I found this in the 3rd gen section (Rotary Engine Compression Tester, Like Mazda's):

http://www.japanicity.com/~mak/

and it may be helpful to some/most of us. Would anyone be willing to go in on this and dare I say, share. Or is that too much of an utopist idea? I was thinking four or five people could probably knock this price down to something we would be willing to pay.

Thanks
Joe

 

That sure would be handy!

 

wait so this isnt the actual mazda tester? it looks just like it!

makes sence, dave atkins said the actual mazda tester is no longer being made and is over 2000 bucks, makes this thing look like a bargain!

 

hey its the cheapest part for an FD besides the manual to the car lol only a price of 500$

 

That's not the Mazda tester; just one that looks similar.

I'm not sure what you think you are going to do with it...it's one of those things that you use once every few years, at most. So, it would probably be cheaper and easier to pay for compression checks as you need them, from a shop with the Mazda tool.

We have the real Mazda tool at our shop and we normally only charge $65 for a check. Haven't got around to it yet, but we were thinking of having a compression check day, where we do a bunch at a time (like a dyno day), for the local RX-7 Club (Rotary Power Northwest; RPNW.ORG). Probably knock the charge down to $50 or less and give some of the money to the club. If you guys are interested, we can set something up.

 

OR remove the relief valve on a standard type compression tester and it virtually the same thing except you just have to remember the #s instead of it doing it for you

 

It's not at all the same thing. It gives you a vague notion of the compression, but nothing to hang your hat on. If that's all you want, great, but don't try to defend it as being accurate...it's not. Don't get me wrong, I've done it plenty of times, but a guestimate is not the same thing as a measurement. There is a reason the factory tool costs thousands of dollars.

 

Pistons testers work plenty fine...

Look for 3 even bounces. Then crank and let it go to max compression. Test done, answers obtained, what's so bad about that?

I don't even know how you can justify charging $65 for a test. All you do is take out 2 spark plugs, put it in, and crank over. At least it's better than Mazda, they charger $80 something.

My $10 piston tester is doing just fine.

 

Yes, for a guestimate they work great. You will know that you have three functional chambers and they are roughly similar in compression. I've done it a thousand times and continue to do so when the factory tool is out of reach and I'm not working on a customer's car. But, it's not the same thing at all.

I guess you have no understanding of business. Capital investment in tools, depreciation, labor, overhead. If you want to hang up a shingle for your piston engine compression check business and charge $10, I won't stop you. After your first one, it's pure profit...presuming you work at home, your time is without value and you don't want to make any profit. Our shop rate is $85 per hour with an hour minimum. We are giving a break for compression checking because it only takes about 30 minutes, including all the time spent consulting with the customer (they always have other questions, taking up our time), so we come out ahead -- which is the entire POINT of tying up capital in specialized equipment.

You know, we also buy Snap-on Tools, have a lift and purchace other specialized equipment that I presume you could never justify. We do it because customers expect more from us that they would of you. A factory tool that can tell precisely if their motor compression is in spec is very valuable, for us and the customer. Numbers you can hang your hat on.

 

Haha, you want to talk to me about business? Sorry but that's what I'm getting my Masters in at the business school at UW. Sure I understand the CONCEPTS of how you are trying to justify it to customers, but that is not at all the same as what an honest price is.

Wanna talk in dollars? Fine lets go ahead.

To make things easy, lets say that the Mazda unit you own cost you $1500 10 years ago. And the space it takes up is very small, the electric use it takes up is very small, storage in a facility of your size is not a large percentage, and so on. But lets make things generous for you and say that it takes up $500 dollars per year in storage, maintenance, overhead, whatever you want to lump it into.

The $1500 dollars is a sunk cost. Yes it was an investment, but in true financial economics sunk costs cannot be considered on the books as a continuous cost. Further, you can only depreciate it so much, depending on what the IRS decides the book value is or a fair depreciation percentage, until it becomes worthless for tax purposes. But lets just say that the depreciation on the unit is 12% per year and the IRS has a salvage book value of $200, meaning that you cannot depreciate it any further past $200.

