Service Technicians vs. Auto Mechanics

Today's cars are more complicated than cars of the 1990s and those cars are more complicated than those of the 1980s and so on.

Last week a co-worker was asking me what a MAF Sensor was and what does it do because that was what the readout told him the fault was. His car had sputtered and quit running. I explained to him the function of the MAF sensor and why his car quit.

The transmission on my 1994 Toyota Camry V6 XLE went bad. I took it to the independant Toyota shop that I trust and the owner told me to take it to a local independant tranny shop. It was there that I talked to the owner about the transmission and discovered that there were 13 sensors on the car that had the transmission in the loop and that he would check them all first before he could determine if the transmission needed rebuilding. (The discusssion took place next to a 1968 Hemi GTX that was on the rack).

I can trouble shoot the pre-1980s cars fairly well because those cars are what I learned on when I was a "grease monkey".

Now, I take a modern car to a shop or the dealership because I seek the people who have the knowledge and the experience to repair the car correctly. I could learn how to do it myself but that would take a lot of learning time and equipment purchase.

The OP was lamenting that modern auto techs are seeing cars that they can not work on. Seems about right to me since, in my lifetime, cars have gone from carbs, distributors, and points to FI, crank triggers, and coil packs not to mention MAF sensors and fuel pumps in the gas tank.