Auto Journal | Workshop Life

Tuesday rolled in with a pending job for a vehicle and at the same time new ones being parked on each bay area. It wasn’t that full-on when work started yesterday it was more like a slow grind for most of the apprentice technicians who worked on each of the cars assigned for them. I assisted on the cars handled by Dylan, being generous and accommodating without the need for permission from his workshop foreman he was gracious enough to let me be his assistant for the rest of the day.

Being employed by a dealer doesn’t mean all things are just work. In-between these jobs I observed most things interesting about workshop life. It’s not also about chilling and putting on some music in their areas it’s also about cars. Well mostly the cars I help work with Dylan are interesting and some other things during yesterday.

So I learned a bit about company interactions and getting to see how these hardworking individuals from Mazda Reynella get into action. Some interesting perspective behind-the-scenes was fairly casual, but another learning experience.



Every Car Personality

There where several interesting things I noticed working on cars just like during the “Off-Job Training” at TAFE you get to know the person who owns the car without the need to know their names. There where several things that I find it interesting about each one of them and it was like a mixed bag.



One car that got my attention is the old Mazda 3 sedan that the paint was sort of burned in the radiation of the Australian sun. The car is not entirely in bad shape, but it sure needs a bit of love from the owner as it appears that the spiders have left this car and from the inside it was really like someone didn’t clean their room.

But to be honest the owner has priorities and the car wasn’t one of them. What Dylan and I think is that it’s a single parent with the baby seat in the rear. The protective plate for most of the cars under carriage was dragged too much that a corner of it is broken off. We zip-tied the entire thing back in place, but this sure needs some serious love like a major clean inside and out.



Drive Test with a Buddy

There’s this BT-50 utility that has been having a problem with one actuator for its air-con, but it turns out BOTH where not functioning properly and it was a bit of a grind for Dylan to get through into fixing the concern. It was a utility vehicle that had a hard life with a reliable roaring engine.

We checked if both actuators after several hours work on this vehicle have finally been fixed so we took it for a spin. Testing all the settings of the sir-con from cold to hot and the customer was very happy that everything was resolved in the last hour due to that main concern and testing it on the road was a key part in trying to check if everything is all squared up before giving it to the customer.



Dynamic Mode

Towards the end of another work day at Mazda Reynella is working on the Mazda 6 wagon. It was a 2017 model that had more sophistication than its previous models that includes a sports mode. It was fairly easy to replace the problem with its forward sensing camera being that car is still under warranty.

It was the first time Dylan to fix its problem and we had to test drive it to calibrate the camera, which was on “Dynamic Mode” and it also took him time to learn about it through the workshop manual that’s available at Mazda’s database. It's also where he showed me that all wiring diagrams are also paperless with an animated simulation on how each wiring works.



Another day at the workshop and there’s a few more days to learn about working at a dealership. But pretty much it was a rewarding experience getting to know the people and how their dedication has put Mazda on the map in South Australia.