Now we can find your depreciation SAVINGS on your taxes for the business.

(initial cost - salvage value) x tax rate
(1500 - 200) x 12%
1300 x .12 = $156 per year depreciation savings after tax.

That means you can depreciate it for 1300/156 = 8 years, plus a partial value in the 9th year. After which this part becomes a permanent sunk cost and you can no longer write it off on your taxes. But wait... it just saved you 1300 dollars in taxes over the course of 9 years. And didn't it cost you $1500 to begin with? Well now, lets put this in terms of today’s dollars. Lets just say you bought the piece of equipment 10 years ago, for simplicity. What's the average rate on CD's nowadays? With credit unions its about 4-5% for the 1500 dollar range, and inflation is steady at 3-4% per year, so the percentage we'll use to put 1500 dollars 10 years ago into today’s terms will be 9% (taking the higher of both aspects).

10 years ago > -1500 / 1.09^10 = -633.62
9 years ago > depreciation savings after tax 156 / 1.09^9 = 71.83
8 years ago > 156 / 1.09^8 = 78.29
7 years ago > 156 / 1.09^7 = 85.34
6 years ago > 156 / 1.09^6 = 93.02
5 years ago > 156 / 1.09^5 = 101.39
4 years ago > 156 / 1.09^4 = 110.51
3 years ago > 156 / 1.09^3 = 120.46
2 years ago > 156 / 1.09^2 = 131.30
1 year ago (remainder of depreciation) > 52 / 1.09 = 47.71

Now that all the money is in the same time period, lets add it up.

Total = $206.23

Whatcha know, it's positive! This is how much you MADE off the unit if you depreciated it properly and reported it on your taxes over the time. This doesn't even include the money you make off of charging people for it. Of course this doesn't include storage/maintenance/etc.

Now if you recall I said that we'll say this takes up $500 per year. So in the 10 years, put into the standards of today’s dollar:

10 years ago > -500 / 1.09^10 = -211.21
9 years ago > -500 / 1.09^9 = -230.21
8 years ago > -500 / 1.09^8 = -250.93
7 years ago > -500 / 1.09^7 = -273.52
6 years ago > -500 / 1.09^6 = -298.13
5 years ago > -500 / 1.09^5 = -324.97
4 years ago > -500 / 1.09^4 = -354.21
3 years ago > -500 / 1.09^3 = -386.09
2 years ago > -500 / 1.09^2 = -420.84
1 year ago > -500 / 1.09^1 = -458.72

Total cost for 10 years = -3208.83

Add the savings after tax from depreciation = -3002.60

A minor cost, but still a cost. Now lets take into account the profit it brings in from tests performed on cars. Not sure what to estimate here, but lets just say you test 20 people for year with this, now what if you charged 30 dollars instead. That would be 600 dollars per year profit, but remember the IRS is taxing you on profit, 12% as you recall from before. So your after taxes profit per year would be 528 dollars if you only tested 20 people per year and charged 30 dollars per test.

Again, lets put it in terms of today’s dollar:

10 years ago > 528 / 1.09^10 = 223.03
9 years ago > 528 / 1.09^9 = 243.11
8 years ago > 528 / 1.09^8 = 264.99
7 years ago > 528 / 1.09^7 = 288.83
6 years ago > 528 / 1.09^6 = 314.83
5 years ago > 528 / 1.09^5 = 343.16
4 years ago > 528 / 1.09^4 = 374.05
3 years ago > 528 / 1.09^3 = 407.71
2 years ago > 528 / 1.09^2 = 444.41
1 year ago > 528 / 1.09^1 = 484.40

Total = 3388.52

Now subtract the costs from above

3388.52 - 3002.60 = $385.92

So the NPV (net present value) AT (after tax) of the Mazda unit you bought, with conservative estimates for everything, is $385.92

And that's charging less than half of what you currently are. So you’re in no way losing out with that price, and don’t try to act like it’s justified at all

My point is, you could very easily charge less and still be making money off of it.

