The shop of today

well there are a lot of new things in modern shops. there are computerized tools newer wrenches and all sorts of cutting and grinding equipment.

The lifts
The lifts in a modern shop have some along way from the single post lift all the way too the newer 2 poster. which is in most shops. in between these are the roll on and the front back two post there innovation has caused the industry to revolutionize the safety and the mobilization of technicians around the vehicles on the lifts themselves. in the early days the lifts were just a single poster with one post that operated between hydraulics and pneumatics to lift the vehicle. after that there were the 2 post front/back. where the vehicle was lifted by the front of the engine cradle and the rear axle. still i a little unsteady, however there was more versatility in the lift. you could lift the front to work on the front wheels while the rear stayed on the ground. and vise versa. after the revolution of the computerized alignment the roll-on lift was developed, it was way safer and more affordable, but harder to work around. next in the line of longing was the 2 post lift/hoist which used the frame, like the single post, to lift cars and was completely stable. in fact there are less 'dropped' cars in the industry because of this little gem now from left to right.

Computers
since the late 80's there have been all kinds of revelations in the car industry. there have been carburetors, fuel injection, sensors, and computers. from all the systems in the car there had to be a way to talk to these machines and find out why they were not running right.from the Genisys II to the Snap-on Modus these machines run anywhere from 12,000 to 30,000 dollars. yeah thats a lot.not only that but when you bring your car to a shop and ask for them to turn 'off' the check engine light it takes time to do that and some of these machines take a while to do that. so there is a lot of time involved. however if your shop is charging for this service you should at least get an oil change and maybe they will do it while its in the shop foe that reason.

Equipment
There are lots of tools that the mechanic is expected to have in there arsenal, and by arsenal its just what i mean, we as technicians don't list what tools we have expressively, we mention what we own in gross weight. that's right weight. i my self own about 500lbs which as any one can tell you isn't a lot. i know some technicians that own closer to 13,000lbs. just to give you an idea of what we are faced with and this includes all the nifty stuff like ratcheting box wrenches/ spanners and the odd ball sockets for different, but almost frequently single jobs. an average wrench set from like Home Depot, or Lowe's is like $60, my first truck wrench set was $264 and i never needed to replace them once. ever. so there is quality in these wrenches and if one breaks i get a new one just like Sears. so i get a higher quality tool and you get a reliable mechanic, problem solved.
Now wrenches, which used to be called 'spanners' were of low quality steel and would "spread" from time to time. which made them useless after an indecent like that because the spanner would just continue to do that under stress. after the "box end" wrench came out the spanner pretty much lost its legacy as the 'go to' wrench. now a days there isn't a wrench out there that isn't for some specific purpose. i my self own at least 6-7 different wrenches in the same Metric or SAE size equivalent. just to give you an idea of what i am talking about.

Education
Did you know being a technician is a lot like being a doctor? well this is how we as technicians are similar to doctors, we spend our time getting things back together and make sure that the client is healthy when it is not healthy it comes to see us. also as a technician i have to keep up on all the latest things like hybrid technology and hydrogen fuel cells, aside from that i attend classes and seminars at hotels that are payed for by...
... you guessed it ME! that's right i pay for them out of my pocket. and i get to learn all the new stuff and the nifty gadgetry that always breaks in your BMW, Chevy, Audi, Toyota. i don't just visit seminars and attend update classes for certification but i also read magazines all the time and make sure that all the common problems can be diagnoses easily. i mean would you want to spend hours trying top figure out that this was a common problem and that there were at least 25 people that were aware of it? me either. That;s why i do it, because i like cars and trucks. and i care about my clientèle. so in a nut shell that is what you don't see in the every day shop of tomorrow.
I don't like going on with several topics so i will have to re-thread this on so i can go into depth on he equipment...