Wrench Tales #13: 'A Break in the Cycle' w/Chad Austin

Feb. 13, 2025

It takes patience and persistence to pursue elusive driveability concerns, especially on today's expensive diesel trucks!

Brandon Steckler

Wrench Tales #13 is here with YouTube sensation, Chad Austin (More recognized as The Practical Mechanic)!! Chad speaks with Motor Age Technical Editor, Brandon Steckler about an ongoing saga involving a driveability issue on a Duramax diesel 6.6L LB7.

No customer likes to hear that the same rough-running symptom they’ve paid good money to have rectified has returned but is now due to a different issue. It takes patience and persistence to solve this one and the fact that it’s a diesel application makes the process even more painful, expensive and time-consuming.

Stick with Chad and Brandon as they systematically break down the data gathered by Chad and how this information led them to doubt what a local diesel expert repair shop has proposed as a diagnosis and how to repair it.

Along with a visit from a fellow diagnostician (from across the country!) Chad’s brilliance and cunning scope skills is what gets the deciphered. It took over 50 hours of invested diagnostic time and in the end, the NVH tool hit the nail right on the head to give them the conclusive diagnosis they were desperately grasping at.

Join Chad and Brandon on this exciting episode of Motor Age’s “Wrench Tales!”

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About the Author

Brandon Steckler | Technical Editor | Motor Age

Brandon began his career in Northampton County Community College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he was a student of GM’s Automotive Service Educational program. In 2001, he graduated top of his class and earned the GM Leadership award for his efforts. He later began working as a technician at a Saturn dealership in Reading, Pennsylvania, where he quickly attained Master Technician status. He later transitioned to working with Hondas, where he aggressively worked to attain another Master Technician status.

Always having a passion for a full understanding of system/component functionality, he rapidly earned a reputation for deciphering strange failures at an efficient pace and became known as an information specialist among the staff and peers at the dealership. In search of new challenges, he transitioned away from the dealership and to the independent world, where he specialized in diagnostics and driveability.

Today, he is an instructor with both Carquest Technical Institute and Worldpac Training Institute. Along with beta testing for Automotive Test Solutions, he develops curriculum/submits case studies for educational purposes. Through Steckler Automotive Technical Services, LLC., Brandon also provides telephone and live technical support, as well as private training, for technicians all across the world.

Brandon holds ASE certifications A1-A9 as well as C1 (Service Consultant). He is certified as an Advanced Level Specialist in L1 (Advanced Engine Performance), L2 (Advanced Diesel Engine Performance), L3 (Hybrid/EV Specialist), L4 (ADAS) and xEV-Level 2 (Technician electrical safety).

He contributes weekly to Facebook automotive chat groups, has authored several books and classes, and truly enjoys traveling across the globe to help other technicians attain a level of understanding that will serve them well throughout their careers.