List of independent shops handling hybrids

To put it mildly, this doesn't pass the smell test. True industry qualification and/or certification is typically conducted in one of two ways: (a) an independent, non-profit organization develops a certification process that is vetted by industry experts, and (b) an organization (say, an automaker) develops its own certification process for internal use only. In this case, however, a hybrid blogging website (no, I'm not kidding) has partnered with a private trainer to offer "qualification" of technicians who sign up for that person's training.

While hybrid vehicle manufacturers typically offer, as mentioned, their own internal training and certification programs, no industry-accepted hybrid certification for automotive technicians currently exists. As the technology is relatively new, this is not surprising. The organization that develops such certification and conducts testing is the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence (ASE | Home), often referred to as ASE.

Note that ASE does not offer training; as an independent certifying body, they are obliged not to. However, the partnership that bwilson4web has recommended does offer training. For just $3000, you can attend one of their classes, pass a fifty-question test, and after meeting some external qualifications, you too can be a Master Hybrid Auto Tech.

At this point, most folks in the industry would be rolling their eyes, but it gets better. Let's say that you have been working on hybrids for the last ten years, and have an exceptional range of experience diagnosing and repairing such vehicles. Sorry, you don't "qualify" - that is, until you pay for this special training.

Don't have three grand? Don't have a lot of time? No problem. Take an eight-hour class from the same instructor, pass the test and the external qualifications, and presto, you're a Qualified Hybrid Auto Tech (QHAT). Oh, and don't forget to send the trainer 200 bucks every year.

Sometimes you are. Unfortunately, this is not one of those times.

The error is common. Recently, a forum member asserted that he was "certified" to work on hybrids. As stated above, no such certification exists outside of dealership programs. Upon inquiry, it turned out that the individual had attended a community college certificate program. A check of the school's website showed that a twenty-hour hybrid training class was offered for $299.

Depending on the quality of the training, such a class might be a good way for a working professional technician to get his or her feet wet, but that's about it. Certified? No way.

See above. Not everything you read on the internet is true.

 

I also thought this sounded like a ripoff, and am glad that jk put into writing my thoughts.

 

Hi Bob,

I have no problem with independent shops servicing hybrids and providing much-needed competition to dealer service. My use of the word "ripoff" is with respect to the certification process described in the article that your OP referred to.

"Other shops are welcome to contact Craig, so he can verify that they've got the right stuff." I am not aware that Craig Van Batenburg or HybridCars.com possess special expertise that would allow the awarded certification to have any value.

Who empowered Craig with the right to award these certifications? Did Toyota, or Honda, or Ford, with respect to their hybrid vehicles?

 

I had similar thoughts when I saw this. It's kind of like asking the Dean of Harvard Business School to certify MBA grads to be CEO's. Or asking the football coach at Texas which school produces NFL material players.

He's likely to have a bias....

I've not met Craig nor do I infer in any way that he has such a bias.

JK450 said it well. Certification and Fee based training for the same subject matter are generally NOT optimal when they come from the same entity.

Interesting bigger picture issue, however. Increasingly Hybrid cars are needing out of warranty repairs and dealers are variable with regard to pricing and capability.

There's a growing, unmet need for qualified independent hybrid service shops.

Its interesting. Nationwide, there's not much training available. I am told that enrollment in such training is low as well.

Eric
Adopt A Part

 

Why set the bar so low? I see nothing to suggest that HybridCars.com would be able to validate the quality of the individual's "services".

 

Anybody who has had their Prius serviced at a Toyota dealer has experienced "Certified" service. Most of the time the result is good, but the certification is hardly a guarantee of the result. Just how many times has the "Certified" dealer told owners that the backup beeper cannot be changed? How much education does it take to know about a simple parameter change that is documented in the owner's manual?

A list of service shops willing to work on a Prius is a major improvement in the current situation. Actually knowing what to do is just icing on the cake.

 

Since it's a lot further away than the dealer, I probably won't be going to Slipstream Automotive in Boulder any time soon, they are BBB-certified with an A+ rating. They say they know hybrids and electrics, and their courtesy vehicles are hybrids and electrics. And it is Boulder...

 

I am going to soap box here a little bit. (uninvited perhaps, but I'll take the liberty anyway).

First I love the quote "You are either part of the solution or part of the problem" I have used that quote for years..

The pioneers who have analyzed these cars and brought their considerable expertise, time and money to bear on documenting the knowledge base have done a great service.

As the volume of needed out of warranty repairs increases the challenge (and opportunity) is, who will provide this service? (Nationally, in small markets as well as large).

The whole yap about certification is not unique to Hybrid cars. It runs rampant in circles devoted to premium brands and exotics. (ask a hard core Porsche purist if an ASE certified mechanic is qualified to work on his GT2).

Some of the best technicians I have ever seen in action have no certificates on the wall, but loads of experience and instinct.

In reality, the all repair shops are measured by their call back rate and their customers satisfaction. Good technicians have sound training and EXPERIENCE with the specific vehicle and technologies. The best technicians have all that, good logical reasoning skills and discipline.

The challenge we are facing with Hybrid cars is the EXPERIENCE. While the cars go back 10 yrs or so, the financial incentive has not been there for the independent shop to make the investment until recently (except perhaps in a few highly concentrated markets).

Interestingly the majority of established independent shops still don't appear to be embracing hybrids.

I have made a few calls on independent shops in my market to see who's working on Hybrids and found few interested parties. Current business conditions, fear of the danger involved and unwillingness to have to learn an entire new system seem to be the main reasons.

There's also a weird political angle that comes up on occasion. Sort of an "If Al Gore says its good it must be bad" kind of thing. I just want to say "Its a car, not a party affiliation". Whatever, not gonna do much about that one I guess...

