Remember when auto repair shops had those big paper manuals sitting on the counter?

I was at a shop in Portland last week waiting for an oil change and noticed the stack of binders is gone. Just a tablet hooked to the diagnostic machine now. My dad was a mechanic in the 90s and he could spend an hour flipping through those manuals tracing a wire. Now the tablet just tells you what to replace. The younger tech there said he's never even opened a paper manual. I get that it's faster and more accurate but it feels like something got lost. Has anyone else noticed how much the hands-on part of trades is disappearing?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_drew9d ago

The younger tech there said he's never even opened a paper manual" That's the scary part, because when the tablet dies or the wifi goes down, what do they do lol. Just sit there.

emery2909d ago

Honestly I saw this at my local shop and the tech just shrugged and said "I'd just call the other shop across town." Like bro that's your whole career reduced to a phone call. Ngl when I was a kid flipping through my dad's Chilton manual for a lawnmower repair I felt like a detective. Now they're just reading a screen and swapping parts like it's a Goddamn IKEA furniture build. Sure it's faster but the whole culture of figuring things out yourself is just gone. Guess we traded the paper cuts for a dead battery and a blank stare.