I was an auto mechanic for years. ASE certified Master Technician. I enjoyed the work but it was stressful a lot of the time. During Covid we were laid off and I found a job at a Aerospace company making twice the money, no stress, they provide all the tools and in a brand new heated and air conditioned building. Why the hell would I ever want to be an automotive technician again ???
@@brock8281 - You miss the point. Most auto technicians have skills that will transfer to many other industries. Those new jobs pay more and come with vastly better working conditions. The hardest part is overcoming your own limits you place upon yourself.
@brock8281 YES, they can. Where I am, they prefer people with little to no experience in a mechanical field so they can train them to do the work how it should be done and not how the technician THINKS it should be done.
@@C7ZaolThere's more than 1 way to skin a cat cause some douch kid comes up with a book and says this is how it's done and not listen to the old guys that have actually done it its tough to hear that shit or want to help any of the new guys let em learn the hard and costly way who cares
@chiplangowski3298 Absolutely! I went from service tech to mechanic, then to smog tech. Got tired of the industry and people associated with it, moved to a different state and got a job working of heavy equipment, what a difference! Never thought I'd be thus happy working on stuff again!
good answer, most of us work in our garage now instead of for other people making pennies. cancel the tool truck bill and do something else that is more rewarding.
Workshops in Australia charge out at $150/h. The worker earns $30/h. Shop charges went up, workers wages didnt, yet companies cry theres no decent workers.......
Your minimum wage is $24 an hour. Houses in australia cost more than 1 million dollars. your funny money isn't comparable to USD when you can't buy a house.
@@sygos SOME houses costs over 1 million dollars ;) There are plenty of houses for under 300k, even lower if you move rural. Side note, you do realise how many TRILLION of those USD your country is in debt yeah? I'll take my "funny money" every day of the week
@@tellucasThe shop has all the overhead to pay for. The high level mechanics should get about 1/3 the shop rate. And, people think they’re a top level mechanic after a couple of years.
when no skill jobs pay $20/hour, it is yes. the blue collar jobs are all suffering right now as low end and high end wages rise but middle class jobs do not pay any better than they did. i was making $35hr before covid, but in the last 3 years that is no longer considered a decent wage, now it would be $60hour, which almost no one pays.
My son is a tech. He was getting paid $28/hr after 10 years while the stealership was charging the customers $135. He quit and opened up his own shop. Now he charges $100/hr for actual hours, not the "book rate" plus the margin on parts the dealership was getting. He's so busy he has to turn work away. I basically have done all my own work on my cars for my entire life even though I work in management in a fortune 10 company. Over the years the money I've saved doing it my self has more than paid for all my tools. Now retired, I restore and restomod old cars.
100, People want to work for a fair wage and not watch the customer get charged 4-7X per hour/book time when "management" pushes for the tech to complete as fast as possible. A person doesn't want to feel taken advantage of and I can't blame them.
Then starting your own business seems to be the way to make more. I don't see why everyone is complaining then, start your own shop, make $100K. Stop complaining that the shop you work for is ripping you off, and take your own risk to open a shop. Then you can hire all those qualified guys that need to be paid more, and you can pay them $50 to $100/hr.
I can relate my friend there's nothing like hard work attaining skills through hard work and determination. I refuse to hand someone any of my hard-earned money for something I can do myself and if I can't I will teach myself through trial and error
How much of that $100/hr goes in renting/buying/maintaining the shop, buying ramps & other capital equipment, liability & property insurance, property taxes, warranty work on failed previous repairs, tax accountants & legal fees, utility bills, any advertising costs, etc.?
@@Benzknees He bought a house that was zoned for small commercial an already had a 60x25X20 metal building shop on the property. The neighbors have a similar property and building, and run a printing business out of theirs. He bought a used 2 post lift from the sales rep that installed the lifts at the dealership he worked at for $2K. It was bought back by the installer from a dealership that went out of business. He already owned his own snap-on tools since no dealer supplies those anyway. The shop already had an air compressor and lines from the previous owner. The business license was nothing, and hazard fees for oil/battery are paid for by the customer. He doesn't do tires except to rotate them. He has a salvage company that comes by every 3 months to collect all the old rotors, struts, and other metal for free. He gets to write off the area of his shop, a prorated portion of his property taxes, mortgage, utilities, and insurance. He gets health insurance through his wife's employer. He runs Xero accounting software ($25/mo) and sends it all to the guy that does his household taxes, $250 for the year to do the quarterly/annual tax return. Advertising is all word of mouth and he turns people away. The only reason there are "failed" repairs are because of his clients that want cheap autozone parts instead of factory parts. They sign a waiver that if it goes bad, the part if covered by autozone's warranty, but they must repay the labor. He's making a killing. Not hard to do, just takes motivation.
