Well, as some of you already know, I'm a service technician at a Subaru dealership. Obviously, I work on a lot of Subarus, most of them pretty boring, so I won't get into those. But we do have quite a lot of used cars that I do UCI's (Used Car Inspections) on, so I figured I'd post up some pics from work.

First, here's my ish. A single bay with an in-ground lift. Technically, I have the use of two two-post lifts and a drive-on lift in our second shop, as I'm the only one who ever uses the other shop, but it's a bit of a PITA as the parts department is at the main shop as are my tools.



I know I said I wasn't going to get into the Subies, but an '04 STi is always worthy of a quick picture:



A catfish camaro I did a UCI on. Automatic, straight pipes, and a literally LOL'd when I opened the hood and saw this:



B20 non-vtak, yo! Needed new tube seals.



Like I said, tube seals. The plugs were drenched in oil.



I honestly drooled over this car a little as I was doing the UCI. '06 BMW 328Ci, complete with 6-speed:



"Big Bubba", as I referred to it as... changing the tires on this thing was fun (this is the drive-on lift I was talking about)



The owner of this Grand Cherokee stated that she parked on a hill and when she got out, gas was leaking.



Dropped the tank and found that someone had f*cked around with the fuel pump. They didn't tighten the cap on it nearly enough.



The world's slowest race team!







(Yes, that's a 4th car on the alignment rack. I was working on 4 cars at once. I'm awesome like that.)



The story behind that is I was doing an alignment on the Ford 500 there and the owner came to me and said he was sending the red Grand Am to the auction, and wanted me to swap good parts among the cars. I ended up swapping a few interior panels, tail lights, and wheels.


'98 328ci:



I've had this car in the shop more than any other single vehicle. UCI, replacing the power steering pump, replacing the battery, replacing a door lock actuator, replacing the power steering pump again, etc. '06 Monte Carlo.



'06 V6 charger. It might look nice, but half the car has been re-painted and the interior had me wanting to stab someone.



I was told to get the speakers working in it. Well, the trunk had about 7 wires just sort of chillin, there was a rat's nest under the dash on either side, there was speaker wire just sort of running up the a-pillar for no real reason. Took me about 6 hours to figure everything out and re-wire everything. This is one example of the fine, fine wiring work in the car:

why solder or crimp wires when you can just strip them, twist 'em around each other, and loosely cover them in electrical tape?


'98 Oldsmobile LSS. Looks like I'm having fun so far, right?



BAM! F*ckin' rat's nest. The same car about 5 minutes later (replacing the turn signal switch; they had it buried behind the clock spring, horn contact, steering wheel lock, etc). That's the signal switch hanging above the clockspring (the clockspring is the black and yellow thing hanging out of the steering column). It wasn't hard to get to by itself, but the wiring harness that ran from it to the main harness ran down through the steering column. Talk about a PITA to do.



And my most recent favorite car. '05 G35... this thing wanted to friggin' get up and go on the road test. I want one:



And the most recent adventure. Aftermarket HID ballast, Bank 2's air injection pump, and the CKP:



And here's the biggest perk of working as a mechanic



Obviously, that's not even a small fraction of the cars I've worked on since starting here, but those cars are the only ones I really bothered with taking pictures of.

 

damn yo i should start takin pics of the cars i work on here lol.

 

Cool stuff.

Just curious, why do you have such a raging boner over the '04 sti?

 

It's the best year for the sti IMO. No A/C from the factory, no radio. Not quite as bare-bones as, say, a lotus elise, but still less weight than the other sti's. That and I love the body style. I like the 06/07 body style, too, but not as much as the 04/05. The 08+ is starting to grow on me, but I'm still not a huge fan of it being a hatch.

Actually, I'm a huge fan of both the '04 sti and the '03-'09 Legacy GT... the Legacy's a little more in my price range if I'd go with a Subaru for my next car lol


And as of this morning, I actually have three lifts and a "dead bay" (a bay with no lift); the head technician apparently left on Friday and moved his stuff out over the weekend, so I inherited his bays. I now literally have half the shop to myself

 

Legacy's are great, but needs more 6 speed.

I guess I agree if you're building a track car, but even that's a stretch. For the minor advantage you may get from weight reduction, you're sacrificing a LOT of creature comfort and other performance related advancements.

 

You have a point. Personally, I never use A/C unless there's a female in the car, so I could live without that no problem. I'm not sure how I'd feel about no radio at all, though... I imagine listening to a turbo spool would get old after about a week.

And yeah, I wish they would've started putting the 6-speeds in the Legacies a little sooner. I had fun driving a 6-speed '10 GT to a little event thing the dealership was doing a few months back... the only time it saw less than full boost was at red lights

 

The car in the last picture looks like a P.O.S...haha j/k...
Some pretty nice cars ya work on...i definately wouldn't bring any of my cars to your Dealership knowing you might go out and joyride in them...hah

 

I do not miss working at a dealership...

I hated "big bubbas". Well in my case working at a Toyota dealer, it was Tundras and Sequoias. Damn 20" wheels and massive tires are probably part of the reason why my back is messed up and no longer working at a dealer.

I've seen a highlander with sugar in their fuel system. I guess someone was upset... Whole new fuel system was needed lol.

I don't miss how disgusting some people are with their cars. I've seen and smelled it all lol.

I've seen plenty of rats nests and even dead birds. Lovely sight and smell.

I will say the only thing i miss working at a dealer is having the lift to do work on my car... But I manage just fine at home.

Oh and I am kinda happy that the dealer I worked for is under investigation by the Department of Labor. They treated people so poorly it was insane. Part of the reason I left and haven't been back to say hi to anyone. Not to mention a lot are thieves...

 

Oh my God, you pretty much hit the nail on the head.

That Tundra I posted is 79" from the outside of one tire to the outside of the other tire; my lift is 79" across. I actually went out and measured it before I even tried to get it on the lift; I didn't want to waste 5 minutes just to figure out it wouldn't fit lol.

I've pulled a dead cardinal out of a bumper, and several mouse nests out of engine bays (no mice, thankfully). I've been in cars that smelled so bad I had to drive them in and out of the shop with my head sticking out the window so I could breathe.

Actually, I'm not sure if I'm even going to be working at the same place in, say, a few weeks. There's some issues going on with the dealership that I'd rather not get into, and management is keeping quiet about it. So I might be looking for a new job if things go sour... in which case I'll either be looking into smaller garages or the local Honda dealership. Actually, I might rock a tire shop, too. I could totally mount and balance tires all day for $10/hr

And burnin, I know you were joking, but there seems to be a stereotype of dealer techs joyriding cars. I actually only ever drive them into and out of the shop, and on road tests to verify a concern or to verify a repair; and I hardly ever abuse a customer's car unless I need to drive it hard to verify the concern, which doesn't happen often. Now crappy used cars are fair game

 

Hah yea i got you reap...it was the same when i worked at my schools autoshop...We had customers cars in all the time and most of the time had to test drive to verify the problem, I did have a douche bag kid in there that thought he was hot **** and could drive sticks like it was 2nd nature to him but he was horrible and actually hit another customers car when he was joy riding...haha