DieselD

yep no suprise here...I fully expect them to start doing that on light duty diesels soon too

The idea of flat rate is sound for the reasons tyler has already mentioned, IF everyone played fair but we all know that isnt how the game is played most of the time. Between dealer politics, warranty time, and fellow employee drama flat rate can be down right stressful to make a paycheck.

I have worked both sides of the fence with flat rate for about 12years and now salary for 4years. I have worked at both the dealership retail and commerical along with my current position managing a fleet of 200 trucks.  I can honestly say my professional and personal life has greatly improved with being salary. Gone are the days going home at the end of the week stressed out thinking how I busted my ass all week to earned 30hrs. Even If I did great and was ahead for the pay period it was a short lived satifaction until going back to work the following monday and wonderning how I was going to make my goal. I learned the warranty book, billed my own hours and looked up my own SLTS. I saved copies of each RO to fall back on incase someone tried to second guess or change the claimed labor ops(happed alot at my dealer!) and fight for every tenth of a hour. There where lots of times I spent more time claiming the job and backing up my reasoning then it actually took to repair the vehicle.

At one of the dealers I worked for they had a hourly + flatrate system that worked pretty well. You had a decent base pay that reflected your productivity. If you flagged over you 80hours in a pay period you would move to flatrate and you could earn up to 3bucks more per hour. The problem with this system is once you reach the top techs stop being productive and start coasting through the day. That killed that system pretty quickly and it went back to straight flat rate.

I will say flat rate has been a big reason for alot of the repair practices I still use today. It has motivated me to be efficient and accurate technician as I only want to fix the vehicle once and move on to the next one. I do not despise the flat rate system and think its a great learning experence but I do not believe its the ultimate answer to how we are paid as technicians.

Good luck with the new job Clark!

Our dealer brought one by our shop a few days ago to check out. I will say its a little odd hearing the 6.7 running under the hood of a 750 but Im excited for this setup. I am so tired of dealing with the 3 manufacture dance getting these things worked on.

The TA-31 grey comes in a caulk tube for easy application as well. You are thinking of the "international" grey that came in the toothpaste style tube

I use the grey for everything including sealing up a toliet in the shop bathroom

intresting...grey has been my go to silicone for anything on a diesel for a very long time.

no words of advice other then I know all too well how bad those uhaul trucks suck to work on! I worked on them way too often with the 6.4 engines!

a little hard to tell in the pictures but is that black silicone or grey?

I have had a few IPRs cause a no start when hot but starts fine cold and like was mentioned it has to be HOT to duplicate.

Great news and kudos for taking the plunge to better yourself and your family life! Not everyone has the guts or motivation to do that! Best of luck with the new venture and like keith said stick around.

Its has happened a couple times with out fleet too. Its my understanding  some of these are getting scrapped but most are being sold complete.

Here locally you have to provide proof of vehicle ownership if trying to scrap a converter of any type

I had something similar happen on my 2011 except it was for the DEF system. It was a temp code IIRC. The damn fuse was fretting and took quite a while to track down

They approved the cooler and all injectors. Most of the card lock truck stations here have DEF bulk pumps that look like diesel pumps.

That is what got one of our drivers on a 2012. The pumps look identical in some cases. It ended up starting it and moving it 50ft out of the way before he called someone. That was enough to wipe out everything to the point it wouldnt start. He did loose his job over that  6k dollar mistake

I think I am the odd man out, I hate removing the cabs for work that can be done with the cab on.

 Locally all the renovations or new build dealers all look the exact same!

thats a cheap upgrade

better off adding a aftermarket TBC and call it done

its about time! this will be a huge help for me and what I do day in day out.

It wont let me login though

I got offered $10K to trade mine in on Saturday. With that amount for a trade, that would put me at $320 bi-weekly for payments for 6 years. I was paying $270 bi-weekly for my 6.0 that I bought used, for four years.

 

How are you calculating MPGs? I hope you're not actually believing the MPG meter. I calculate it by zeroing the trip odometer at every fill up and diving the distance travelled by the amount of fuel dispensed on fill up to give me an actual figure.

The dash is pretty close but not accurate. I would say its within 2-3mpg of the had caculated numbers for me at least. I always check it at time of fill up and its been pretty much the same

guess thats where all the money went for the Senior Master Rewards?