I walked away from the industry after 12 years wrenching on Mercedes Benz, Maserati and Ferrari. There is no respect or appreciation for what we know or how much we work. Can’t find anyone reliable? They refuse to pay the ones who ARE! If we’re only paid flat rate, where is the incentive, especially for a master tech in a dealership who frequently gets massive teardown jobs under warranty? 3 days of work to get paid 7 hours and be told “that’s just what the book says” is how you drive techs out of the industry. I’m done wrenching. I’m in college now to become a physicist. I’m much smarter and worth far more than this industry is willing to compensate for.
Are you going for physics out of interest or for job prospects? I went into chemistry out of interest. Most jobs that were available were awful and not well paid. With more coursework I ended up in software development.
What would you tell young person who loves cars. Wants to go to automotive tech school learn a trade. Mike Rowe says we need more trade schools college is not the answer.
@@robertslegers257 Love cars on the side. I'm a huge enthusiast, own 6 vehicles right now. 2 years ago i left my corporate job and started doing car stuff full time, and i've grown to hate them. I need a reset.
Let’s take a look at the history of flat rate. The first cars ever built were very few, and owned only by the wealthy. Their coachmen were tasked with operating and maintaining them. Then came the mass production of the model T. Suddenly there was a mass influx of vehicles on the road and very few people who could maintain them. So coachmen/mechanics began leaving their positions to go service cars for the dealerships and were charging top dollar hourly for their work. This cut into the dealership profits and they didn’t like it so they propositioned Ford to come up with a solution. Ford answered by creating a set amount of time that it should take to preform certain tasks, and thus flat rate was born to screw the mechanics, and make the dealership more profitable. Fast forward to present time and the same tactics are still in play. We are very few, overworked, underpaid, and under appreciated. Yet the industry does nothing to improve on these conditions, and wonders why we’re leaving. So to sum this up, fuck em let them fix their own shit!
They will fix it by just opening more manufacturer approved mechanic shops, where they charge even more from customers and pay mechanics working there a bit more than in completely privately owned companies could. This is bit like what Apple is doing with their phones for example, where they demand that their products be fixed in places that are approved by them and pay tons of money for parts. As long as people keep on buying their products with prices and problems they come with, nothing will change.
And don’t forget govt collusion! Car companies got a build these humongously complicated machines that the average Person can barely even touch let alone fix something difficult, because government has all these stupid regulations that have to be met involving emissions and safety regulations. If people were to say “screw it“ i’m driving some thing else, the government steps in and says that those alternative vehicles can’t be allowed on the road because they are “unsafe“. Other countries build these less complicated vehicles and government has already stepped in and refused to allow them to be imported. The only way they can is for a special antique exception law be used and the less complicated vehicle has to survive for 25 years in order to be allowed in. Just watch, these electric bicycle thingies are gonna get regulated soon the way mopeds have been clamped down on. Heck, some of them even are. If they don’t have pedals they get classed as something not roadworthy and you’ll get a ticket even if you’re in a bike lane since they say you’re not a bicycle. How are you supposed to ride one of those little EV Scooty things off road? They are definitely not built for it.
I was ASE Master certified with 15 years of experience, and work as an hourly employee in a manufacturing plant brought home the same amount of money. The problems I ran into is that if I did make a mistake nobody would tell me, they'd send the car to a different tech, the customers never had the money to fix the problems, I ended up doing a lot of the warranty work that barely paid. I spent most of my time inspecting cars or doing warranty garbage. Then they want to do hack jobs because they want a fix without replacing the parts. Gee, wonder why I don't do it professionally anymore.
