I don't think y'all understood where I was going with that question "how much does youtube cost you".
I understand what yall are thinking but here's where I was going with it:
As a service tech I see and have seen tons of equipment come through the shop that so-and-so certified youtube mechanic "fixed" or they used a certified youtube mechanic to figure out an issue. And oftentimes it was a bandaid fix or an improper fix altogether, and I (tech) get to figure out what in the world is going on with this thing.
Just one example of many. Yamaha 25hp outboard (F25-F is for four stroke). Shows up, customer says it doesn't have the speed it should. Accelerates fine to about 20 mph and then just acts like it's against the rev limiter. Ok cool, I am thinking spun hub since it's got a chincanese prop on it. Drops it off and I dig in. Pulled prop, no sign of hub damage. Checked splines (ok). Removed lower unit parts from the foot itself looking for gear slippage-none. Checked splines on the input (ok). Hmm? Weird. Put it in the test tank (horse trough) and start it up, runs perfect. I put my test prop on it and rev the engine. Gets to 4500 RPM and falls on it's face (typically they'll go to about 5700 or so with the test prop). Dig some more, intake looks good, cowling intake looks good (no dirt dobber nests plugging it up), did a compression and leakdown test (both perfect). No signs of water into the engine that sometimes happens with a blown head gasket or stuck thermostat (overheat) or sometimes salt damage. Engine oil looks great. Pulled valve cover and checked valve clearance. Intakes was a little on the tight side but nothing terrible, I loosened them up to .010 from .007 (spec .007-.010 intake, exh is .010-.015). Put it all back together and double checkd the timing belt. Started engine and with timing light double checked the ignition timing. I'm into this thing about an hour & a half by now, it's 5:30 in the evening and I'm done for the day. Go home, and for giggles I googled it "poor running F25". Found a youtube video. Guy says "factory defect F25 carburetor". What? I've sold and serviced these things since they came out in 1997 and there was no defect that I knew of?? So I watched it. Turns out what happens is this. Carburetor on these is a single throat, bowl-fed Mikuni, in that the fuel is fed in from the bowl, then it passes through the gasket and up into the upper body where it's fed into the needle valve assembly. Also down in the bowl are the "choke" passage and accelerator pump, which share the same feed passages. There is a restriction in the passage between the accel pump check valve assembly and the choke well, where the brass tube from the upper body sits and feeds the prime start mechanism (auto choke). If you let them sit and most people do, that passage gets plugged and the first thing that happens is that it will be hard to start (cause the auto choke ain't getting no fuel) and once running and warmed up it won't accelerate very well. So this hack on youtube is to drill out the pilot jet so that it will accelerate. Not the air screw but the jet itself. When you do this the engine idles rich so it will accelerate better, but remember the pilot jet is also used when the engine is running past about 1/2 throttle, it does supply some fuel to the mixture just not all that much. Since outboard run on the rich side at full throttle anyway, when the pilot is opened up with a drill bit, it runs richer yet-to the point where it loses a lot of power up top (in this case it won't run but about 4500 RPM tops on my test prop). Went to work the next day, removed the carb and pulled the jet out, to find that sure enough the pilot jet was drilled out (evidenced by drill marks). Called customer and asked about it, if it's had any work done to it. "Yeah I let it set up and the carb got diry and I cleaned it". Oh ok, great, how'd you clean it? "I took the jets out and cleaned them". Great, did you by chance clean them with a steel tip cleaner or a drill bit? "Yeah I had to drill out the idle jet because a guy on youtube said it's a factory defect". Ok, that's kind of where I was going with this. It's running too rich at high speed which is why it's down on power. You'll owe for the 1 hour diagnostic time plus 1.5 hour carburetor repair. "What that's ridiculous, I can clean that carb in 30 minutes!". Ok cool come get it and clean it yourself again--cause when I do it, it'll be done right and your engine will run normally again--but you still owe us for 1 hour diagnostic time. He calls boss and boss wants to know what's going on, so I told him. Boss told the guy same thing, there's nothing else that could be done to fix his issue other than what I told him-to replace the jet and then remove a pressed in brass plug in the bowl, clean the passage, and tap the hole for a tiny 4mm x 8mm length screw w/washer to plug the hold back (and allow for future cleanings). So that's what ended up happening. $27 for that little bitty jet and a lot of labor, and a $4 screw and brass washer, solved the problem...that could have been avoided. That was a lot of frustration for a simple fix, yet youtube came through again, and helped pay my bills-again.
I've done tractors in the same manner. Lawn mowers (especially!!). Boat motors, UTV's, ATV's, a few motorcycles (or a lot actually). Youtube mechanics suggest fixing a problem in a manner that creates other problems, which end up at the shop anyway to fix and ends up costing more to fix the Youtube mess-ups than it would have if they'd just done it right the first time.
