Dealership policies worsen-and can relieve-a shortage of mechanics



Update with questions:
The article says the same thing most of you are saying, with a different angle as well.

Dealers don't pay well, mechanics have to provide their own tools, rewards from good service get distributed to the sales people, while mechanics get bent, but there's more:



As a customer who always goes to the dealer, how do I let the guys actually doing the work know that I appreciate their service?  I never see them, and only interact with a service adviser who sits in the nice office behind the computer.  I'm also starting to wonder if discounts I receiver are at the expense of the mechanics and techs, while service advisers get all the praise and incentives.

Low pay and abuse.
 

Yes, tips for the mechanic usually never get past the writer.


Discounts often come out of labor hours, so the guy making the smallest cut makes even less.

Probably the same people who are taking the bees.

No idea, but it was a much better world when we had mechanics instead of technicians.

Yeah, because carbeurated vehicles that were finicky and often ran poorly with pathetic power and mileage were so great

That is a big part of it.

 

FPNI

This is what I was going to say...low pay, crappy bennies, crappy shops and equipment, have to self supply tools and many shops  don't give a tool stipend and it's nothing to spend a 100k on tools even for an average mechanic..a good mechanic will have 3 or 4 times that in tools....

I see you don't know the difference either. Clue: Carburetion and injection have not a single thing to do with it.

The guy that said low pay and abuse is on the right track.  Add in low or no benefits, pensions, sick time and little or no vacation or other paid time off and you have a recipe for disaster.  Dealerships (the worst abusers here) have forever treated mechanics (technicians) as low classed idiots not worth anything, until they are gone.  I worked in a dealership for 9 years back in the 1980's and it basically sucked.  This was when computers were making their advent and there was not much training given for them, most was trial and error.  On top of that the dealership only cared about selling as many vehicles as possible and while they gave the typical lip service that the service dept. was the most important part of the business, there actions definitely showed otherwise.

Also with millennials they want instant gratification, high pay and benefits, lots of time off and top positions immediately, none of which happens working on vehicles.  Its far more productive to go to college for 4 years to get an office or indoor job that gets them what they want.

This,coming up on 30 years wrenching and I can't wait to pack up the box and call it quits.

QFT

ETA When I started in the trade the Mechanic was paid 50% of the billed labor 55% if you worked nights at the Ford dealership I worked at.

And this covers the rest of the reasons.

8 years wrenching.  I'm done, fuck that.  Went back to college and a nice part-time insurance job.  Low pay, shady bosses who only care about making a buck even at the expense of fucking the customer, and people who just don't understand that "No, I am not making this up- you need to do 'x' maintenance now".

I still do it because I own my own shop.

I will steer my son toward something else. It's mentally and physically taxing work. Diagnosing new vehicles with complex problems takes alot of smarts and expensive tools.

I dont know about today,but when I took a run at it this was the case. I also learned early I didnt not want to be in debt to the snap-On tool guy so I could make a bunch of money for someone else while i made peanuts

I gave it up after 26 years running break-downs as a field mechanic (heavy equipment). Great pay, bennies and retirement, but lots of out of town with  insane fucking OT destroyed my body.

The article says the same thing most of you are saying, with a different angle as well.

Dealers don't pay well, mechanics have to provide their own tools, rewards from good service get distributed to the sales people, while mechanics get bent, but there's more:

 
I did that last January and do not miss it at all.

This and must have their own tools that cost $50,000 starting. To make $17-$19 hour. Good luck.

Commercial/ industrial mechanics make 1.5 to double with $300 in tools.

Have not renewed my ASE certs in over 5 years.

Yep I packed up my box 3 years ago and stuffed it in the back of the shop.  I keep all of it in case I have to do it again, but that is highly unlikely.

These answers are on the right track.

Also, the manufacturers are just as responsible as the dealers.

HET here, working for the gov. now, like it much better than the private side. Still hard work, but not the same amount of pressure. Hopefully I can do it for another twenty years. Very few kids these days want to bust their knuckles, get dirty and work outside with temperatures at a 100 degrees. Everyone wants to be a lawyer, can't blame them. They even created an MR positon for people in the temp agency to get on with no experience, just the school certificate but they want to earn the starting pay as an HET with no experience. Been doing it too long to go back to school and do something else.

