No one will thank you for encouraging a system that sets standards such that it is harder to find auto-technicians rather than easier.
Rather, the system would favour simplifying the tasks to "monkey see, monkey do" and making the sollution fit the available levels of skill and intellect.
This means that real repairs do not take place in dealer service centres. No-one their has the skill to service brake cylinders or fit new seals. No, the solution is to tech them to follow certain simple rules and then just replace components. Even so, as i have found, the level of skills generally available is declining and making even this path more difficult.
Cars are more foolproof and relaible and great er use is made of diagnostics and routine. Complex jobs are sub-contraacted out. If the engine fails, replace it or fit a short block. If the gear box fails, replace it.
How many service centres can afford to maintain staff skills to do more than routine replacement.
If you want more than this you have to find a specialist company. Specilialists cost money.
If this is to be the staus quo, then we should feel safe that within these terms, that we can consign our vehicles to these people and, more importantly, to this methodolgy.
It may mean that car design and maintenance is increasingly driven not so much by reducing service costs or greater durability but because of the limitation and availability of the skills necessary to maintain them.
This means that we will see more and more "sealed for life" components and that many other repairable or servicable components are considered in the equation as through-aways when they go wrong.
But which costs more? throughing away a perfectly good component as part of a routine that stops replacing components when the problem dissappears or having a level of skills universally available that can diagnose the problem accurately and repair rather than replace?
But, i have to agree with Lorentx that this is a safety issue. I would question whether we should expect more or less from the service networks. I don't question that if this is how it has to be done, then at least lets have it done to a satisfactory standard. Too many very simple tasks being failed suggests either that there is a lack of control over training and qualifications even thought the market is capable of supplying sufficient candidates for the jobs or that even at this level there is a lack of the necessary skills to sustain even this method.
In the UK, they are now introducing "shop" training in some schools. Something that has been a feature of US schools for decades. In the UK, to learn about being a mechanic you go to college or you learn on the job. In the US, autoshop, paint shop, etc are available options within the schools system. So maybe this is a problem with available skills in some countroes not suiting a global approach by an auto-manufacturer.
