A mechanic on watchdog..

[sigma]

Never have. never needed to and never will. Have had alternators melt their way out of their housings, fry ECU's at 20v and try to set fire to engines and throughout it all the fuse will sit there happily.

What about other fuses?

Consider me schooled. Granted, I'm not a car tech but I've always been told to check fuses, I'd apply the same logic to any component.

 

[MatteH Oxford]

So you wouldn't check the fuse?

If the fuse is blown then the particular circuit that you are testing for faults wouldn't operate.

In electrical diagnosis, if the fuse has blown then the entire circuit should be checked - It's not a case of simply replacing the fuse.

First call is to check for shorts, repair as necessary, then check the circuit continuity including the earth(s). Then test the component, tests will vary depending on its nature. You might have to do resistance tests on a cooling fan, or check to see that none of the phases have shorted to earth in an alternator for example.

Then you replace the fuse - hopefully after every potential circuit fault has been accounted for and eliminated.

 

[dalin80]

Others? Definitely especially high amp or variable drains like heated screens and cig lighter sockets.

You go with what experience tells you.

 

[sigma]

If the fuse is blown then the particular circuit that you are testing for faults wouldn't operate.

In electrical diagnosis, if the fuse has blown then the entire circuit should be checked - It's not a case of simply replacing the

But you couldn't tell if the fuse had blown unless you checked to see if it had, that's the point I am trying to make, not further investigation (which this guy doesn't appear to have done).

 

[rodenal]

You'd check the output at the alt, then at the battery - assuming it was charging at the alternator but not the battery this would narrow the problem down to the circuit itself which is where/when the fuse would be checked. In most/all cases though there will be an obvious issue hence no need to bother with the fuse, I'd be amazed if it wasn't checked when there was no obvious issue with the wiring.

Anyway this is all completely irrelevant because the guy was genuinely incompetent and didn't even think about doing any fault finding whatsoever. The whole "needing" pads / not even doing rear pads pretty much sums it up.

 

[MatteH Oxford]

But you couldn't tell if the fuse had blown unless you checked to see if it had, that's the point I am trying to make, not further investigation (which this guy doesn't appear to have done).

Well yeah, I was just stating there's a lot more to do than just replace a fuse if it has blow, this is a matter which was not obviously pointed out by the TV program to the viewer.

Full circuit examination is very important with regards to time taken for fixing a fault, making sure there is no recurrence as far as is it reasonable (barring something like an extremely unfortunate component failure a few days/weeks/months down the line - it does happen ) & the potential costs involved remedying things correctly.

 

[adam cool dude]

In any trade, there is no substitue for experience.

A true mechanic has seen the most obvious routine problems many times.

There are specialist mechanics that earn a living looking for electrical problems, particularly on expensive presitge cars and usually faults caused through accident damage.

It would be very interesting to place a blown fuse in your car and take it to a garage, I wonder how many would find the 'fault'

'Scratches head Aah the old, i've put a blown fuse in trick'

WTF?

Exactly this especially if you work on your own cars. I have had my car for the past 5 years and can pretty much identify any fault with the car and the common problems that can happen. Whilst I might not have the general knowledge that a mechanic might have. He will not be able to diagnose the same model of car as mine better than me.

 

[Gerard]

Thought people wrere going a bit OTT about his weight till i watched the video.........

That has to be 400lbs plus waddling along.

 

[Begbie]

This is the way it works with me:

Due a service, change oil, filters etc, I even do brake fluid.
Pads are low, change pads maybe discs if needed.

I have done clutches and cambelts, even on twin cam engines.

Engine warning light comes on. - take to a trusted garage, and find out the fault....

Guess what?

It has never been a fuse.

A fuse can go for various reasons. But I see your logic, something must've caused the fuse to go? So therefore the fault needs to be found? Rather than just replacing a fuse?

Though I've replaced fuses in many devices and found it to work for ages after.

 

[The Running Man]

First rule of PC repair club - tell no one else about the PC repair club
Second rule - remove peripherals one at a time until system boots, including CD/DVD drives and secondary hard drives.

To be fair with something like that you could easily spend an hour taking everything out before you figured what it was. Then time to put it all back. At fifty quid an hour your looking at near a ton to diagnose and fix a wrongly seated jumper. They d still crucify you for that on TV they set him up to fail whatever the outcome. Lying about how it occurred would delay the finding of the issue.