifting into 3rd, shift into 4th normally, spike in RPM shifting into 5th, then shift into 6th normally.
If you didn't really damage anything the symptoms may not be repeatable when the machine is cool or normal operating temps.
The above will primarily happen once the machine is hot, as in several hours of slow trail riding where the clutch engages and disengages crawling along at 3mph or less, compounded by inclines.
If you really get it hot and the clutch plates get glazed the machine will make a shuddering feel, and noise on take off. Once all material is gone off that bad clutch it really gets pronounced.
This video shows it doing so somewhat, I had one I shot showing severe shuddering but cannot locate it on YouTube.