Not only that, but once the unit becomes a fully sunk cost, and cannot be depreciated or written off anymore, your tax rates on its use change as well and become much smaller (take some taxation classes to learn more). So if you continued to use it past its salvage point, you’ll be making even more profit.

Furthermore, the $500 dollars per year of cost to keep the unit, I was just being nice. I’d be willing to bet it’s pretty much negligible for the actual cost of keeping it. But I was trying to be fair. If it truly were negligible, you’d have a ton more profit, obviously.

Once again, this is all assuming the books are kept accurately and you take the tax breaks that are available.

I of course did not take into account the value of YOUR time. This is irrelevant when you're talking about true finances. Each person’s time is worth different things to them, but in a business "time is money." I understand you charge $85 per hour with an hour minimum, so what? How about you make scheduling for compression checks either only in the first hour you're open, or last hour you're open, during regular business hours of course. These are normally the "down times" of businesses. So instead of sitting around not doing much, or preparing to start/leave work, you are making money. First thing you learn in introduction to operations management is to put the lowest value items or services in the most opportune areas or times.

You could come back and tell me that you are giving up an "opportunity cost" by doing the test rather than other work, but I could easily in turn say that you made a wrong choice in purchasing the unit at all and if you had put the money into a perpetuity rather than a piece of equipment, you'd always remain ahead. Since the argument can go back and forth like that indefinitely, I left the value of time out of the equation here, it would take much longer, much more complicated equations, and a lot of statistical analysis to truly come up with a fair value for time. This is why the IRS will not let your write off time spent on certain things...

 

You know I just thought of something else. Wanna talk about value of time and opportunity cost, well think of this.

I do not know Pineapple's hours of operation, and couldn't find it on the site, but lets assume when you read and replied to my post you were at work. If you read it quickly and replied quickly we'll say you spent 7 minutes total.

You said you normally charge $85/hour right? Well 85/60 is 1.416666666666666.... dollars per minute, or $9.92 for the 7 minutes you spent overall.

Well jeez man, that's 1.984% of the annual cost of the tester you could have made up, if you decide you truly want to value your time, if you had worked instead of being on the forum.

So that being said, if you want to value time in doing the service versus other work, you should take intake account the opportunity cost of not working when doing other things, during business hours of course.

Just food for thought.

 

A little knowledge is dangerous. You have book knowledge and that's the worst kind. I got my degree in business ten years ago (3.93 GPA, BTW, plus a second degree in Economics) and had to spend the entire time since unlearing it. Until you spend the money on a compression tester and have to make a business case for it -- in the REAL WORLD -- I have nothing to say to you. Theory does not pay the rent, electric, gas, nor the Mazda parts bill every month. You are a student, we are professionals. The difference is staggering!

 

That's a pretty funny answer! Good way to not answer a question or give a response to try and make yourself save face. But that's fine, you can do as you please.

What school did you get this degree from? Was it continuously in the top 10 business schools in the country? Did it have firms and corporations recruiting top graduates for six digit jobs right out of school? Just saying.

Some people take book smarts for face value, I understand this, and I also understand it takes more than that. That's why the UW School of Business partakes in case competitions as mandatory, quarterly review for the Masters program. These case competitions are given by top executives in many different successful companies. Each team is then evaluated on their response to the questions, as well as their observations on what was not asked. Top teams tour other countries for worldwide case competitions.

Granted I am not quite ready to do this, these are some of the smartest people in business in the country. In no way am I saying this of course. Just saying that the program I'm in emphasizes more than book smarts, so no worries.

Also, when the professors that are teaching all my classes are not doing it for the money, some of which volunteer, because they are independent financial advisors, work for billion dollar investment banks and firms, and many other assortment of jobs, I trust what they teach me.

I will agree with you that books don't pay the rent, but they help! You cannot have theory or answers without a basis for knowledge. Your answer mainly just seemed like an easy way for you to shrug me off, which is fine. Some of the best businesses in the world do that! But is it right? Hmmm, I'll let you know in a few years when I run my own. I do have managerial experience, though, 4 years of it and I'm only 21... So I know how businesses work, I know what it takes to run them, and I have some experience.

