Marinucci: Racing or repairing? ‘Rithmetic rules

What do algebra, automotive racing and diagnosis have in common with one another?

Succeeding at each of these endeavours requires logic and discipline. This means methodically pinpointing and deciphering one unknown at a time.

Tire dealers and service shop operators should recognize the impact these themes have on the long-term health of their businesses.

Cold, hard logic is the opposite of scattershot, guesswork methods associated with unprofessional and/or unethical auto repair.

Historically, many motorists have distrusted the auto repair industry because their vehicles' problems were not fixed correctly the first time.

As I have emphasized in previous columns, fixing cars correctly the first time is the top priority for prudent auto service providers.

Practically speaking, we cannot review and reconstruct the steps that led to each bungled diagnosis and the resulting improper repair.

Nonetheless, retracing them may provide street-smart schooling.

For years, my field research has included analyzing misdiagnoses alongside some sharp troubleshooters. A common cause of misdiagnosis is an inability or unwillingness to proceed methodically and logically.

For example, logical testing validates the need to replace parts. What can you conclude when a competent technician pinpoints the vehicle's real problem — which has nothing to do with the new parts found on that vehicle?

I have to conclude that the previous work on this car consisted of the scattershot approach that has tarnished our industry's image for decades.

Let us consider another practical exercise in logic on a vehicle that another shop did not fix.

First, suppose we successfully diagnose and repair this vehicle's problem.

Second, suppose someone happened to leave all the original parts in the car's trunk — a discovery I have made many times.

Third, suppose we removed all the new components that did not fix the car and reinstalled those original parts. Then we patiently monitored the results.

What can you conclude when routine follow-ups with the car owner confirmed that the original parts worked fine for years afterward?

My conclusion had been that the tech who replaced those parts was not methodically solving for one unknown at a time.

Furthermore, my field experience has been that bosses and techs may be practicing a risky pattern of repetition. They tackle symptoms and fault codes based on whatever fixed the last vehicle with the same problems.

Repetition is worthwhile in the sense that practice makes perfect. But prioritizing blind repetition over a methodical diagnosis is illogical — not to mention foolhardy.

Some owners and managers have insisted that methodical testing is tedious and needlessly time-consuming. Interestingly enough, these same bosses agonized over their techs struggling to repair cars correctly the first time.

Furthermore, consider how motorists may perceive us when a skilled tech pinpoints something significant but simple on an unrepaired vehicle laden with new parts.

For instance, a capable tech solves the car's problems by repairing a loose or corroded electrical connection.

Unintentionally — perhaps unavoidably — the skilled tech's success starkly contrasts with the previous shop's illogical, scattershot attempts to fix the car.This contrast may speak volumes about the industry's image issues.

In my Nov. 8, 2021, column, "Auto racing fosters interest in testing," I described a few favorable ways that auto racing influenced me when I was a car-crazy kid in the 1960s. Like thousands of other baby boomers, I caught the drag-racing bug.

Meanwhile, two events coincided with each other during my freshman year of high school Auto racing fosters interest in testing my first algebra course and my first job in a traditional service station.

Our enthusiastic, world-wise teacher stressed that logic governed mathematics. Logical steps, for instance, guided us through the process of isolating and then quantifying unknown values.

Among other principles, the teacher stressed that we only could solve for one unknown at a time. This rule would prove prophetic in ways I could not have imagined.

I soon realized how much auto repair resembled algebra. But unlike my class work, automotive symptoms often posed an intimidating myriad of unknowns.

The capable, conscientious techs I observed back then may not have practiced the purest of logical formats. But they faithfully tried to eliminate as many unknowns as promptly and practically as possible.

Imagine a car that pulled to one side of the road. A sharp tech wanted to know when the symptom first appeared. Was there any significant vehicle history associated with the onset of the symptom?

Did the symptom occur only on some roads or on all roads? Did the car only pull to one side when the driver applied the brakes?

Techs urged me to look for obvious signs of damage to the vehicle, its wheels and tires. Furthermore, watch for any debris stuck in the tires as well as any abnormal tire wear patterns.

I had to check — and where necessary, correct — the air pressure in all the tires. Then a tech road tested the car on the same familiar stretch of highway.

Suppose that braking did not affect the symptom. Next, we would swap the front tires from side to side to see if the car pulled in the opposite direction.

Mind you, this in just one simplistic example. The overarching theme is skilled techs faithfully cleansing a list of unknowns before replacing anything on a vehicle.Unfailingly, this methodical process consumed a certain amount of time. Some motorists did not become customers simply because they could not accept that logical methods took time; time is money.

Last but not least, drag racing drove home (no pun intended) the importance of identifying, cataloging and isolating unknowns. Frustration with unsolved issues often spurred racers to take illogical, desperate measures.

A typical challenge was a race car that underperformed; its elapsed times and top speeds in the quarter mile were not meeting expectations.

Sometimes the poor –performing car showed no obvious symptoms. But other times, a mysterious misfire or backfire cropped up and eluded an easy diagnosis.

A common reaction was swapping parts: Frantically replacing anything and everything that we could, considering our limited resources.

While assisting my pals, I gained useful experience changing components such as carburetors and fuel pumps. I helped swap ignition pieces such as entire distributors as well as breaker points, condensers, et al.

Over time, this automotive "fire drill" became too tiresome for me. I realized that — like the capable guys at the service station had showed me — we needed to justify replacing parts.

At that point, we lacked the diagnostic skill to test components and identify the good, bad or marginal parts. Without that knowledge, we could not solve for the unknowns causing the race car to underperform or misfire.

Years later, a mentor would sum up our drag-strip guesswork be saying that we did not know what we did not know.

When all is said and done, topics such as mathematics may aggravate and frustrate students — including aspiring auto techs.

But if they take nothing else from a math class, perhaps they will remember that "''rithmetic" relies on solving for — revealing — the unknown.

If that theme does not define automotive diagnosis, I don't know what does.