Motor head {road scholar}: Grease monkey blues

AUTOMOTIVE ADVANCES GOOD FOR TECHS, BAD FOR BACKYARD MECHANICS

By Newt Briggs

Seventeen-year-old Vo-Tech High School senior Walter Lopez dreams in electrical schematics. He flosses with spark plug wires and drinks 10W-30 motor oil like it's Nesquik. He even knows how to turn rotors on a lathe and how to diagnose and repair a faulty EGR valve. He's just a little shaky on drum brakes.

"I spazzed out on the brakes," Lopez says. "I haven't worked on drums in a long time, and when I saw the pads and springs and everything, I just kind of blanked, you know?"

It was a momentary lapse in what was otherwise a banner day for Lopez, who went on to beat 39 other high school students in the Community College of Southern Nevada's ninth annual VICA (Vocational Industrial Clubs of America) automotive skills competition. Convened at CCSN's Cheyenne Avenue campus, the day-long event required that students attempt 20 different exercises, each of which covered one or more of the eight Automotive Service Excellence national certification standards.

Needless to say, these weren't just check-and-fill challenges. Competitors diagnosed a variety of ignition and cooling problems, broke down and assembled braking systems and took a battery of written tests (sample question: "A rich air/fuel mixture will cause an oxygen sensor voltage output of...?"). The top 12 finishers will be sent on to the state VICA competition in Reno later this year.

But according to Larry Thomas, chair of CCSN's transportation and technology department, the competition served a second function--to help the college recruit Southern Nevada's best automotive minds to its homegrown automotive technology program. As Thomas notes, the two-year course of study has become so popular that administrators now have to turn away 450 students per semester.

"We're at critical mass," says Thomas, who estimates that 800 to 850 students are currently enrolled in the CCSN program. "Our classes usually fill up in three days or less."

And for good reason. According to Thomas, despite the sputtering American job market, there are as many as 100,000 positions available in the United States for qualified service techs. These techs, says Thomas, can earn as much as $50,000 in their first full year of work.

One such tech is Javier Salazar--a CCSN graduate and a two-time winner of the statewide VICA competition. Now employed as a transmission specialist at Fairway Chevrolet, Salazar returned to his alma mater to help judge last Saturday`s contest. In fact, his station--the "no crank, no start" test--proved the day's hardest challenge. Of the competitors, only one--17-year-old Chris Augustine--solved Salazar's problem. The trick, says Salazar, is to follow the service procedure to the letter.

"Everyone always wants it to be something obvious. They want it to be a fuse or a battery connection or whatever. Sometimes it is, but sometimes they've got to look at the schematics and dig a little deeper.

"Cars are all electrical now. The ignition system, the fuel system, the way the transmission shifts, the heating and cooling, the exhaust, the way the brakes work--they're all tied to the electrical system."

Owner and restorer of a 1969 Chevy Impala with a 454 cubic-inch big block engine and dual four-barrel carbs, the 20-year-old Salazar knows firsthand how much automotive technology has changed during the last 3 1/2 decades.

"Nowadays," says Salazar, "they're making transmissions that don't even have dipsticks. The only way you know if it needs service is if a warning light on the dash comes on. Then you've got to bring it in to find out what's wrong."

For technicians who profit on every service call, this may be a beneficial change, but for the at-home mechanic, it honks the horn of doom. Gone are the days when a strong push could bypass a finicky starter motor or when a good rap with a screwdriver was enough to fix a stuck carburetor. The combination of computers, sensors, transistors and solenoids has all but relegated the backyard grease monkey to only the most menial automotive tasks.

And these may be next on the auto industry chopping block. According to Salazar, the next thing to go is the oil dipstick, and after that, it's not hard to imagine a day when a pipe wrench, a homemade funnel, a six-pack of beer and a case of generic oil won't be enough to perform a simple oil change.

To Salazar, this isn't such an ominous portent. "Even if the technology changes, it won't be that hard for the average person to figure out. I mean, it's just a stupid piece of machinery."

Maybe, but it's quickly becoming a stupid piece of machinery that requires an associate's degree to even pop the hood.