I see it in the engineers we get here sometimes, to me the difference between a mechanic and a technician is the why of it. A mechanic replaces the broken part, the technician figures out why it broke. I see a lot of engineers that don't ask the why question enough, you can't really fix something you don't understand. But while you can learn some of the tricks, you can't teach curiosity.
The computer controls on a modern vehicle can make life far easier, but they're only useful if you know what that data means and how the system that data is feeding you works. A lean O2 sensor just points you in a direction, determining if it's the cause or just a symptom is the difference between a modern mechanic and technician, at least to me. I only went into engineering because I also wanted to know how the O2 sensor worked, and all the other parts, but I much prefer wrenching on the parts to doing the calculations to design those parts.
The computer controls on a modern vehicle can make life far easier, but they're only useful if you know what that data means and how the system that data is feeding you works. A lean O2 sensor just points you in a direction, determining if it's the cause or just a symptom is the difference between a modern mechanic and technician, at least to me. I only went into engineering because I also wanted to know how the O2 sensor worked, and all the other parts, but I much prefer wrenching on the parts to doing the calculations to design those parts.
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