Hooniverse Exclusive Behind the Scenes – School Auto Shop
Sapporo
These days, I get my dirty auto maintenance done at the vocational school down the road. Since I’m mostly all thumbs and haven’t got a garage of my own (though I’m most likely getting one these days), I’ve found it easier to book a service at the auto shop they have in their premises and roll down the hill with the parts in the passenger footwell. The students there get to wrench on my car, learn valuable life lessons like why it’s not a good idea to buy a low-mileage obscure Japanese car, and I get a smaller bill than I would get if I took it to any other garage.
But before I get all Lionel Dobie, here are a few photos of the auto shop in question.
So, most likely it’s this guy or someone like him doing the wrenching:
The Karjala beer baseball cap is mandatory, they hand them to anybody coming in at the door.
The Sapporo’s in for monthly maintenance, this time it’s the muffler that’s developed a noisy hole and it’s the passenger side CV joint’s time to get swapped for a new one. The car’s spending the weekend indoors as it waits for a suitable joint instead of the Galant joint that was supposed to fit it; I had the chance to grab these photos of the auto shop as I had to go grab the scissor jack that is shared between my two cars. The Mazda’s now back on the road, so the Mitsu’s probably going to need one of its own these days.
What does it cost to have a car serviced there? Well, the last time they swapped a CV joint they charged 33 euro. That’s about half of what the Mitsu garage charges per hour, of course not including the joint itself.
So, what else is spending time at the shop?
Well, first of all there’s this good-looking light blue Beetle. Doesn’t look like it needs that much bodywork, but whatever is going on is going on at the back.
Another thing is this handsome early-’90s Caprice Classic, a proof that the exorbitant fuel prices here do not automatically discourage everybody from owning a five-litre V8 automobile. Behind it, the doors that used to belong to my Mazda can be seen.
Hey, isn’t that my girlfriend’s brother’s total beater V6 Camaro? Why yes, yes it is. It’s a ’84 Sport Coupe automatic with the worst paintjob in recent memory, but luckily the paint is peeling off it so it’s gradually losing most of it. There are rash-like outbursts of rust cracking the surface, that bring to mind Tremors. The Camaro’s in for welding so it’ll pass inspection, and then it’s back to hooning. Behind it is a Golf GTI with a Jetta face, as over here GTI:s came with a quad setup and the car’s since been treated to a brick setup just for kicks.
To finish the post, here’s a post-facelift K10 Nissan Micra. Tiny, reliable other than hairline cracks in the head, very red. Maybe Ray of hatch fame likes it?
[Student photo credit: Kaleva.fi]
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When I was in high school (1970s), there was a black Peugeot 203 that lived in the auto shop. Those cars were quite rare in the US even back then.
<img src="http://www.carpictures1.com/var/resizes/Oldtimer_mieten_Peugeot_203_C1_Classic_1024x768.jpg" width=500>
So is the workmanship comparable to a private garage, just cheaper? If getting my own parts and them taking longer are the only drawbacks, I'd let them give it a go.
Somewhat related, have any of you guys (and girls) ever thought about taking auto classes in the evenings? I'm mediocre at working on cars (OK, I admit it, I'm a danger to myself and most people near me when working on cars), so I was thinking about taking some evening classes to bring my skills up. Thoughts? I'm a systems admin by day, so it wouldn't be able to interfere with my day job, but I have an affinity for older cars, meaning that wrenching on them myself could save some cash.
Barring the occasional SNAFU that can happen to anyone, I'm all for them wrenching on my car. The rates are good, and it doesn't actually take any longer than it would take anyway, since I would take the car in in the morning and get it back in the afternoon if I took it to any shop. And you know what parts are going in and what are coming out – and they call you if there's something you should know.
Well, when you take it to a proper garage it is serviced by people who have done this kind of stuff for living for a while. When you take it a vocational school, it is serviced by a group of people who have never wrenched professionally. So, if your Mitsu needs a CV or something straightforward like that, yeah, no problem. If your Audi is experiencing mysterious electrical issues that are going to need a 9th level master diagnostic wizard to perform an exorcism, this is not the place for it.
My wrenching skills improved very quickly when I had to get my 20 year old hooptie back together by 7am so I could go back to work and admin some more systems. Very educational, but I wouldn't recommend it. Now I'm at a more comfortable situation where I try to keep 2 cars running and one being worked on at a time.
It looks like a total lack of typical 2-post hydraulic lifts, but a bunch with complicated scissor mechanisms to get in the way of someone trying to R&R a RWD transmission (might be able to use the 2-post in the background of the Camaro shot, if those ramps aren't in the way). The VW rear hub is resting on blocks of wood stacked on a platform.
Do they use those types of lifts because of local regulations, or are ones that give better under-car access just not affordable?
<img src="http://gullystavern.com/Delmarva/images/XPR-10CX_Two-Post-Lift.jpg">
Most shops I've seen (and that's quite a few) have 2-post lifts just like the one in your picture. I don't think I've ever seen a hydraulic one though, they're all mechanical with a big screw inside each post. Safety mechanisms too of course, the car isn't just resting on the lifting mechanism while work is being done. Also, I don't think I've ever seen one with a crossmember on top.
I've seen one or two shops that has had one lift with ramps like the one in the Beetle picture. One of the shops use it exclusively for oil changes since they offer that as a drive-in service.
This is by far my favorite Hooniverse post thus far. The photos and words paint a picture of Finland/northern Europe that many of us have never seen. And that your gf's brother takes his beat up Camaro there seals the deal.
In high school, Nissan opened up a big corporate office in my hometown (Irvine). As a nice gesture, it donated a brand new Sentra and a brand new Axxess minivan to our auto shop. That was pretty awesome to take apart brand new cars.
Cool. I wanted to take auto shop in Junior High School. But I wasn't a degenerate who liked Led Zep. And I didn't have any weed. And I didn't want to get beat up. And the Junior High didn't have an auto shop. I had a lot of problems. So I just went to work nights at a gas station.
My daughter's "other dad" has a best friend who runs the high school auto shop class down in Naples, Florida. She has her vintage '83 flat front (as in pre OJ front) F150 worked on there on a regular basis. Those dudes love it as there is a limited amount of, if any, computers on it. Just good ole wrenching. If there were a local class here, both my Indian… the Comanche… and "The Charles Barrett Special" Commando would be going there on a regular basis.
In Holland there are several places where they have garages that are subsidized by the government and they keep troublemakers off the street. They have professional mechanics guiding the unexperienced ones, and the rates are very low. Since they're a shop they get discounts on parts that most people can only dream of. I don't think I'd bring in a car with electrical/computer issues, but for anything that can be done with a set of wrenches they're the place to go to. You're helping people to make themselves useful and you're getting your car fixed