 

There is also supply and demand and charging as much as the market will bear... and if its cheaper than mazda dealership and someone needs a good accurate reading... then thats the best bet.
Its like any other business though, people will not like what they do... as for the original poster. Its a great idea, but still a little spendy unless ya get alot of people in to it... i'd rather drop 200$ on a air/fuel controller than a compression tester... even if its a really good deal... sorry... but if anyone needs me to bring my timing light to an izzys meet and check it for them there... or what just let me know

 

Of course supply and demand play a factor. But think of it this way. Supply of doing tests is easy and can be very large. By lowering the price, demand will thus increase. Supply will still remain above the market equilibrium for demand, and thus this should not create a problem. It would only allow for more profit, in theory, since demand is up but still below the market supply.

 

I was 21 in 1990, and I had over 4 years of business management experience at that time myself. All you demonstrated with your book knowledge is that you can still miss the forest for the trees; getting bogged down in theory when the obvious is right at hand. Corporations may care about NPV and such, but in the real world, when it's your money on the line and there is no 'reset' button on your bank account, you act very carefully. We KNOW people will pay $65 for a compression check. That's a fact. Charging less does not make sense unless we KNOW there will be more customers wanting them at a lower price. We don't. We could probably charge more. Not one person has blinked at our price. Not one. It is a valuable service. But you have to understand that in the real world, small businesses do not have perfect knowledge nor do their customers (an assumption of virtually every Economic theory). We find things out the hard way. If we had 200 retail locations and could try bumping the price up or down a few bucks at a time, perhaps we could rationalize the elasticity of demand. We can't. It's not a commodity, which is another usual economic fallacy. As far as I can tell, demand is very inelastic and we are charging too little. But, we aren't in the compression checking business. All we're trying to do is not loose money by offering the additional service. That's opportunity cost in action. What else could we have done with that money? What else could we do with our time?

When you get out of school and get some real experience, preferably with your own money in your own business, let's talk again. I'm sure you will have a completely different perspective. Until then, if you don't like our prices, go somewhere else or settle for the guestimate method.

 

I believe I already said something about this. You could have put it in a perpetuity, or a very long CD or some type of IRA. However, you're making more off the tests spread out over time than those will yield, most likely. Especially considering you're basically making pure profit now with very minor costs.

And once again if you want to talk about opportunity cost of spending "30 minutes" doing this test versus some other type of service that yields an 85 dollar minimum, you also have to take into account the time you spend posting on the forum when you're at work! It's true, unfortunately, but if you're going to try and use opportunity cost as an argument, then you have to consider this as well. Say you average 10 minutes per day, on average, either browsing or posting on the forum. And lets say your shop is open Mon through Sat for regular business hours, of course I don't know your true hours since I couldn't find it on the site. That's 60 min per week you are spending on the forum rather than working, an opportunity cost! You had the opportunity to work that time, but chose to do this instead.

So that's $85 dollars in opportunity costs you're wasting per week, or $4,420 dollars per year you chose to not make working by instead being on the forum. All rough estimates of course, but I think you get the point.

Only reason I say this is if you want to bring opportunity cost into the equation, then you have to analyze yourself in other activities as well. Gotta be fair now!

When you work for a real business dealing with a larger aspect of the market, more power, and more money involved, come find me and I'll help you out. In the grand scheme of things, your shop is small and thus your "business experience" since you started working at Pineapple means about jack in overall market power. There are people that run car shops their whole life that never had to go to school for it. Mainly because it is not hard. Make more money than it costs you to be open on average. That's all you really have to worry about, so what experience do I even need to understand this?

This all started just because I was saying I don't see how you could justify the price of your test. This was initiated because of your "compression check day" idea where you'd charge $50 per person. Compared to the opportunity of spending 10-50 dollars on a piston checker and being able to use it every time you want, rather than just once, makes your discounted price not even seem worthwhile from a financial standpoint. However, if your regular price was $50, and the comp day price was say $30, then maybe it would seem more financially sound, from the buyers point of view, than it was before.

