johnmaconline

I almost wasn’t accepted into my major.

Not only didn’t high school prepare me for college, but I think it hurt me. I have a good memory for things like dates, names, formulas, and definitions. I did a lot of homework on the bus ride to school or in homeroom once I got there. Through high school, studying for me was an exercise in breezing over the dates, names, formulas, and definitions right before the test.

I did well on the SATs, graduated in the top 10% of my class of 220, and gained acceptance into all three colleges I applied to (University of Colorado, Boston University, and Penn State). This was the mid-80s, so it was well before SAT prep classes, gamified school rankings, college application coaches, essays, DEI quotas, and personal mission statements.

Then I got to Penn State and promptly fell on my face — 2.5 GPA after my first year, including a D in freshman physics, which meant I had to retake the class. I’d never seen a C on a report card in high school.

I spent the next four years digging out from the hole I dug in my first two semesters. I never cracked a cumulative 3.00. My high water mark was 2.99, and I graduated with a 2.95.

I had no idea how to manage my time and live on my own. I had no idea how to study. I had no idea how to think about problems.

I had no idea how to learn.

So, step one was to figure out how to learn.

The first step in getting the facts is to know where they are.

With grocery store items, you’ll find the facts on the nutrition and ingredient label, not on the front label.
For research papers, you’ll find the facts in the section labeled “data,” not in the abstract or the conclusion sections.
In a financial report, you’ll (hopefully) find the facts in the balance sheet and income statements, not in the executive summary or footnotes.
In the courtroom, you might find the facts in the presented evidence, but you won’t in the opening or closing arguments.
For a car, you’ll find the facts on the performance and spec sheet, not in the TV commercial.

In today’s culture of weaponized “facts,” it’s helpful to know where to find them.

“Which side are you on?”

I’ve seen a lot of this recently. We all have. Between politics, world events, and even academia and science.

I’ve always thought that’s the wrong question. First, the question presumes there is a right side and a wrong side. Second, the question presumes you better be on the right side. 

Here are better questions to ask:

• How can we resolve this?
• What can we learn from each other?
• How can we find common ground?
• What do the sides believe?
• How can we find an agreeable outcome?
• What’s the third side?

Dan says to me from around the hood, 

“Come over here, I’ll show you. I’m gonna get in the car and hit the gas. Look right here.”

He pointed to a spot on the left side of the engine.

“You ready?”

“Yup!”

He hit the gas, and I immediately also knew what the problem was — the motor mount was busted. Sheered clean through. As soon as he hit the gas, the whole engine torqued and moved about an inch.

“To verify this causes the noise, let’s turn the wheel to the left and do it again.”

I got in the car, turned the wheel, and hit the gas.

“Bingo!”

We switched places again, and I saw that as the engine torqued and moved, it touched some of the wheel structure. Case closed.

“I can have this fixed in 15 minutes.”

I stood there as he grabbed the welder, got suited up, and went to work on welding the engine mount. When he was done, I asked him how much I owed him.

“I don’t know. How about $25?”

I handed him $25 in cash and asked, “How did the dealer miss this?”

“You gotta understand how they’re trained. They’re trained to diagnose and treat problems as a black box — which means they narrow down the problems described by the customer to a particular system. In your case the front right wheel system. Then, they just replace the parts inside the box. They don’t look inside the box for exactly what might be the problem. They’re rewarded — paid — for the number of jobs they can do in a day, not how many times they found or fixed the little gadget that was the real source of the problem.

Most of the time, black box fixes work fine. They fix your issue. But it is the costliest way to fix the problem because you’re paying for a lot of new stuff you don’t need.

Mechanics like me — we’re white box mechanics. When you come to me with a problem, I find the box, and then open it up and look inside. My goal is to not only fix your issue but do it as efficiently as possible. That saves you money and makes you really happy with me.”

Then I said it out loud, just to verify, 

“The bottom line is that I would have spent $1700 to have them replace all of the wheel infrastructure, but that wouldn’t have actually addressed the problem. As soon as I turned left and accelerated, I would have heard the noise. Man, I woulda been pissed.”

“Yup. In your case, the black box approach would have failed. If you had come in with better information about what caused the problem, for example, pinpointing it to when you accelerated and turned, they may have found the problem. But the solution would still have been an expensive replacement of the motor mount, rather than welding the current one in place.”

I drove out both elated and a lot wiser. 

I skipped across traffic and pulled into the little garage in the triangle. 

