11
Debate: Is the 'fix it on the spot' approach better than taking time to diag properly?
Last Tuesday I had a fleet truck come in with a no-start, and I spent 2 hours digging into the wiring harness instead of just swapping the fuel filter first like my coworker kept yelling at me to do lol. Ended up finding a chafed wire that would have come back in a week if I'd just thrown parts at it, so I felt pretty good about taking my time. But then yesterday another guy swore I wasted his whole afternoon diaging when a simple sensor swap would have gotten him back on the road - which side do you guys lean on when the pressure is on?
2 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In2 Comments
abby1891mo ago
Most fleets I've worked with run a 70/30 rule - 70% of your time spent on diag pays off on the big jobs, but the other 30% you're better off just swapping the cheap common failure parts first. The real killer is when you skip diag on a intermittent problem and the truck comes back on a hook at 3 AM with a tow bill that eats up whatever you saved on labor. Your coworker yelling about filters wasn't wrong for that specific scenario, he just forgot that every comeback wipes out three quick fixes worth of profit.
6
noranguyen1mo ago
Does the 70/30 rule still hold up when you factor in how often the "common failure parts" end up being wrong on the newer trucks with all their electronics? @abby189 seems to get that the real math is on tows and downtime, which is exactly where the old-school parts swapping logic falls apart. One comeback on a modern emissions system and you're not just out the labor, you're stuck with a parts cannon bill that makes the original diag look cheap.
9