Welcome to AutosAdvisors.com. 

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Hi, I'm Dan, I'm a motor vehicle technician and Mot Tester with over 25 years of experience, I live in Yorkshire in the uk.  I did my apprenticeship in a main dealer although I've not worked in a dealership for many years.  I now ply my trade in a small family-run independent garage. Over the years I have gathered a rather large amount of knowledge within the motor trade whether through experience working on a number of different cars and vans, going on courses or just good old-fashioned research (libraries blogs forums). I'm also Electric vehicle trained although I lack experience in this area as they do not seem to be that popular in my area at the moment,

 

I have decided to write this blog to give help, advice and to share our knowledge about all things technical with you, I want to try and make you guys aware of the basics of how certain parts in cars/vans work and any advice I can pass on to help you understand how some tasks are undertaken, whether its about your mot test or just general service and repair work or to explain some of the problems Technicians face when doing certain jobs. 

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Now I'm sure some of you reading this are going to take offence to the next statement but I feel it's one of the biggest problems technicians face at an independent garage: The main problem Technicians in an independent garage face is you guys, yep there I said it, it's you guys, sure some of you are a joy to do work for you have a quality piece of motor vehicle engineering and plenty of money to put into your car but let's be honest most of us dont. There is a cost of living crisis at the end of the day, we are all struggling and we all have a better place to spend money other than our cars ( by the way I do fall very much into this category, If it starts and moves then that's good enough for me) My point is I get it, and I'm trying to look at both sides of the problem too.

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So i few things you as a customer can do to help the technicians fix your car, this first one may just blow your mind. give it a clean, I don't mean get the polish and the buffer out to give it a high gloss shine but if it's booked in for a Mot the Mot tester has to check certain aspects of the interior of the car (seats and seat belts)so maybe give the interior a tickle with the vacuum, maybe throw away the half-eaten apple core in the centre console or remove the banana skin from the door pocket. If it's booked in for a service chances are they will be changing your pollen filter at some point These are generally located under the dashboard so the technician has to lay in the footwell to gain access and it's always better to lay on a clean carpet rather than one with old sweets and crisps mushed into it. If you have alloy wheels it might be a good idea to find your locking wheel nut key and leave it somewhere visible (maybe on the passenger seat) this could also apply to your service book too. It might be an idea to empty your boot so the technician can check your spare if you have one.  All I'm trying to say is a little forward-thinking and preparation can go a long way and a little help never hurts anyone.

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The final thing that you guys can do is pretty simple, Be prepared.  Most car parts are expensive and even if they are not that expensive fitting them can be time-consuming this then obviously pushes up the cost of the labour. 
It's also worth noting that most modern cars can be plugged into a computer to read faults within the engine. Please be aware this computer does not fix anything at all. The main purpose of this computer is to point the technician in the right direction, just because it says a certain component has flagged a fault does not mean that component is damaged, there is a strong possibility it's a knock-on effect from another problem so this then has to be investigated and guess what, this will take time and you've guessed it that time will have to be paid for. 

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Over the course of the blog, Im want to help and advise you as much as possible by describing certain parts of cars and what they do in layman's terms. If at any point when on my blog you would like me to go into more detail or go over something I've not approached please get in touch and I will be happy to look into it. I would really like this to be a two-way street and maybe even create a forum to help people even more, I'm here for advice too so if you feel your car hasn't been fixed correctly or "you've been Conned" let me know I will be happy to try to help and/or point you in the right direction.