None of this should come as a new idea. There have been comment made all over these forums about Ford collecting data and I suspect it has been going on for a while.  Your IDS log files? Easy to collect.  As for audits. I think they should be mandatory. There are dealerships that are Robbing Ford blind.

I would say its no suprise they have been collecting data to process a claim. Alot of other manufactures already do this as normal practice

Another negative side to this is the effect it will have on the customers. I see the techs or advisors turing down customer complaints as NPF in fear of not getting paid for the diag unless its cut and dry.

Remember the warranty policy manual is your friend. Live by it and your claim will always get paid. However what management does without you knowing is another thing all together. They did not want to even let me see the policy manual let alone reference it.  I used to make copies of all my ROs, labor ops and diag/repair stories to back up my claim. It came in handy more then once after shit hit the fan and management tried to put the blame or pull hours from me.

I have had several that run and others that wont with the ball missing. If I was a betting man I would say it wouldnt be possible for it to run with that leak caused by the ball

I have it too. Talked to my boss and he suggests holding off on the install until it's confirmed PTS and IDS are compatible. He says Ford claims to be on track with this but is a little leery on that. 

no plans to switch until I know IDS will be campatible with it

I love manual transmissions about as anyone but the reality is that they sit on the lot and collect dust in most model ranges.

If you ran a company you know you can hire people that can drive automatics but employees that won't destroy clutches and knock the points off synchros are few and far between.

In the last few years the traffic that so many drive in is another factor. I have a manual V8 sedan and a wagon turbo 5 cylinder sitting in the drive (not commuting in the F450 and buying 6 19.5 tires while hauling my one ass in the cab) and I drive the wagon. The times I drive the sedan I regret it. I feel like I'm unnecessarily being cruel to the release bearing and clutch disc. I grieve for the dual mass flywheel. I have no such emotions for the torque converter in the wagon.

The other thing that no longer holds water is manuals getting beter fuel economy.

We choose autos for that very reasons. 1 out of 20 guys can actually drive a manual without killing it.

I love my 6.7 everytime I get behind the wheel. I do miss the 7.3 classic diesel noise but I am also enjoying the quite cab of a 6.7 too. I can finally hit a drive thru without shutting the truck off everytime and talk to my passangers without yelling to them!

My next question would be what the engine RPMs would be at highway cruising speeds with the 3.55s? I would be happy as pig or flies in shit to see 15 to 20 MPGs. As it stands right now, my 2007 with 20s and 3.73s will only see 12 to 13 MPGs either at highway or city driving. Mind you, I do have a bit of a lead foot I'll admit. But if I were to pull the trigger on a '15 I guess my question is answered on which gear I will be choosing, since I will likely never be towing with it. I will most definitely be changing my oil every 5000 kms. (3000 miles) like I have with all my vehicles though.

My dad has my exact truck in a 15MY. I bought his old one and he bought a new one identical to it. He is actually seeing more MPG vs the my 2011 even being brand new. He is seeing a 2-3mpg more accross the board with it so far.

I would prefer the 3.55 for basically anything SRW and a 6.7 regardless of tire size. I went with the 275/70R18s and 3.55 e-locker. The way that engine just plain runs I don't think you need gearing advantage. You'll just be breaking tire everytime it rains a little.

I have the 3.55s in mine with the 20" wheel package. (in 2011 they only options for a SRW were 3.27s or 3.55s) and it does not leave me wanting anything more. Towing power is great even with a fully loaded 26ft bumper pull or 35' 5th wheel toyhauler. Unloaded without traction control you can fry the tires right off the thing even on dry pavement. Traction control is a must on these trucks with these kinda of power numbers

Fuel mileage in town is about 15mpg and about 20mpg on the highway unloaded at 70mph. Any faster and fuel mpg drops drastically. Towing well its pretty much 10mpg no matter what with the toyhaulers. Funny part was my 2001 7.3 with 3.73s and 285s was only marginally worse then my 6.7 is on fuel but night and day power difference. Towing power isnt even in the same catagory!

Unless you plan to have a trailer hooked up to it for its entire life I think you will be fine with the 3.55s ratio