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mac

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I swear that everyone who is in tech support, with any one associated with our business, the first thing they are taught to say when answering a call is "Wow. I've never heard of that before."
 
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mac

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I thought I had seen almost every way maintenance could be screwed up, but this place I recently bought really surprised me. I usually just assume when going to fix something that a piece had failed and just fix or replace it. This place had check valves in backwards, contactors with wrong coil voltage, hp hoses plugged solid, and boxes scattered all over the place with old used parts. It is a sad reflection of the quality of techs out there.
 
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Randy

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I thought I had seen almost every way maintenance could be screwed up, but this place I recently bought really surprised me. I usually just assume when going to fix something that a piece had failed and just fix or replace it. This place had check valves in backwards, contactors with wrong coil voltage, hp hoses plugged solid, and boxes scattered all over the place with old used parts. It is a sad reflection of the quality of techs out there.
Mac, it isn't so much the tech's who are at fault. It's usually the owners. I've been in equipment rooms where I had to walk over all the used junk to get to the bill changer in the dark because they are afraid to throw anything away that they spent money or replace the light bulbs so you can at least see, because they are cheapsters. I've got some customers who want all the used parts I replace, I guess they think I'm trying to screw them. I could go on and on.
 

Fletch

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I swear that everyone who is in tech support, with any one associated with our business, the first thing they are taught to say when answering a call is "Wow. I've never heard of that before."
I see you have called Belanger tech support as well.
 
Etowah

mac

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Mac, it isn't so much the tech's who are at fault. It's usually the owners. I've been in equipment rooms where I had to walk over all the used junk to get to the bill changer in the dark because they are afraid to throw anything away that they spent money or replace the light bulbs so you can at least see, because they are cheapsters. I've got some customers who want all the used parts I replace, I guess they think I'm trying to screw them. I could go on and on.
There’s plenty of blame to go around. I think many of the idiot owners have gone away. The place I bought was ran mostly with absentee owners who relied on local techs. It’s probably why I did so well with the service business I sold.
 

Waxman

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I'm biased. I think the best owners are hands-on. We work on things ourselves and have a network of friends and associates to help us when we get stuck. I knew so very little about the equipment side of the business that there were several growing pains and hard lessons learned.. I'm much more relaxed now; when things malfunction I know I will get it fixed. I changed my attitude from one of fear to one of curiosity. I like learning about the equipment and how to repair it. It's satisfying. It feels like solving a mystery sometimes. It should feel fun and not dreadful.
 

mac

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It is funny. Most people are clueless about what it takes to run even a simple self serve. You have to know vacs, vendors, change machines, high voltage circuitry, low voltage basics, credit card machines, water treatment, chemical mixing systems, different pumps, and basic building maintenance. And I am convinced that the operators who visit this site are in the top 20% of all operators.
 

mac

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‘‘Tis truest a unique business.
 

sparkey

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I work as a controls engineer at the moment but was an industrial maintenance technician several years before going into my current full time job. I find car wash equipment to be some of the simplest equipment I ever worked on. Its almost funny how the equipment manufactures guard their programming with their life like its some kind of super high tech equipment when any good industrial controls person could write the PLC logic and debug it in less than two weeks. Programming an automatic carwash would be considered a small project for most integrators.
 

mac

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Sparky you nailed it. Hard to believe, but it is actually getting a little better. A service company I used to own we worked on many brands is machines. Many manufacturers would not even talk to you much less sell you proprietary parts. I love watching cable about modern manufacturing methods. They are orders of magnitude ahead of car wash people.
 
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