Here’s the deal. Years worth of training and $50k in tools for $28hr with no medical and retirement. This is what mechanics made back in the 80s and 90s but it has not increased today. Today a shop is charging $200+hr, the average truck is $75k, and the average car is $50k. But the shops only want to pay $28hr with no incentives to basically be it’s doctor. To top that off back in the day you could make time, now book time is reduced and is a joke. Today in California you can make more than $20 working fast food with no training or tools. To keep up to today’s inflation a mechanic should be making $75hr. I guarantee if shops payed this they would have a tech in every bay.
@@GooglePixelGoogle yep, it’s true I’ve lived it. Every mechanic I know is paying hundreds of dollars every week to multiple tool trucks. To top it off most shops these days don’t even want to supply the shop with the big tools. Many techs are having to supply everything. The only people making money in shops is the owners.
Are you serious ?? I’m a french doctor (GP), and I make $75 / hour. And I have so much stress and responsabilities to deal with my job. Auto mechanics are a joke in their claims.
I've been in the tech industry for just over 30 years and I recently been laid off. One of the skills that God gave me is the ability to fix cars. And it's something I love. It's something I'm good at. I approached my local dealership about fulfilling a mechanics position. Everything went well until they offered me the job at $20 an hour and I needed to bring about $4,000 of my own tools. I told them they could kiss my grits.
42 year tech here. When I started in the '82, I thought I would have it mastered in 4-5 years. Technology only picked up speed. You can never "master" this constantly evolving tech. There are literally of thousands of DTC's (trouble codes) for today's vehicles. Thousands of wiring circuits & data lines. Some vehicles have dozens of computer modules. This shit ain't easy at all. I began in a Ford/Isuzu dealership. After a decade of dealerships, I went to independents to get away from dealership politics. The hourly wages in my industry haven't much changed since the early 1990's. And I still go to school to stay up with this GARBAGE they build now. It's a shitty job with no appreciation from shop owners who can't fix a goddam thing. I've even quit a few shops over their greed & dishonesty with customers. The thieves seem to thrive in this industry. It's sickening to see the shop owner's favorite techs are the biggest ripoffs of customers. And watch these crimminals stay in business. Thank goodness I went self employed 15 years ago. Don't ruin your life & be a mechanic like I did lol. Most techs blow out their lower discs between age 45-55 ( age 44 for me), after being hunched over the hood of cars for a few decades. Have fun kiddies !
Well, they need to start making vehicles that don’t require maintenance. Gasoline engines no longer have as many professionals to work on them. I’m 100% sure superior technology for vehicles have sprouted up here and there only to be raided by the FBI to make sure there’s no competition for fossil fuel.
I was a tech for eight years. When the shop was busy I could easily book 60-80 hrs a week, but the shop was rarely busy year round, pay sucked, and vacation was below average. A younger tech left to go work for a firetruck manufacturer doing entry level assembly work and was pulling in more money then most of us there. Needless to say I gave it a shot starting out as an electrician there. Almost doubled my income in the first year. Good techs should be making a minimum of 100k a year.
Correct, my brother was a mechanic for like 15 years and just started working at an ethanol plant as an operator making more money at the bottom than being the top technician at a dealership.
absolute NONSENSE. that is NOT the case at all. its not the pay that is an issue, its the freaking lazy ass younger generation that we have right now!!! They just DO NOT want to work, but they still want money.... The pay is fine, and in all honesty it is higher than nearly all other jobs out there.
@orion7741 I'm sorry but your entire post is what is nonsense. Virtually no other technical field requires the amount of input of time, money, and training for the return that this field of endeavor pays back. Plumbers and electricians double the wages of an auto tech with half the required input. You can't find anybody not because they're lazy, it's because they're not fools.
