Відео

I have a whole 'nuther video on that subject. ua-cam.com/video/T0027EfSBII/v-deo.html Thanks for watching!

Excellent point, thanks, and thanks for watching!

@@roypetersen1400 I'm sorry to hear that, but it's hard to give the proper feel through a video. I hope you have it sorted now. Thanks for watching!

I dabble in Arduino, and I only have so much bandwidth. I'm far more serious in car work. Thanks for watching!

@ arduino is fully compatible!

@@jansvensson1602 Thanks for watching!

@@laczikmarton2745 Thanks for watching!

@@dubsackken Didn't quite work as planned. Trunk or Treat was moved indoors for the weather and the church was to brightly lit. Thanks for watching!

Thanks, and thanks for watching!

@@p.d.kennels Excellent! I'm glad it helped you, and thanks for watching.

I go by the book hours and have rates based on those hours. I save my customers on parts as well so win-win. I can afford to offer warranties because lots of the parts have warranty on them.

I've had two friends in the last two days call me up and ask if I wanted to tackle repairs for them. I'm busy working on my stuff and the church lawn equipment, so I declined, but as the auto market falls apart there will be more opportunity for independent mechanics. Thanks for watching!

Thank you. The Air Force Reserves was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life. Good luck on your early retirement, and thanks for watching!

What does it say that people think this is a cool trick and not a legitimate plastic repair? Keep this in your mental toolbox. Thanks for watching!

My plan is to replace them when they finally fail and keep that $120 in my account until then. Thanks for watching!

Absolutely. The tech did not care. He was fast, fast, fast, which the dealership management loved. Thanks for watching.

I do not have a problem with a company making a profit, but I'm watching dealership management burn their own businesses to the ground because they're putting personal wealth over the health of the company. As a result, non-management employees get screwed. Thanks for watching!

@@robertmills3763Oof, that sounds rough. Beat the bushes. Ask everyone you know if they know of a job opening. I have to say, I'm a proponent of fleet maintenance jobs. I was fortunate that I was able to join the military, and they treated me better than any private company, but I also believed in the mission. I've met people who've done fleet maintenance for the city, and fleet maintenance on delivery trucks for a private company. What are you comfortable with? Do you like the competitive environment of a dealership? Whatever job you accept, always have options and don't hesitate to jump if they aren't giving you the support you need. Your job is to make them profitable, and their job is to support you and pay you appropriately. I wish you well, and thanks for watching!

In the early days of the auto industry, auto makers sold direct to the public, but dealerships were instituted to protect consumers from very real monopoly concerns. In the last thirty years the auto industry has dropped from 95% independent dealerships to 80% independents. Six companies own most of the corporate dealerships, and the more the industry consolidates the less competition they'll have. Cars are a high-value item, so there will always be a serious amount of scamming going on. Dealerships are a poor solution, but I'm not sure that allowing Wal-Mart or any other retailer sell all brands of cars will help. Still, the worse dealerships get the more attractive it is. I think the worst solution would be to allow manufacturers to own the dealerships. They would have a tighter grip on repair information and parts, which would be devastating to mom and pop repair shops. Thanks for watching!

I have no problem with business owners being millionaires. I have a problem with employers who treat employees as an expense instead of a partner. Thanks for watching!

So tru

Yup, but I do tend to leave the covers on if they're already there. If one's missing I'm not likely to go looking for a replacement. Thanks for watching!

It's good to hear that he's supportive and the dealership pays him to be supportive. That was not my experience, nor the experience of most techs I knew. Dealerships saw foremen as a non-productive expense. While it's true that foremen don't produce, they're a "multiplier". Their value is in preventing errors and increasing the productivity of the technicians. I hope this is a sign of much-needed changes to the industry. Thanks for watching!

By nature, salesmen are typically better self-promoters than technicians. Since most management comes from sales they also recognize sales talent easier than they recognize technical talent. You're right that it's backwards, and it really shows now that dealerships are struggling to find techs. In the fleet maintenance shops I've been in there's usually one supervisor and half a dozen techs. The supervisor came up from the techs, and not from a sales position.Thanks for watching!

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for watching!

I hope that you've found a good place, but always have an exit strategy handy. Never stop looking for better opportunities. You don't have to take them, but you need to have options. Thanks for watching!

I've heard that you can replace the heater core without removing the box from the truck, and it looks like it was designed that way, but I've never done it myself. I'm interested in hearing how it works out for you, though. Thanks for watching!

Yup, there are a handful of steps I could have simplified, but it was only my second time. Also, I had to clean mouse nests out of everything. I was mostly shooting video so I could get it back together correctly. Thanks for watching!

Sorry I missed your comment until now. I've long believed that auto dealerships need to pay a minimum hourly rate and then pay flag on top of it. Sure, techs wouldn't be as hungry, but they'd also be more willing to take the time to do the job right. I was in a church study class this last week and we talked about how we typically spend more time with our coworkers than our families, and our ethics are affected by that. Just for that reason alone I will never go back to work for an auto dealership. Thanks for watching!

You're welcome. Thanks for watching!

All true. I really need to do a video about where I see technology taking the automotive business in the next half century. I think dealerships are going to disappear, but so will car ownership. Thanks for watching!

Thanks for watching!

Excellent, thanks for watching!

