Originally Posted by eljefino
Diagnosing front end issues is easy-- Hear a rattle, stick a pry bar in, if it's loose, it's bad. I would call someone changing this stuff out and getting it aligned afterwards a mechanic, so I would call myself that too.
Driveability diagnostics still have a basis in "it feels like fuel" or spark. There are exceptions-- of course there are-- but it's a start.
I ride on the coattails of dealer techs who figure out the really weird stuff on new cars. Good for them. Once the problem and fix are documented I'm happy to copy it by recognizing it, testing for it, then changing parts. No different than a surgeon reading medical journals.
My state licenses inspection mechanics with a book test, nothing hands-on. Passed that easily. There are few other qualifications, aside from experience which you can BS your way through, needed here.
The issue is the entirety of the system weeds out anyone with common sense. The pay isn't good enough for most real technical minds, the schooling exists solely to collect fees for the schools, the certification exists to make it easy to get through to support the schools, and to provide jobs for the agency in charge of administering the certifications, and the employers treat every last open position as if any $8/hr boob who doesn't feel like onboarding at McDonald's can walk in and just do it. We are all commodities.