How elastic IS your demand? Of course you don't know since you have stated that it is hard for your shop to do this, which is understandable. But if you don't want me working off of theory, then you cannot theorize about your elasticities either. Be fair now...

 

I was talking about $50 with a portion going to the local RX-7 club (I didn't say how much, but it would be considerable). It could be a great fund-raiser for them. Anyway, forget it. At your age, I had everything figured out too and no one could convince me otherwise. I thought what I learned in school was actually applicable in the real worlds when, in fact, it was all just an aptitude test. Real business is all fundamentals; none of the fine theory you learn in school, unless you work for an actual Fortune 500 company and get stuck in the basement crunching numbers and making PowerPoint slides for the Glory Boys in shiny suits.

Well, anyway, no hard feelings on my part. I understand your point, though I disagree. I would be happy to buy you a beer and discuss it further. If you can make a case for it, I will change our pricing along the lines of an experiment and we can prove the elasticity of demand one way or the other. We could also work out a price discrimination plan, which would be the ideal solution if there is a legal way to impliment it (club discounts, etc.), since the demand curves of certain groups are so differrent. For me, this would just be for fun, since the compression checker is hardly a profit center and I doubt it ever will be.

 

A small business like the shop you work for is based off of fundamentals, to an extent, yes. But medium to large sized businesses, no... And everything I'm talking is applicable, as well as infinitely more aspects. I agree some of what I'm talking about would definitely not be applicable to you since you are a single shop operating under a small section of the overall market.

The whole point I was making from the beginning was not that you COULD charge that price, because you've proven you easily can and people will pay it. I was merely stating from my standpoint if I were a customer, I could not see the justification in the price. Many people would see the justification since they would otherwise have to pay Mazda more for a true rotary compression test. By going through all the numbers I was just showing my point of view with my background in business, depreciation, and the understanding of monetary valuation. This is definitely not the insight from the standpoint of the business owner, just the customer. The business owner must think about all other aspects and to maximize profit, which I'm sure you do.

Fair price and actual price almost never coincide, and I understand this. If fair and actual were the same, many businesses would never succeed. Gorilla markets never work out like they do on paper....

 

My economics background makes me cringe at that notion. The price at which any transaction is made is, by definition, "Fair", as both sides must come out ahead or they would not consumate the deal. We are talking about a free market, where no one is holding a gun to your head. The deals not made are irrelavent, as it is not unfair for a buyer and seller to value things differently. What if someone wants to buy your car for $500 and you want to get $5,000. Does that mean your price is unfair? It might be unrealistic, but perhaps that's your point of "indifference" (between keeping and selling) and at anything lower you would rather keep it. I don't think that's unfair.

If by "fair" you mean more "popular" with the buyers I suspose I can't disagree. In any rational supply and demand curve senario, lower price yields more transactions (presuming perfect knowledge). The slope of the function is called the "elasticity" of demand. Different segments of the market have entirely different demand curves; different age groups, different economic classes, different geographic areas, yadda yadda. It has long been proven that pricing by discrete groups is most profitable. This is Price Discrimination. Student and Senior discounts at the movies are perfect examples. You give them a lower price because a small decrease will bring in a great many more (more elastic demand) but other groups you charge full price because a lower price will not bring in any more of them. But, other than the accepted cases, price discrimination is usually illegal and/or considered unethical. That's too bad, because that means the people who want to buy at a lower price will not get the opportunity even if the business wanted to sell to them at that price (as long as they could keep charging everyone else the higher price). That's why eBay works so well...it automatically creates price discrimination by selling to the highest bidder. You can sell the same item ten times at ten different prices, each to someone who found that price "right" for them. When I was selling my Rotary Engine Illustrated posters on eBay 5 years ago, the first few went for over $50 each...but, I had them on my web site for $20 each. I gave people the web site price, but it goes to show you that "fair" is very relative.

