Hello -

Hello,
I worked as a tech 20+ yrs for several GM dealers, I remeber these sensors failing quite a bit. The failue was always an intermittent signal output. I have taken these out, blasted them out with compressed air and good to go. Dust intrusion is the culprit. If you have a good scanner you can see the SWPS outpus as you turn the steering wheel to verify it is fixed - no need to replace.

Good tip. I'm surprised the dealers would allow you to do that and not sell the sensor. The dealers I worked for made it LAW that we did not fix broken parts.

Yeah, that'* been my experience as well. I understand to some degree, especially when considering the potential for comebacks, but at the same time some of these parts can be repaired and last a long time.

When I went into business for myself I fixed about any part that was salvageable so long as the repair was solid and didn't run into time issues or such.

Yeah I think that'* perfectly valid, especially if the customer understands how much they're saving etc. For the bigger shops, those mandates serve as the prudent (and often more expensive) choice versus letting humans use judgement. Like so many other things in the world these days.

In our business, we prefer to replace the part as opposed to 'fixing' it. If it broke once, it will break again.

We also have a little saying here in the shop, 'We're here to sell parts and labor'. If we didn't live by that, our dealer would close.

Makes sense to me. Especially in medium/heavy duty repair where the vehicles are supposed to be appliances, are owned by businesses, and downtime equals lost revenue. In the light duty and car world, depending on the situation, sometimes it makes sense to repair the part, make sure the customer understands this, then document the heck out of it on the repair order and customer-facing paperwork.

That having been said, I've seen many noble shops go out of business doing the most economical thing over and over.