Nice to Have Forums Like This

[pghturbo88]

If you've ever posted diagnostic help in this forum, take a moment to be recognized. Sure, there are all of the active threads that people respond to, but what about the help that someone gets via an internet search?

Here's my point. A guy I work with has a beater 99 Escort ZX2 that threw a code P171 (lean). He didn't have time to look into the problem, so he took it to his usual mechanic. $300 later, he had a new MAF, and the car still ran like crap, and still had the code. So I googled this code, and a sticky on the TeamZX2 forum gave some great troubleshooting tips. He brought the car over after work, and after about an hour of searching, we found a degraded hose between the intake manifold and PCV valve. Dorman HELP makes new fittings specifically for this problem, and with about $15 and a total of about two hours of work, we have it running like a champ.

I'm pretty sure many anonymous folks have searched this forum to get the help they need to fix something on their Beretta, much the way I used an Escort enthusiast site (without ever posting there). So if you can sort through all of the static on the internet, there sure is a lot of good information out there.

[berettaboi]

I agree, and also used to be an escort enthusiast! (first car, 91 egt)

[BerettaLove32]

I totally agree. If it wasn't for the Beretta forums I'd probably know nothing about cars, like I did when I joined way back when I was 16. I can't even begin to add up how much money I've saved by doing repairs to cars myself. If I would have had to pay for all the stuff that went wrong on my Beretta it wouldn't have lasted nearly as long as it did.

[3X00-Modified]

As I've said in the past, the art of a good trust worthy mechanic is just dying and it's really sad. You just can't trust any shops these days.

[woody90gtz]

Amen. Without forums I wouldn't be nearly the mechanic I am. The amount of information out there is truly remarkable.

[1990BerettaGTZ2.3L]

Well you gotta think like this someone out there has gotten help before probably for the same problem you had and it doesn't hurt to ask when it comes to a mechanic and they plug it in and it's saying one problem and he fixes that well it technically not all his fault because the code scanner directly pointed to that just like this 2000 gmc 3500hd bucket truck we have she runs rich and rough they changed what the computer was pointing to and still didn't fix the problem it has a 454 tbi no I know these are simple come on now

[3X00-Modified]

Problem is your giving the mechanic too much credit... Some don't even bother to look/test the part that the ecu is saying is "bad"... Yes you can easily get a bad MAF code because of a huge vac leak and that's where the skill is just lacking. They have completely incompetent people just pulling codes and spending customers money like it's water. I can replace sensors left and right too, but I'd rather take some time troubleshooting what the code is and not just replace the sensor that's reading wrong, as well as test the original one to disprove its failure.

The same thing applies when it comes to my career field of IT... The influx of idiots who just read from a book and can't think on their feet is really sad... and even more so when these are the people I have to call for tech support. I shouldn't know more about their own software than the UPS Worldship support technician does.

[Travelor]

Well you gotta think like this someone out there has gotten help before probably for the same problem you had and it doesn't hurt to ask when it comes to a mechanic and they plug it in and it's saying one problem and he fixes that well it technically not all his fault because the code scanner directly pointed to that just like this 2000 gmc 3500hd bucket truck we have she runs rich and rough they changed what the computer was pointing to and still didn't fix the problem it has a 454 tbi no I know these are simple come on now

Do you, or do you not, use a non standard keyboard that lacks the keys of "." or ","?

I attempted to read that in one breath 15 minutes ago, and just now came to.

[tkims117]

Hahaha! I tried to type a whole segment without punctuations, damn that was hard.

Very true though, this forum has done more for me than anything else! Bnet pride!! =]