Anyway, you seem to believe your perspective as a consumer in your age group and financial situation reflects the general market. It doesn't. If we lowered the price, we might get a few more students and financially strapped folks and DIYers (who might otherwise use the guestimate method, as you do), but our middle-aged professional clientele won't come flocking in at a greater rate...and these are our real customers. People who will pay $50 for a compression check but not pay $65 will never buy an engine from us, since we are on the premium end, using more new parts than pretty much anyone else. If there is a way to charge some people $50 and others $65, we could make a bit more profit, sure. I would like to do that, hense, a compression check day and/or a club-member discount. If the demand were elastic enough, I'd go for $30 per check day-in and day-out, as long as the customers were escorted out of the building the moment the test were done; not staying for a free round of tech advice on numerous little problems they are having.

I'll tell you what. For the indefinite future, our "normal" retail price on a compression check will be $50, the discounted price for members of a bonified car club (dues-paying membership club that holds real events, like RPNW.ORG) will be $40, and the "Group-Buy" (groups of 3 or more at a time, scheduled in advance) will be $30 each. If the event is sanctioned by a club and there are 5 or more participants, the price will still be $30 but $5 will go to the club. Does that sound "fair"? If it brings in more customers, it might prove worthwhile...maybe. In business, you can't consider the profitability of one part of your business separately from the others. If we get a lot of customers for the compression checks that just end up hanging out and taking up our time, the cost of the new business could cripple us. Ceterus Paribus ain't in it.

I still think you are having trouble seeing the forest for the trees and one year in the real world will humble you (as it did me). At your age, I would never have believed that myself. It's like studying sex for four years...it won't prepare you for the Real Thing, no matter how many case studies you do, how closely you watch others doing it or how many times you masterbate with diligence. You might get the idea you will be an international **** star and look down upon those who are just small time gigolos as fools, but at least those people are DOING IT. This small-time gigolo has 6 years of college and two degrees, spending 12 hours a day or more at work since you were in grade school. Forgive me for thinking I know what I'm talking about.

Is your undergraduate degree in business? Just curious. Many MBA programs take people without business school backgrounds. How far along are your studies?

 

Yah sorry, I didn't mean fair as in true economically fair, I meant fair by more popular, or looking at things from the buyers standpoint, my bad. I should've made that more clear. Of course a buyer's view of fair could be almost anything, sometimes financially crippling.

I am not officially in the MBA school yet, but I am in the program/path for it. I was admitted into the UW Business School, I'm a Jr., I'm within the Finance department for my concentration, and am about 3 quarters away from graduating with my Undergrad in Managerial Finance. Of course there are requirements from every concentration of business, like marketing, microeconomics, macroeconomics, information systems, operations management, accounting, and so forth. But I will be graduating with my main focus on Finace. Other than finance, the most credits I have in business classes are Micro/Macroeconomics, and then Accounting.

I have been seeing councelors within the Business School to be put on the path for the MBA program and they have set up a schedule of classes I have to complete by graduation in order to get into the program officially. I am taking the GMATs either this summer or fall for placement requirements as well.

But I should be completed with the requirements by mid next year and ready to start on my MBA officially. Only thing holding me back are the stupid distribution requirements. I'm still not done with some of my basic college distribution BS. Well it's really only one requirement, Visual Learning and Performing Arts (art credits). I need 20 to be able to graduate and still have another class to take (5 credits). I've been concentrating too hard on business stuff and forget to get other things done. Plus the business school requirements. I still need my informations systems and marketing requirements.

