DwayneGorniak

During a cold winter like ours, you definitely need some good whiskey. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VVvXCf35tI

We've had winter since the beginning of October and it's only -23C here this morning and here is a catchy one for ya'all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k0_ijWOwb0

Listening to all this shit makes me damned happy I got out when I did. I don't miss the bullshit politics one bit. I do miss the technology and the pride in being a professional technician, but the politics killed all of that pride on a daily basis for me.

Cool! Is there going to be an app or a widget available?

If there is no expiry on when the upgrade to Windows 8 can take place, I would hold off and stay with Windows 7 only until you feel most of the compatibility issues of Windows 8 are worked out. Love my Windows 7 computers and like Keith, I love my new smart phone with the new version of Android. This is my second android, but I find the newer software versions just keep getting better all the time. Samsung Galaxy S3..........Love it!

Open center. And this english guy has excessive thigh rub (he's bald).

@Aaron: 19.5 inch wheels. It's an International Lo-pro 4700. Jim, if only you could see some of the crap that goes on down around here. That's why I mentioned the young punks as well. Our trade is destined for doom. I did actually find a good shop though. A real ornery Englishman now is the only guy allowed to touch my truck. He kinda reminds me of someone I know.

What I have seen as a major culprit in my personal experience in the sixteen years I was in the Ford scene goes something like this: More and more foreign workers coming in from abroad more so over the last six to eight years that have absolutely no intentions of taking the Ford training as well as young punks coming into the trade. Young punks these days seem to want Journeyman wages right from the start without having to work their ways up the ladder. And of course I see the abuse from the top end Management level. The shops can bring in cheap laborers and use more experienced techs number on the repair order. Been there and had my ups and downs with it. Talking to some of the techs I see these day in the Ford dealerships I deal with (4) they seem to be going through the same headaches. Phillipino's are the majority of cheap laborers around here. The countryside is becoming extremely populated with them. This is where the trade is going for shit. Nothing against anyone who wants to make an honest living and better themselves by striving for the top like we all did. But I am extremely sick and tired of seeing these bastards coming here only to make a pile of money to build their mansions back home at a cheap price while they all shack up in a house trailer with anywhere from four to eight of them splitting rent or a mortgage with absolutely no intentions of ever staying here in Canada. Somehow Ford has to know that the repairs with the highly trained tech numbers on all of the R.O's are not being performed by the certified techs, but by the low skilled cheap laborers. The training centers starting closing years ago up here in Canada. It started with Regina, SK, then Calgary, Ab, then Saskatoon SK, and then one in B.C. if remember correctly. Maybe this is Ford's answer to the whole situation. If you don't want to train your techs, then so be it! It seems to me that they have been tightening the warranty noose for a long time as well as training noose. That's just a tip of the iceberg on this topic I am sure. My experience with foreign laborers lately: Took my truck into International for a CVIP (Commercial Vehicle Inspection) and a recall. They found my fan blade was cracked and my rear rotors were cracked. They have you by the balls with a CVIP. If you want it to pass, get the work done. After the fan blade repair, my truck is overheating in Frickin January. Wait a minute! I can't hear the clutch kicking in. Well looky there, the fan clutch housing and the hub nut are absolutely beat to shit with an air chisel where you could see they slipped many times and fucked the housing. $460.00 dollars for a fan clutch and having fixed it properly by myself with the proper fuckin tools fixed that. But I use to have two really nice white rims on the outside back dualls of my truck and they are now on the inside with the two ugly beat up rims on the outside. Service Manager won't make his techs stay after five to fix my truck because they refuse to work overtime. Great Now I'm looking for a good price on new rims and a better place to do my CVIP next year. Fucking color blind and just plain barbaric!

I left the third world country of Saskatchewan in 1999 and there is no way in hell I could ever look back. Every time I go back to that shit hole it is always for a funeral and I've had three of them to go to since January to go to. Nothing ever changes there. Everyone is still in the same Ole' rut they have always been in but they are all too ignorant or simply afraid to believe there is anything better out there.

You can keep them Bastards! I can't believe they still keep getting voted in. WTF?

I don't see that video the way you do Jim. I guess it's all in the way each individual interprets it and can relate to their past experiences. I see the tech banging on the jug with a wrench as the straight time tech getting paid to smash ball joints with a hammer and making a shit load of money in the fast lane service while the flat rate guy starves to death doing all the hard work. Keep in mind that I see this relating to some of the shops I walk into these days.

It used to be 90 days here. Maybe in the last year an half since I've left Ford things might have changed as well. But not sure to be honest with you.