I didn’t know what to expect, but I was hoping whoever was there could at least give me some guidance or maybe even do the work for a lot less. I didn’t quite believe the dealer’s assessment of my problem (i.e., the entire right front wheel structure was bent). Plus, I didn’t have the $1700 that they wanted anyway. 

I needed a different solution.

As I cut the engine and got out, a youngish guy with a grey shirt, nametag, and a smile on his face came out to greet me while wiping his hands on a greasy rag. 

“Hi! I’m Dan. Can I help you?”

“I sure hope so…”

And I proceeded to give him the rundown of my predicament and the fact that I didn’t really buy the explanation. 

“Well, I got a few minutes now, pull it in the garage. Let’s pop the hood.”

As we stood in front of the car with the hood up, I stayed silent. Dan leaned in, pulled on a few things, touched a few others, and said “hmmm” several times. Then he told me,

“Get in the car. Let’s start it up. I want to watch it while it’s running.”

I did as told. After 30 seconds or so, he yelled at me over the engine noise, “OK, now hit the gas.”

Five seconds later, I see Dan’s face poke around the hood to look at me with a giant smile.

“I know what the problem is.”

I heard an awful scraping sound occasionally from the front right wheel when I turned left. 

And that was precisely the problem — occasionally. I could not put my finger on it because I couldn’t find the pattern to when it happened other than turning left. Putting my head under the hood and taking the wheel off didn’t enlighten me either. I was stumped. 

My red 1987 Celica helped me learn another lesson about how the system works. This time, the lesson was black box versus white box. 

I had just moved to the area, so I found my local Toyota dealer in the Yellowpages (how quaint) and made the appointment. I dropped it off and three days later got the call.

“Sir, we’ve found the problem. Have you hit anything with this car?” 

“No. Never.”

“Huh, OK. That scraping sound happens because a bunch of the wheel structure is bent. Basically, we have to replace the entire right front wheel…”

And then he listed off the laundry list of stuff he’d have to replace — to the tune of about $1700. I couldn’t pay that. I wasn’t sure what to do, but I knew I’d just have to go get it and figure something else out. Could I do it myself?

“Hmmm. Well, I can’t do that right now. Don’t do anything. I’ll come get it.”

Between my apartment and the car dealer was what I refer to as “the worst intersection in the world.” It’s a heinous five-points thing where three routes come together, two of which are four lanes. It’s a monster, and it’s a ten-minute wait no matter what direction you’re coming from. 

On the way home, I’m coming up on the light, and it looks like I’m gonna make it. I’m getting excited and tailgating the guy in front of me. I’m committed now, no matter when it turns. We’re gonna do this!

But no, it was not to be. Just as we’re approaching the light, it turns yellow, and the person in front of me inexplicably stops. Has he not been here before? Does he not know how much time he just cost us? Does he not know that a yellow light is simply a suggestion?

Regardless, there I sat, one back from the front of the line, steaming. 

Now with plenty of time to contemplate my situation, I noticed that across the intersection, in a little triangle, sat a small one-stall garage with a PA state safety inspection station sign hanging over its entrance. 

Eh, what the heck.

One day after having my 1987 Celica towed to his garage, Phil gave me a call.

“Car’s fixed. You can come get it.”

“Great! How much do I owe you?”

“$50”

“$50?! What was actually wrong with it?”

“I’ll show you when you get here.”

With that, Chris and I drove the 30 minutes to Phil’s to pick it up. 

“So what the hell was wrong with it?”

“All it needed was an adjustment of the electrical timing. On this car, you do that by adjusting the distributor cap. It’s pretty easy. Come out here, I’ll show you.”

We went to the garage, lifted the hood, and he showed me that rotating the distributor cap adjusts the timing. That was literally all it needed. 

“OK, so what was the dealer trying to do to me? Why was he insistent that the problem was that I needed genuine Toyota parts?”

“Ah, because you gotta understand how the system works.”

He pulled out some giant book with an official-looking Toyota insignia and flipped to somewhere in the middle.

“Look here. The timing belt replacement at a Toyota dealer actually requires two jobs: 1) the mechanical replacement of the timing belt and 2) the adjustment of the electrical timing. But that second part, the electrical timing adjustment, is part of the job labeled as tune-up.”

“Aha! The problem was that I declined the second job. This guy knew that genuine Toyota parts wouldn’t matter a lick (as I suspected, because nobody’s that dumb), but he was trying to tell me (with a wink) that the timing belt job isn’t complete unless and until they also perform the tune-up. The tune-up, although new plugs and wires were not required for my problem here, was code for: we’ll also adjust the electrical timing once we replace the belt so that it runs good.”

