On this week’s GTW we are talking about some of the major differences between professionals and DIY’ers, because sometimes we make our job look so easy that other people think they can do it. First off, a lot of non technicians listen to this podcast, which is perfectly ok because this is America goddammit. Here’s the tale of the tape though: professionals often times have significantly more tools to do the jobs that they need to do. For example if you’re in the rust belt and working on any car, you going to need things like torches, easy-outs, tap and die sets, extractors and a myriad of other things just to get the old parts off in a lot of cases. Secondly there is the knowledge involved with doing jobs the easy way, or in some cases, not doing it the wrong way. Let’s say this one more time for the people in the back: “VACUUM TUBING DOESN’T GO ON BRAKE LINES!” Also, when it comes to diagnosis, a professional’s aim with the old parts cannon is usually quite a bit better due to seeing problems multiple times, and this can end up costing DIY’ers a lot of money, especially when problems are intermittent. At the end of the day when DIY’ers screw up fixing their car, a lot of the time we end up having to pick up the pieces, but that’s ok because we’re getting paid for it.
Also Uncle Jimmy talks about his family’s affinity for Russian YouTube DIY repair videos, and how he is always on standby when they attempt them in an often vain attempt to prevent catastrophe.