Trying to warm-up to SureTrack

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  • Trindaddy
    Senior Member
    • Jan 2010
    • 339

    Trying to warm-up to SureTrack

    Hello friends. As we head into the colder months up here I am beginning to find myself in my favorite chair more often. I can't resist some tech-talk. I'm a long time user of IATN which I thoroughly enjoy but from time to time I check in with SureTrack only to be reminded of why it doesn't keep me engaged. I love to solve problems like most of you but I find that the questions on SureTrack are often unashamedly void of any real testing. Sometimes not even any effort into what the symptoms are! It seems like Suretrack is a link to the world where anyone can pose any question without any real effort or knowledge. I thought you needed a subscription to enter Suretrack. Am I wrong?

    Anyway, perhaps the one thing I don't like about about IATN is the competitive, pride fueled overtones that keep many people from voicing themselves or exposing their own lack of knowledge. For that reason, I don't want to suggest that those who are less experienced be excluded from the Q+A of Suretrack. But there does seem to be a stark difference between here and there. Maybe it's the way IATN is structured to force posters to include certain bits of info and results. I want to help, but after a few questions I find myself becoming the poster I so despise and want to continuously paste "need some real info to help you". I just turn away. I don't know how some of you folks on the "leaderboard" do it. Your a better man than I. Or just more bored than I...?
    Last edited by Trindaddy; 10-09-2016, 02:19 PM. Reason: Punctuation
  • Nick_Taylor
    Administrator
    • Jan 2014
    • 381

    #2
    The members of SureTrack are all techs of various levels. It is not open to the general public.

    Yes, there are people posting questions without understanding the need to provide complete information. I've talked to some of these people and they either didn't know they needed to provide more and thought just posting the question would return the magic answer. Others have said that they have a really hard time typing and it takes them a long time to put in the details.

    We try to let them know that they end up wasting other member's time when they have to come back asking for more information. Sometimes you will see us as admins posting that they need to provide more details in order to get help.

    Keep in mind that some tech have never used an online resource before (note the use of all caps) so they may need coaching on how to get the best results.

    We hope that you'll continue to try and help other techs out there.
    SureTrack Community Administrator, Diagnostics forum Administrator.

    Comment

    • dodge90
      Senior Member
      • Oct 2014
      • 164

      #3
      I think is more of, or should I say lack of motivation/common scence I see in the younger generation teck's out there that are looking for that silver bullet fix and not wanting to do the diagnostic work. We in our generation as the ones before us had to figure the problem out our selfs knowing that when we did have to ask someone that person would be expecting that we did our home work and ask what was the reading for this and that. At least that's what I'm seeing. No we are not GOD and have that magic wand to wave over the problem and need help at times, but at least try and work through it before just asking what the fix is or what might it be.
      I've tried and tried, but can't seem to fix stupid!

      Comment

      • Tech_A
        Senior Member
        • Jul 2014
        • 115

        #4
        Originally posted by Trindaddy
        Hello friends. As we head into the colder months up here I am beginning to find myself in my favorite chair more often. I can't resist some tech-talk. I'm a long time user of IATN which I thoroughly enjoy but from time to time I check in with SureTrack only to be reminded of why it doesn't keep me engaged. I love to solve problems like most of you but I find that the questions on SureTrack are often unashamedly void of any real testing. Sometimes not even any effort into what the symptoms are! It seems like Suretrack is a link to the world where anyone can pose any question without any real effort or knowledge. I thought you needed a subscription to enter Suretrack. Am I wrong?

        Anyway, perhaps the one thing I don't like about about IATN is the competitive, pride fueled overtones that keep many people from voicing themselves or exposing their own lack of knowledge. For that reason, I don't want to suggest that those who are less experienced be excluded from the Q+A of Suretrack. But there does seem to be a stark difference between here and there. Maybe it's the way IATN is structured to force posters to include certain bits of info and results. I want to help, but after a few questions I find myself becoming the poster I so despise and want to continuously paste "need some real info to help you". I just turn away. I don't know how some of you folks on the "leaderboard" do it. Your a better man than I. Or just more bored than I...?
        I feel you do need a bit more patience when trying to resolve any issues on an online forum. If it were that easy to diagnose a car on the fly behind a computer screen youd expect less engineers on the race track.

        Technology has spoiled the way we communicate and has inhibited our game of 20 diagnostic questions. I believe this leads to the "have you seen this..." type of question, which i feel is inherit to the shop environment. I learned after pulling codes, saving freeze frame data and other pertinent info; after searching all the TSB's, recalls, and bulletins; it was time to pull out your little diagnostic wagon of tools and get down with a trouble tree or pinpoint test. But before I would fire up my scope or meter, or even print a wiring diagram, the most time saving thing i did was call my network of other tech's I went to school with. This was like our own community library of unpublished TSB's and fixes. The "have you seen this question" could shave a whole hour of time, eg pop off the inlet line to the evap purge solenoid and make sure the evap cannister didnt internally explode. When the answers werent available then I would have to go on that arduous diagnostic quest with my boss over my shoulder asking "did you figure it out yet?" or saying "lets just change this part", but I would continue to march on just so i could be the first to have the privelage to say "yeah ive seen that....drag out your powerprobe lay ***."

        There are also other factors such as forum ettiquette and experience with technology that may limit people to the information they can provide. So we need to enforce more of the help me help you attitude and encourage people to utilize the tools we have.

        Comment

        • Witsend
          Banned
          • Nov 2012
          • 2942

          #5
          By all means if you are potentially looking at hours of uncompensated diagnostic time for a strange problem that someone else lost their *** on diagnostic and disclosed their findings, on a forum , you tube , or even Sure Track (if you have access) Cover your @ss
          Last edited by Witsend; 10-15-2016, 09:43 AM.

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