What Does Time Have To Do With It?   

Article from the Western RV News, Nuts and Bolts by Chuck Arnold of the Power Shop, June 1999

The tendency to consider things as COMMODITIES in our society is relentless. Potatoes, pork bellies, new cars, new RVs and everything in between are being perceived as though they are produce on a store shelf. There is a real danger in treating issues or things as similar, which are very different from each other. The viewpoint that “every can of corn on the shelf is the same as every other can”, with price as the only significant difference is fine for corn but not for mechanics. (It might be OK in politics? After President Clinton’s close call with impeachment over the meaning of words, I thought I had better clean up some definitions regarding my industry.)

In the RV maintenance, enhancement and repair industry, labor time is billed in a commodity called the HOUR. It is natural to assume that this HOUR has to do with the passage of a finite amount of time. The people who purchase these HOURS certainly think about them in terms of time. Flat Rate Manuals exist for many service and repair tasks which express value in terms of HOURS and 1/10ths of HOURS. An HOUR (in the automotive and RV service trades) is finite amount of work performed. An HOUR is not a finite amount of time. This definition of an HOUR is the fourth or fifth definition of the work “hour” in most dictionaries.

The caliber of technicians is infinitely variable. The very best have honed their craft to such a high degree of skill that they deliver top-notch quality in a fraction of the clock time you might assume. (From the HOURS billing on the work order.) The average technician delivers acceptable quality and takes about as much time to perform a service as you are charged in HOURS. A less skilled person may take a great deal more time to get a poor result. Ethical technicians and shops will never sacrifice quality to get paid for more HOURS. They want to give fair value to the customer. They know they will be working hours for nothing, if they produce failures and mistakes.

There is one kind of HOUR considered a commodity by many people that is so wildly variable in value that it needs special consideration. This HOUR is the unit of measure for DIAGNOSTIC TIME. If diagnostics are flawed then remaining HOURS you pay for (and sometime the hard parts) may be wasted. If diagnostics are excellent, the real underlying reasons for a symptom or failure are spotted, opening the way to permanent solution. I have spent 30 years as a mechanical repair shop manager for service and diagnostics. It has always amazed me that so many end users fail to recognize how important accurate diagnostics are. Someone who has gone through the pain of a lemon vehicle, which nobody could fix, more often than not, is a person who kept getting bad diagnostic service and therefore had work performed which did not address the real underlying causes. If that lemon happens to be the RV you have spent your lifetime waiting to enjoy, your dreams can quickly become nightmares.

I remember a high line motor coach, which was eventually sold because no one could fix an unreliable genset. The second owner brought the coach to me with the ongoing symptom. We finally found a wire in the ignition circuit, which was broken inside the insulation. It apparently had been manufactured that way. We found the bad wire by methodical proper trouble-shooting technique, checking each conductor for ability to handle the rated load.

On the day that you reach the end of your rope, frustrated with chronic mechanical or electrical problems, the diagnostic time, which yields a lasting solution to end a chain of related failures, could be worth the price of the vehicle or even its’ replacement.

Several years ago, I was hired to find out why a beautiful $400,000.00 motor home, with less than 5,000 mile on it, would work flawlessly for days and then just plain quit on the highway. When the engine stopped running there was no power steering and often no good place to stop. The owner had demanded a quick permanent fix or his money back. The manufacturers of the engine, transmission, chassis and motor home all thought the cause was in some area other than the components they were responsible for. I took this job on the terms that I could have an engine and transmission factory tech on call and that I could have engineering staff from all four available by phone and fax. I spent about 40 hours directing a diagnostic and research effort into the actual cause of the stalling, using 20 hours of factory tech time on site. Once enough information was gathered by study of design and testing I predicted the physical location of a loose ground connection behind a panel in the left front corner of the coach and found the fault within 12 inches of the relay I had deduced was the culprit. Tightening the loose ground wire was the permanent fix. The coach-builder was close to refunding the 400K-purchase price. You could say that my diagnostic time was worth $10,000 per HOUR in this particular circumstance. My company collected $4,000 for the effort. I worked the 40 hours between Friday at noon and the following Monday morning.

As you travel America you will encounter all levels of diagnostic skill. You should make a point of recognizing the times when the technician helping you moves methodically and efficiently to an explanation for your symptoms which then really solves the problem. Understand that the diagnostic HOUR, which gains a lasting solution, is much more valuable than the parts changing HOURS, which follow.

The success or failure of every automotive or RV related service business depends completely on how well they do the service they often charge the least for, their diagnostics. Realizing your dreams of pleasure from your RV depends on the same diagnostic ability.

It would seem that a wiser industry and clientele might find a way to rearrange the system to recognize the value of great diagnostic work. Accurate diagnostics are never a commodity and they are never really HOURS. As an individual shop manager or an individual RV owner we can’t change a whole industry. We can give credit where due and recognize reality for what it is.

What does time have to do with it? Absolutely nothing and absolutely everything, depending on your point of view.