always wear gloves. even those cheap latex ones from harbor freight. save your hands as much as you can, i dont do anything without wearing some kinda of hand protection. and needless to say saftey glasses when grinding/cutting and ear protection when making a bunch of noise.

one thing i learned from working at a few places is expect everyone around you to be pissed off all the time at every little thing lol. i never really get mad just irritated but ive worked around many people who get angry at every single bolt that doesnt come off

 

x2 on the gloves - not a tech but been messing with cars/engines for years - cant count the number of times since i started wearing them that i've been saved cuts/slices from sharp metal edges - buggers the glove but so worth it

best advice on tools i ever heard is similar to ohsofly - buy cheap tools - especially the 'special' stuff, IF you break it, THEN get the good snap-on/mac one. then if your cheap 'special' tool sits in the box alot its not too painful

 

When you bust a knuckle trying to get that last bolt loose NEVER THROW THE WRENCH - Under hood squated on motor - bust knuckle - mumble and throw wrench - well stupid now you have to go get it -get half way dazed banging head on hood - slip on bumper crush crotch on radiator - slip on bumper with other foot land on *** on floor -now your hand hurts, head hurts, crotch hurts, and last but not least *** hurts, Just don't throw the damn wrench......... And Craftsman wrenches have lifetime warranty - Screw it up trade it in for a new one.............

 

haha agreed!

 

Dont ever think you better then any other mechanic. Always take in new information on how to do things. If you have no experience whatsoever with working for vehicles then forget about it. Get some experience on your own vehicles. (just saying if u dont have any experience at all). The pay is good but there is a lot of downfalls with it

 

As a "backyard" mechanic then a licensed mechanic, my biggest observation was the use of diagnostic computers, i.e. code readers, live data, and PID's.

in the backyard you don't really have access to the very expensive scanners, and equipment. when I started at the first official mechanics job, I got to use them and found a couple things.

my first boss only used the scanners, it was the only way to him. I suppose having almost 12k in his equipment had some effect of, "I bought it I may as well use it." but my first diag was a Lincoln continental with a miss. while he was fumbling with his scanner I started pulling coils and found it was cyl 7 in seconds, he wasn't even in to the computer yet.

my advise on the scanners is this; learn them, use them, but be mindful of the old ways to.

you are always learning, and there is no stupid question. also, new cars suck!

 

sometimes the new cars can be really easy to work on if your lucky. for example if you get a misfire on a 80s car you have to pull each wire til you find it a newer car will tell you "misfire cyl 3" ... well it should anyways.

and sometimes you can get lucky with like a evap code, some cars have very common problems and if you get a p0300 or whatever and google it or go to what ever reference site you have there may be 300 replies with "broken vacuum line at X location" and you can look and fix the problem in 10 seconds. but those are rare occasions and nice when they actually do happen that easy. but most the time new cars do suck. i hate when they need like 6 sensors to control something like the a/c