Master technicians and brain surgeons. Not so far apart. Both jobs are vital and, on the road, a millimeter count just as much as one in the emergency room.
Mercedes-Benz technicians have the lives of their customers in their hands. “When I work on someone’s car, I always treat it as if my family is getting in that car”, one of them says. A minor mistake can – at any time – cause a major incident. So there is no room for errors. It take both patience and passion to go all the way:
“From the minute I was born, it was pretty much set in stone that I was gonna be in the automotive industry somehow.”
“It’s in my DNA for sure, definitely got oil in my blood.”
This is how master technicians describe their job. For some of them, it started out as a leisure time hobby. And not only could we call them brain surgeons, but cardiologists, too, since they refer to the engine as the very heart of the vehicle. And they assume the responsibility of working with parts that could turn out to be vital. And this is not a metaphore.
“Becoming a master technician is a commitment to a long term goal. When you become that master technician, that’s the time when you open the hood of the car and you get excited, because you know exactly how the heart of that car is beating.”
But after training, specific courses, testing and the experience that came with all of these, technicians become better than the computers on board the Mercedes-Benz models. They are building and fixing them, so they must be able to take control at any time.
“I had an SL 63 come in. It had 91 computers onboard. All in one network talking to each other”, one of the technicians remembers one of his most challenging tasks.
So he had to fix one without bothering the other 90 car brains. Distronic Plus, Parking Assist, Parktronic, Parktronic Assist, Lane Keep Assist, Blind Spot Assist, these are but a few of the brains they have to deal with every day. Treating mind-blowing systems and cutting edge technology as if in the E.R., “The Mercedes-Benz technicians are, – they say about themselves – without a doubt, a fine tuning of the most advanced machines ever.”