That's just it Keith, I'm sure allot of these guys have had situations like I have had in the past. If the dealership cannot get their shit together and get the R.O's put through within 90 days, that is their own damned fault, not the tech's. I used to get deducted on a regular basis for R.O's that Ford wouldn't pay. And allot of the time it was because they screwed something up behind the warranty desk and Ford wouldn't pay or in some cases it was just plain fraudulent work orders should have should have just plain never been warranty. The first Alberta dealership I worked at when I came here in 1999 went through a stage 4 audit because of all the fraudulent modification crap they were doing and warrantying the shit out of it all. They tried it on me and I wouldn't stand for it. That was just a small factor at that place. Before I went to work at S.L. Ford, I was in a situation where the dealership tried to take half of my hours because I was training apprentices. I called bullshit on that one. The apprentice got their time for what they were working on and I did not get any pay for training them, then they wanted to split my flat rate hours to help pay for the apprentice. What fucking place in their right fucking mind charges a Journeyman to train an apprentice? The owner saw it as if the apprentice made me more efficient. He did not see the real fact the the apprentice slowed me down. That's what happens when a salesman who has never pulled in a wrench owns a dealership. Needless to say I went north to Slave Lake. Thank god I ended the Ford scene at a place that allowed me to feel proud about where I was leaving for all the right reasons and gave me some faith that not all dealerships are that fraudulent. When I went to work in lloydminster at eh Ford dealership, I had just left Wainwright where I was Shop Foreman/Assistant Service Manager, so I knew the warranty system very well. I went on the bench and looked up my own times and forwarded them. I was constantly getting lower pay than I should have been. I started investigating it and interrogating the Service Manager about it. He said that they had just gone through a Stage 2 audit and they had to cut back their times and could not pay all the labor codes I was forwarding. So I compared what he was paying me in hours to what the closed R.O's had charged on them to Ford. Guess what? He was paid a bonus on gross profit of the shop. He charged every single hour I had looked up and forwarded and cut the times paid out to boost the profit of the service department and make his bonus larger. When I found this out, I took all the R.O's to the owner of the dealership with my findings and he was actually rather pissed off that I find out their dirty little secret and could care less that I found out. Needless to say I left and went to Fourlane Ford in Innisfail. None of the techs at that shop to this day even look up their own times and have absolutely no friggin idea to this day as to why they have such crappy pay. I now call on that shop with Mac Tools and walk in there only to see that nothing has changed. Places like that make me happy that I left the Ford scene. But places like S.L. Ford make me happy that there is the odd honest shop out there. Not many in my eyes but a small amount at least. And I'm damned sure that there are some other pretty wild stories from other Ford tech's out there. From what I can tell Keith, you seem to work at a damned good dealership, But trust me there are allot of real crooked shady dealerships out there.

The labor laws are the same way here in Alberta. I have always known my rights and definitely expressed them with some of my employers at times. No one deducted from me after I left that third world country called Saskatchewan in 1999. Places had tried, but I exercised my rights which about 90% of techs fail to do and just take it up the ole' orifice because they are too afraid to rock the boat.

Sure is different down there for your training and certification. In Canada we become Journeymen over a four year span of college and training at work and then work towards Senior Tech and then Master Tech with Ford Training. Up here in Canada, to become a senior Master, you have to become as old a Jim.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I wish Ford would have more stuff out there like that. Ford has always been a little too Canadian in a sense. Meaning they have always been too laid back and dormant. It would be nice to see them have a little bit of a feisty attitude. Now that they have the 6.L that could work. It definitely would not have worked in the 6.0L 6.4L erra.

Here is another usefull download for your I-Phone or Android which is a free App from Mac Tools. I'm not trying to preach about the company I work with. This is just a really cool App that can be a usefull library for you all: http://vcs2.mactools.com/uploads/2012%20sell%20sheets/TaskMobileLite%20APP_061112.pdf

I came across this little tid bit. I think these folks should come out to Alberta and learn just why the whole oil patch sector probably has the highest divorce rate amongst any work force and unhappy people: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/video/hours-nation-spends-least-amount-210024980.html

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew...-130429852.html

God Bless Carroll Shelby's soul! http://www.carrollshelby.com/#/1923-1951

This would be a great topic for a Water Boiler Category: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-po...-172311637.html

Has anyone seen Coldplay's tribute to Adam Yauch yet? Jim will probably still think it's crap.

Yeah, I know Jim. And don't get me wrong either. I wasn't pickin on ya for the sake of pickin on ya or anything like that. I was just trying to point out a fact and the way I feel. I feel that as long as there are so called pimps out there, there will always be a prostitute out there to take place of someone who no longer wants to be one or never wanted to be one. I have been in that situation many times. With the amount of foreign workers I see coming into this province these days, and with their work ethics, there will always be prostitutes. It's not really about which came first, as in the chicken or the egg reference. It's a matter of how to stop the prostitution all together which I feel just won't happen. Not in our lifetime anyway. This is kind of situation that needs to be brought up in legislation, but we all know how far that will go. Like you said, what politician wants to commit political suicide? But so as there are a shit load of pimps and prostitutes out there, no one will never stop the prostitution. I was also pointing out the fact that in places where the economy is the shits and jobs are not that easy to come by, no one is going to want to rock the boat. They will do what they have to, to take home a paycheck. Doesn't make it right. Just makes it a fact.

Then walk up to the pimps office and tell him how you really Feal! That is also a general demand to all prostitutes out there. Let's see how far that gets everyone! That is my point! Let's see you all do it! I dare you all!

You are missing the point Jim! Every technician out there works for a pimp! You asked about getting rid of the prostitutes! I am saying that as long as there are pimps, there will always be prostitutes. The changes need to start at the top! You can preach this theory all you want on the shop floor or at ground level to the prostitutes and it will never make a damned difference at the top because the pimps just plain don't fucking care! Pimps are Pimps and they will always find more prostitutes! And there a shit load of pimps in Alberta. You and I both feel that there needs to be changes made. That is where we agree. But I see all kinds of Dealerships out there on my routes and every single one I worked for in the past has been victimized by having pimps at the top! Just because you don't cater to the pimp yourself, that doesn't mean that the pimp won't find another prostitute. You may be an old prostitute that no longer wants to get lucky any more. You have most likely been fucked to hard in your past experiences in life and have learned your lessons. But are all the other prostitutes beside you the same way? Keep in mind that I am also generally referring to every other dealership out there. Also, my point about the Mustangs is that pimps will always find a prostitute to cater to their needs. How many Mustangs stay stock? Are you saying that it is O.K to punch holes through the Ozone layer only on weekends, but not on week days?