 

its cool you guys can talk about this stuff with out someone getting their feelings all bent up... although this thread makes entirely no sence to me LOL

 

BTDT. The last year of undergrad studies sucks. Even though I had the GI Bill I worked 2 jobs (one full-time, one part-time) right through my second to last year, but then took that last year off entirely to concentrate on graduating. I think I had about an extra year of credit built up, but like you, I had to get the right credits. In my case, however, I had too many in other areas. 6 years of photography, 4 years of fencing, etc. My two degrees made it more difficult because, though you wouldn't think so, business and economics are in entirely different schools of the university and the requirements are mutually exclusive. I could not, for example, take the "math for business majors" classes, but instead I was made to take the "math for math & economics majors" (real calculus, real non-linear regression, etc.), real statistics, and a butt-load of Econometrics (mathmatical based economic analysis). And, obviously, I could not take the business-oriented economics classes either. It was completely worth it, but I wish they had more crossover so more people would get the full economics degree too (the Minor is too easy). I use micro economics more than anything I learned in business school.

I am suprised they let you go right from undergrad to MBA at UW. At PSU they won't (or wouldn't, when I was there) take a recent undergrad unless it's a special situation, because they want you to have several years of actual management experience. Perhaps that's changed. Since the 80s, an MBA has been more of a detriment to getting your first management job, since no one wants a 25 year old who thinks they know it all and wants to "fix" everything. I'm sure the finance side of things is a bit more technical so it may be a benefit...I dunno. Good luck.

 

I am in a similar boat as you. I'm having to take true statistical analysis for my operations management classes, not simply business statistics but the deep down mathematical principles and taking things further. I've done the calculus deal, hated it, got through, whatever it's over

My finance degree unfortunately requires more economics than the normal business degree, so it's almost like I'm getting an economics and finance degree at the same time. But oh well, take it how it comes.

What is good, however, is the requirements of economics for my Finance degree are counting towards my elective requirements for graduation as well, so I'm not having to double up on credits too much. It's working out nicely.

Microeconomics is a really good concept to learn, in a lot of ways, but I'm more fond of Macro. Maybe because I 4.0'd that class and didn't in Micro, oh well

It's actually a recent thing. Corporations are actually striving for graduates to go straight into masters programs right after undergrad rather than waiting. It's a fairly new trend in the coporate world with executives, kind of interesting. What you described is exactly the "old" way of looking at a masters in business, and many firms still prefer these people over ones that did it all at once without a break or experience in between. But the recent events of some very powerful business people, such as one of the top executives at Alaska Airlines who is given credit for the reason Alaska didn't go bankrupt (like many other airlines), did precisely as I am doing. As well, many executives that work for Google, Ebay, and other businesses did also.

That's why some schools, not all, are allowing what I am doing. The UW Business Masters program has a close tie to some of the local executives that have done things like this, and that is probably what helped influence them into changing the requirements. They deal a lot with execs from Boeing, Microsoft, Bank of America, Alaska Airlines, and Nordstrom. Works out nicely for me, because these people are somewhat a part of the school, very useful networking once you get into the masters school officially. These are the people putting on and judging the required case competitions that UW Business Masters students are required to do quarterly.

Anyways, we will see how this trend turns out over the next decade, and if it in fact pays off for corporations.

 

Sorry work picked up and I have been busy around the office. That sure does cut into my posting time, damn employer.

I'm not even going to read half the **** you guys posted. This sounds way too much like my business finance minor which I'm trying to forget. Although I am glad you two got to know each other a bit more.

But anyways back on topic:

As stated before, this is not a genuine Mazda compression tester, it is another brand.

I’m not going to drive to Oregon to pay $65 each time I need to test my compression, which I do just about every time I change plugs, on any one of my cars. Plus I’ve blown soo many motors (or ran into stuck seals) that it is some times is not possible to move the car, or could cause more damage to the engine if driven anywhere. That is why it would be nice to know the compression right then and there instead of towing it somewhere. Plus then it’s stuck at a shop and I like to move at my own pace.

I have been using a piston engine compression tester for years now and I am pretty good at interpreting it. Yes it’s not as accurate but it does more then well enough. I was just hoping we could get something better.

I do like the idea of a compression checking day which I would be willing to come down for. But this would be more to meet all of you instead of actually needing my compression check. And on that note the dyno day may be more my speed.

It doesn’t sound like too many people want to share, I didn’t get an overwhelming response from others. Plus the logistics of sharing a device like this may drive us nuts.