I dont feel abused but I work in a small shop and I am not flat rate. My pay is pretty good, 45k a year. I know I am not a baller but I never finished college, so it is what it is. Future outlook and aspirations involves me owning my own shop. My fear but to be honest its probably the same fear mechanics have had for the last 50 years, technology in the newer cars can make it harder for small shops to work on whats being produced. With that said I am continuing to stay open minded if I can take it apart I can put it back together. When taking it apart I am revers engineering it in my head and doing my best to understand how it works and why it does what it does. Most cars have all the same parts they are just organized differently and on some occasions name differently as well but not often. The introduction of OBD2 is awesome and I cant wait for OBD3. There are some new features Id really like to see become commonly accepted by most manufactures hopefully leading to a more standardized part. For instance TPMP's sensors suck. Every manufacture seems do use a different style and they all program or reset differently. Its something that should really be the same part for every car only differing in length and heavy duty or light duty.

For the most part the only thing my shop doesnt do is reprogram. If we get into a situation where I think The vehicle needs a PCM, BCM or whatever I have to make sure it doesnt need programed because we dont have those capabilities.

The upside to working for a dealer is most of what you see is the same so diagnostic and repairs are much faster. However there are a lot of downsides, only new vehicle owners tend to like dealers so dealers can be slow. Also new vehicle owners could get lots of warranty repairs. Warranty repair work does not pay the tech the same, in most cases you'll get screwed. Not always though, if anyone recalls the Toyota frame recall. The tech's in my area where getting 60 hours to replace those frames and know a few guys that could get the job done in a hard 8 hours. So you get paid for 60 but the job is completed in 8 hours. Of course this is after they have already done a few.

Honestly I find my job to be rewarding. Everyday I have a new puzzle to solve.

Ive been wrenching 4 years for pay. When ive been at it 30 illl probably be as done with it as the other guys posting here. So far the tool truck has reamed me for $25k giver or take a little. That includes a new box that I paid 5k for at %50 percent off. I dont have my own personal scanner yet I dont have a few other tools as well. I could see spending probably another 25k between now and the time I finish wrenching, I think I am bing generous here. Obviously if I open my own shop that number will grow significantly but so should the value and income. If I would have finished college I could have easily spent 80-100k on a profession that starts out at 70k in my area. I just didnt like what I was doing in college, so I dropped out and started doing what my dad did for 25 years. It was a personal decision it wasnt rash, I started college with the goal of getting a job that paid well and in my area I could have done that and successfully obtained a job. However, I would have been pretty damn unhappy so I harbor no regret for my decision.

Here's the best part.

You know how they reward you for getting better? By giving you worse more complicated lower paying work.


You get the complicated intermittent electrical issues while the low rent hustler in the next hole turns 95 hours a week on brake jobs and flush services.

That is where I'm at right now. The kid at the shop isn't even capable of learning how to diagnose anything. Every car that he works on he goes and Googles the problem and follows what some random guy says. At the end of the day he has learned nothing and fixed little.

 

That's total ass. A great deal of the places around here use identifix for that. Nobody diagnosed anything, just most likely and go.

 

This is not wrong!
ETA...not incorrect!


After almost 20 yrs in the field, I am looking elsewhere.....before I am too old to change careers( though I am close to being too old)!

I make more as a retail manager than I ever did as a technician. I don't have to bust up my hands, burn myself, or deal with the idiots in the shop anymore.

Thats what happens when you force every kid into college to buy useless degrees instead of going to tech school

Start taking night courses. Specialize in industrial equipment, etc.. You like obd 2, get an Associates degree in electronics/ automation/ PLC.

You do realize the good car salesman out front doubles your salary, doesn't get dirty and makes you do extra labor for their commission, right.

FPNI. Definitely the reason I chose to leave the industry

It's pretty much a bad deal all around.

And that's not the only trade that's true for.

Meh...I've been doing it for a living since 1993, shade tree before that. Ford dealership for a lot of years, Ford proving ground for a few years. I fix fire trucks now. I make good money have good benefits. I would encourage any young person , if they like fixing stuff, to go into this highly lucrative field! I have no time for the haters! Also I'm a mechanic, not a tech. And yeah I fix the whiz bang new shit, as well as the old.