I'm not shilling for likes, I'm just trying to share what I know. If people start liking and subscribing I might actually have to put myself on a production schedule, and I'm finding that I like video editing about as much as I like doing yard work. But thanks for the encouragement and thanks for watching! I'll keep trying to put out content that helps people.

@erikstrawn3885 understandable, thank you kindly for this video! 🙏

I got shareholder statements that showed me the dealership was raking in huge profits from my work, and paying me pennies. They were charging $75 a flag hour and only paying me $13 while their profit margin was 55%. I had an opportunity to leave the industry, and at that point I have zero care if their doors close. While the government doesn't have to turn a profit, government jobs exist because we want them to. When people don't see a benefit to government jobs, the political will to pay for them dries up and they disappear. As an example, the IRS lost 22% of its staff between 2010 and 2021. Knowing that, I've always tackled my government jobs with a desire to protect taxpayer dollars. Dealerships have traditionally had two competing business models, profit-per-sale and market-share. Back in the '80s dealerships were chasing market share, and you saw a lot of dealerships that would have weekend sales where they pumped as many customers through the showroom on a weekend as they could. If they could make a dollar on a car sale, they would. It was volume, volume, volume. The dealership I worked at last had a different model - they sold on profit-per-sale. If they couldn't knock your head off, they wouldn't sell. That carried through to the service side as well. Our prices were well above the average, and if you didn't like it you could tow your car elsewhere. Over the last twenty years the entire industry has switched to the profit-per-sale model. Because of profit-per-sale dealerships service department profits are up, but the volume is plummeting. They are losing more customers every year to independent shops. The profit-per-sale model only works when customers don't cross-shop or when you have a monopoly. As dealerships have fewer and fewer experienced techs, independent shops look like a better deal. Thanks for watching!

@@erikstrawn3885 Indeed, lots of dealerships can't hire good mechanics nowadays and are paying more because that's what they needed to do since the beginning. Back in the days it was probably a great thing to work for a dealership, now I don't hear people wanting to go to work for a dealership anymore; lots are starting their own business because they can make the same if they did a brake job in one day without all the bs from management. I did a timing belt today and I'm charging $320, my rate is $80 per book hour, completed it in 5 hours because I work clean and do the job right, could have I had done it in three hours? Probably but I like to treat my customer's car like I would treat mine, no rushing to flag hours.

@@MireilleMalcomnson Dealerships have no problem telling technicians "How about you go work for down-the-road-motors." i.e. find another job. They just didn't realize it's a two way street. Never be afraid to jump. Keep a three month emergency fund and you'll find yourself with more freedom of choice. Thanks for watching!

Trade schools are recruiting by telling teenagers that they could make $100k+ in the automotive trade. They were telling us that back in the '90s. To this day I've never met a $100k+ mechanic. I really wanted to get into programming, and I had a talent for it, but there was no support structure for a high schooler to learn programming in Oklahoma. Thanks for watching!

today automotive technician skills must be automotive software engineer + automotive mechanic engineer but get pay = Uber, that why technician left

It was twenty-five years ago. I have no need to name names. Thanks for watching!

Yup. Unfortunately, I think it will get worse before it gets better. As a starting tech in 1999 I was getting $13 a flag hour, which equates to $24.50 today, but starting techs are lucky to get $20/hr. At the same time the labor rate went from $75/hr to nearly $200/hr, far exceeding the $141/hr that would have been appropriate with inflation. I think Millenials and Gen-Z can tell when someone's whizzing on their backs and telling them it's raining. I have zero sympathy for dealerships. Thanks for watching!

@@erikstrawn3885 In the meantime everyone is screaming that burger flippers are underpaid.

That's "shooting fish in a barrel" when I rarely get over a hundred views on a video, but thanks for watching!

I should have recognized that it was you, Dave.

@@erikstrawn3885 keep up the good content!

Yup, that's a good tip. Honestly, if I weren't buying parts for GMT400 trucks I'd get rid of the SAE stuff altogether. Thanks for watching!

@@erikstrawn3885 yeah, it's pretty much a metric world now...if you do decide not to carry SAE around any longer just keep a 3/8 and an 11/16..all other SAE have a close enough metric equivalent.

I do, but I knew this was going to be apart for a while, and since it's been more than a year, it's all in a pile. If my kids' cars would quit breaking I might have a chance to put it back together. Thanks for watching!

We loved our xB, but they're getting scarce now, and every one you find has a rebuilt title. Thanks for watching.

In the video I didn't state why that was important to me. After being hired at that defense industry leader, they lost the contract and the shady company that took over routinely hired unqualified people so they could pay them less. It was terrible. You say "credentialism", I say "qualified". While I could accept working for someone without a credential who could do the job well, it usually just doesn't work that way. I agree that competency matter most, but most people are trying to move upwards, and so they likely haven't done that job before. Study up on the Peter Principle. Credentials have a purpose. Thanks for watching!

In case the video wasn't clear, it's been a while since I left the auto business. I've been seeing more and more commentaries on what's wrong, and it's the same things I saw wrong twenty five years ago. I'm in civil service now, where I'm treated as a valued member of the team. Thanks for watching!

The first dealership I worked at was a local chain, and they were fairly up front and honest. They sold to another local chain that was shady, but very profitable. That chain then merged with a nationwide conglomerate. It quickly became a race to the bottom for pay and respect. The market has been consolidating, and there's no guarantee that a mom & pop shop will stay locally owned. It's pretty assured that they will sell out in the long run, because they can't compete. Thanks for watching!