Its discouraging to see posts or hear people say "This car is no longer worth fixing, it has 120K miles on it and the dealer told me $3000 to fix it". When it could be put back on the road for several more years for $1000 or less. I'd buy every one of these cars, except that they are distributed around the country. I buy every one I can here in the Denver/Colorado market.

When I do find an independent shop that has an interest in servicing Hybrids, I encourage them as much as I can. I offer demo's of tools, access to expertise (my own which I seek to increase daily), demo's of the car and its systems, offer what I know about available training etc. I have even loaned a broken car or a broken transaxle to a shop so they can get started with it.

I am motivated to do this for two reasons (one self serving and one more altruistic).

The self serving reason is: I am in the parts business and I have an increasing specialization in Hybrid cars. The more shops that work on them the more customers I have. Hybrids are a small percentage of my volume at this point, but its growing fast. Hey, this is how I feed my family..

The more altruistic reason is: These cars were designed to conserve resources, operate efficiently and reduce tailpipe emissions. Its a damn shame if they are retired prematurely because no one will work on them or they are unnecessarily too expensive to fix or the only shop that will work on them is 500 miles away. Many owners of such prematurely retired vehicles will not buy another hybrid as a result.

The Hybrid vehicle service training that is out there is a great start. If the school that offers it provides a certificate with it, OK fine.

I, for one, wish more qualified technicians would take the training and embrace the technology. That way they can begin to build their experience base. Not just in LA or San Francisco but in Laramie or Lubbock or St. George or Fresno or Billings or Fargo. Well you get the picture... When they do, I would hope that those who have more experience would share it and support that learning. There are more than a million of these cars on the road, a few shops in highly concentrated markets on the east and west coast can't fix them all.

OK, sorry for the rant.


Eric
Adopt A Part


PS: Maybe some day I'll share my rant about the mindset that "only brand new, freshly manufactured, imported, shipped from overseas parts are good enough for my greenhouse gas reducing, eco-friendly hybrid car."

 

My experience has been very good with Craig's training. As an independent, it is hard to find another source just to get familiar with all the hybrid makes and models coming through our shop every week.
The $3000 class includes meals and accomodations for the 5 days and the classes get into some pretty involved hands on service and repairs. At one class I attended, my group was assigned the task of finding a way to exercise the 12 volt starter on a Civic hybrid that would be both faster and easy to do verses the procedure given by Honda. After 2 hours of studying manuals and diagrams, our group found a simple method that takes about 2 minutes with no special tools.
His classes are no replacement for every day in the trenches experience, but it helps to prepare you to at least approach hybrid repair with, as Craig has said "knowing what you don't know".
Craig and I as well as Carolyn from Luscious Garage recently worked with ASE on developing a Hybrid Certification program and it looks like it may be quite some time before ASE launches their program.
Until they do, their needs to be a way for consumers to tell the difference between a trained hybrid tech and one that has no clue, before they have a bad experience. A certificate certainly helps.

Over the past year, I have acted as a consultant for several dealerships that were stuck on difficult diagnostics and although independant shops that specialize in hybrid repair are rare, it is also a very common occurance that the dealer techs are just as much in the dark with hybrids.
One reason could be turnover in dealerships, or just the infrequency of having hybrid related repair issues in their service bays.

Either way their needs to be more educational opportunities out there and Craig certainly offers a wide range of services for those that are interested.

 

A few observations:

The business you list in your posts appears to have a Denver Metro area phone number. I was able to find about half a dozen shops in your area which advertised hybrid service, after a short online search. I probably could have found more if I had been willing to spend more than a few minutes on the task.

The company you cite is not authorized to issue certifications of any kind. The "qualification" process is a marketing tool for training, and nothing more. Besides, how could you get a sense of someone's knowledge as a trainer from an introductory online class? To begin with, you'd have to have knowledge on the level of a trainer.

So you removed two bolts and flipped the IMA switch? With all due respect, this is something that is covered in introductory classes in — well, about two minutes. It's certainly not worth taking up two hours of time that a student, expecting an advanced hands-on class, has paid for. But if you feel that you learned a lot, then I suppose you got your money's worth.

 

Ha Ha, You are sooo funny. And BTW, I do not have to remove any bolts or throw any switches for the procedure.
If you have a better program for training techs across all manufacturer lines that we can source, please offer it. Being negative about this one without offering an alternative is...well........?

 

In what way?

Yes, there is often more than one way to accomplish that. On some vehicles, for example, you can pull a fuse. But you miss my point: if a procedure takes two minutes to accomplish, and you devise a method that takes one minute, that's a minimal improvement. I don't think it's worth two hours of class time.

Have you tried Google?

I think you are missing the point. My guess is that the OP posted without looking into the "information" being posted, and is defending the post to save face. But as more than one person quickly pointed out, the shop "qualification" process does not offer certification of any kind. Rather, it appears to be a mechanism to sell more training. Looks like it's working.

Frankly, I don't think competent, legitimate enterprises have to employ such tactics to sell their services. I also don't think that someone is qualified to work on hybrids after as little as eight hours of training.

Do you?

 

I did search Google before taking the courses offered by ACDC and then chose to go with them. Maybe if we had some reviews or comments by individuals that have taken other courses, we would be able to compare apples to apples.
In reality, the only people that can intelligently review any training company would be those that had taken the courses. I was speaking from first hand experience. To me, those are the only comments that carry any weight.

I think ASE is industry known and well respected for their certification processes. The fact they chose Craig from ACDC to help design their hybrid certification test places his training close to the top as far as ASE's research has discovered.

Bob Wilson is right.