And yet there isn't a single institution within driving distance (despite multiple universities and community colleges being in that distance) of me offering anything remotely related to such certifications.

That is the real source of the problem. Plenty of competent people looking to get training, but lacking resources.

So much truth.
And FUCK dealerships in the ass with a splintered baseball bat.

So when I take my vehicles to the dealer for service, am I supporting the abuse of the mechanics/techs, and how can I let them know I appreciate their work with my money?

Everyone deserves a college education!

Trade jobs? Fuck you! I'm above that! Millennials unite!

Starting salary? Screw that! I want 60k a year in air conditioning!

Add to that mentality the fact that you damn near need a computer programing degree to even work on any new car anymore and even Stevie Wonder can see it's a recipe for disaster.

When the buck stops it's government intervention that screws us all. Thanks EPA.

When I first moved up the boss's wife called a meeting and literally called me out. She was asking why I wasnt clocking as many hours as the one guy below me who was doing all the easy no brain activity work. This is a small 3 man shop. The Boss, me and the other guy. Fortunately the Boss interjected and explained to her how easy it is to knock out brake job after brake job when compared to fixing problems that required actually diagnostics.

Identifix, I wont knock it. For the not so common codes or problem I can easily pull up what the test procedures are and it assists with fixing the problem. Keep in mind my shop is not a dealership I dont have a brake down for how to diagnose each issue and I am not seeing the same recurring problems on the same cars the mass air flow on a ford does not have the same specs as a mass air flow for a VW. I have to deal with every manufacture and every possible problem. I dont use identifix for every code. But when I get something thats odd it can be a time saver.

The government doesn't want skilled tradesmen. They want effeminate assholes with useless degrees and a lifetime of debt to be slaves to them. Why else do you think they only incentive colleges for bullshit and spout propaganda to kids into thinking that they need a college education in fuckall to get ahead or be successful?

FPNI.

I worked at a BMW dealership as a tech after I got out of the military - had to buy all my own tools to start. They started me on hourly ($13/hr in ~2005. I could care less - was just out of the mil), and the plan was to convert me to flat rate once I got the swing of things.


There was tons of training requirements (away from home, even though they paid), and plenty of special tools I had to buy.


About a year passed, and they decided it was better for THEM to keep me hourly than convert me to flat rate, even though I was billing in excess of 12 hours in an 8 hour day. I pressed the issue, got nowhere, told them to GFY and quit, moved back into IT and never looked back.


Bottom line: Most dealerships treat their techs like shit. I'm not surprised this is now biting them in their asses.

I used to be an Automotive tech, so I can field this one, as its pretty easy.

We get treated like shit, and for the most part, the pay is shit, unless you run the place. A good set of tools costs as much as a decent car, and it fucks up your body long term. The people who have to fix these things get paid and treated far worse than the hacks that build them.

I got out when I made an astute observation that most of the "old timers" had wives that were the top earners in their household.

Now Diesel techs, that's a different story. They get paid, because they are literally worth their weight in gold. I don't like bathing in diesel, so I never got into it.

I can do a brake job in about 30 minutes.

It's fun right now. He has a no start on a jeep cherokee and three days in I still haven't seen him check for spark or fuel pressure. Watching him try to use a power probe has also been entertaining.

 

I work for a great guy, he is actually very generous. The benefits are great the pay is actually good for my level of education in this field. I mean, I have sick time, vacation. We attend training courses together that he pays for. The only thing I lack is health care and that is going the way of the dinosaur it seems like. Honestly, ill either be running this shop or ill be running my own shop in a few years.

Oh and the boss has nearly 30 years experience while the wife has very little so when she called me out he quickly corrected her. And no the other guy was not in the room at the time. He was actually fired a short time later. I had voiced me opinion a few times on his performance but when she called me in it was pretty clear his numbers where not much higher than mine and for the work he was doing it just wasnt good enough. On top of that he was having come back issues, he had several cases of the mondays and his progression, learning curve plateaued rapidly. It is hard to find good help.

Lets face it, its probably a fuel pump, but no need to tell him that. Maybe it will be something cool and exotic like a cam position or a crank position sensor.