“Yes, exactly. Toyota, and all manufacturers, are a bit like chain restaurants in that they want the service departments at the various dealerships to provide the same customer experience no matter which one you take your car to. Plus, they get operations benefits by training all of their technicians and service managers on the same job system.”

“Why wouldn’t the timing belt job automatically include adjusting the electrical timing? That seems kind of slimy.”

“It probably is a little, but if you pay them for the job, they’ll do what they say — you’re car will come out with all new parts and the engine purring like a kitten.”

That was one of a few lessons that this 1987 red Celica taught me about how the service departments in car dealerships work. This one saved me a few bucks, but the next one saved me thousands.

Stay tuned. 

I pride myself on acting like a respectable adult in trying situations. 

I don’t whine at retail agents, make a stink at the wait staff, or yell across the counter when I don’t get my way. I’m not that person, except for two times in my life (of which I’m aware). One was in an airport in Doha, Qatar.

The other was right here at the service counter of the Toyota dealership in Pottstown, PA.

I simply could not understand why this guy would not follow basic logic. I couldn’t control myself. I stood there and whined, made a stink, and yelled at the person standing on the other side of the counter. Luckily for me, this was long before smartphones and social media. 

In hindsight, I give him a lot of credit for how he handled me (not his logic or his story; that was ridiculous). He stood there and patiently stuck to his story while I acted like a child. But he didn’t win me over. Clearly, I was going to have to spend more money, but for damn sure, I wasn’t going to give it to this guy. I ended with a flare, “Don’t touch my car! A tow truck will be showing up!” 

Embarrassed and not knowing what to do or where to tow the car, I called my dad. He calmed me down and told me where to have it towed.

“Don’t worry. Phil will figure this out.”

And as it turned out, Phil was also the one who could teach me the lesson about how the system works.

I got it started, turned that sucker right around, and limped back into the parking lot. I asked for the service manager, whom I had just handed $600 to about 10 minutes before. 

Still innocently and with genuine confusion, I said,

“Hey, I just tried to leave but there is definitely something still wrong. It spits and sputters and then stalls.”

“Yes, sir. We noticed that also. We think it’s because your distributor cap and wires are not genuine Toyota parts. I already recommended to you that we perform the tune-up, but you declined.”

It took a second for that to sink in because, you know, I am genuinely confused. I’m in my mid-20s, baby-faced, and not yet steeped in the cynicism required to navigate this world. 

But I knew one thing for damn sure — the problem with my car was NOT an aftermarket distributor cap and wires. I tried to reason with him.

“Sir, I don’t understand how that could possibly be the problem. It ran perfectly until the moment the timing belt snapped. Could something else have been damaged when it snapped?”

“No, we know that’s not the problem. I can promise that if you instruct us to do the tune-up ($300), your car will be running perfectly.”

I’m an engineer. I spend most of my days figuring out problems, what caused them, and how to fix them. This guy is not making any sense. So I stood there and tried to use logic and reason, but he stood his ground.

And then I lost control. 

One evening, on the way home from work, my 1987 Celica left me sitting on the side of the road.

The engine just quit. I had no idea what happened, but since it was a standard transmission, I shifted to neutral and coasted to the shoulder. Coincidently, right in front of a Ford dealership.

So I walked in, pointed to my car stranded out front, and then withstood the onslaught of sales pitches for a new Ford while I asked to use a phone (pre-mobile phones). An hour later, my car and I, under tow, pulled into the Toyota dealer. 

A day or two later, I got what I thought was a strange phone call from the service manager. He called to tell me the timing belt had snapped and would need to be replaced for about $600. Fair enough. But then he also said,

“We noticed that the distributor cap and wires aren’t genuine Toyota parts. While we have it, we’d like to perform a tune-up, and with that we’ll replace the plugs, distributor cap and wires, etc with genuine Toyota parts.”

“How much will that cost?”

“$300”

“No thanks, just the timing belt, please.”

“Sir, we highly recommend that we perform this tune-up. We can’t guarantee that it will be running correctly unless we do this service.”

I was genuinely confused. Until the second the timing belt snapped, it was running perfectly.

“No, thanks.”

He persisted. So did I. Just the timing belt, please.

I got the call a few days later that it was ready. I paid the $600, hopped in, and pulled out onto the road. As soon as I hit the gas to accelerate, the engine bogged down, missed, backfired, and stalled. 

Now, wait a minute, here. What’s going on?