@@orion7741 It's higher than wendy's pay but that's about it. Even managing an arby's my brother's wife was making more then him as a platinum tech with hyundai. He moved to a Honda manufacturing service center which was basically a union shop and he's still making more babysitting a machine making ethanol now. Any factory work is going to pay better, require no skills outside of reading and observation, and won't require you to buy your own tools. He will still do mechanic work, but never for a shop always in his own garage. The shops are the lazy ones that want to do nothing, collect the money, while their technicians do ALL the labor. It makes more sense to be a "mobile mechanic" and do jobs that let you collect 100% of your worth instead of getting 30%. Contract work should be 60% always. That's just basic business. Shops provide nothing outside of an environment to do contract work and should just pay them 60% of the work they do. The young generation doesn't have the age to learn the skill, the only thing they're going to be qualified to do is oil changes and car washes. These are people in their 30's and 40's that are leaving the industry because the pay is better elsewhere. That's why all these places are looking for people who actually know what they're doing. Young people are easy to pay in peanuts, they don't know any better and they don't have experience.
I spent 40 years in the trenches... When the shops labor rate versus the technician pay rate got so ridiculously stupid, I decided my slice was just too thin. My last 20 years, I worked under the radar for cash and tripled my income. That other 80% of the shops labor rate that I never got to see in pay, suddenly was mine. The reason you can't find technicians is they have figured out you're a fool to be a mule. Be your own boss, and pocket 200k a year
@oceania2385 Bingo sir! Towards the end of my wrenching days I had so much business I was turning away more than I took, put all four of my kids through college and paid off the house early. Try doing that in a shop with flat rate and inconsistent workflow
@@reubenj.cogburn8546 The downside is while you're getting enough experience to be truly competent, you have to make someone else rich. Then enrich yourself.
@oceania2385 for me, the game changer was the internet. Instead of people Networks, Mitchell manuals, and learned experience, I now had access to the whole world for information. Hell, there are poser technicians out there that literally live through Identifix and simply do the highest probability confirmed fix on whatever issue they face. They've never broken out the lab scope, and probably don't even know how to set it up. But if Identifix says there's an 85% this is going to fix it.... guess what the tech tells the service advisor? Combustion engines are headed for the scrap Heap with the steam engine soon enough. I suppose I should be happy that I was there in its heyday.
They quote your pay to take a whole engine apart takes 3 hours. For starters, it really takes 7hrs then 2 rusted bolts snap taking 2 more hours to remove it yet they still pay you only for the 3 hrs that the manual says it should take....that is if the car is brand new and everything is perfectly clean and disassembles fine. Then you wonder why they don't want to work for you????
I left the industry because the pay is awful. I was a flat rate lube tech at GMC/Buick getting paid 30 minutes per oil change, and in that oil change you had to check the air filters (some cars like Buicks had a long process to extract the cabin filter), rotate the tires, change the oil, measure all the tire treads/brake pads, notify a main shop tech of any repairs needed so they can come inspect the car and send a write up, wash the car, install new wiper blades, etc. I didn’t list everything we had to do, but I ended up averaging 45-60 minutes on the oil changes because there was so much to do on the cars. In a 9 hour day I was only flagging 6ish hours. We were encouraged to sell air filters but only half the people wanted them, so it was a waste of time to disassemble the dash to check the cabin filters. One time i did a recall on a 2021 GMC Yukon for the third row seatbelt, and it only paid 0.2 hours (which translates to $3.8 done in 12 minutes or less to stay profitable in terms of time). I will never go back to flat-rate work. It’s just a way for companies (especially dealers) to screw over the employees and pay them peanuts
Retired now. ASE certified master tech along with additional certs (expired now) in smog testing and repair, also had my safety certs for brake (air brake also) and lamp. Few years ago before I retired (10 years) , nobody wanted to hire a 57 year old tech with over 100k in tools and pay a decent wage. Wanted to start me at 20.00. Some of those shops are still looking. I still keep in touch with a few shop owners, there labor rate at the moment is 180. per hour. Techs are getting about 30-35. Shop owners want good techs with the skills and tools, you're going to have to step up and pay it out in todays world. I stay busy at home taking on side jobs for half the price. Personally do not own a car from this century. My newest is a 91. Don't even get me going on being able to get parts that don't fail
I'm a red seal licensed mechanic. Been turning wrenches for nearly 50 years. With the abuse, flat rate systems, wages (the list goes on) - I'll stick to working on my own cars, maybe a neighbours. Beyond that? GFY.
Back in the 70's and 80's techs got paid a 50 percent wage per flat rate hour. The days of 50/50 are long gone due to large corporate owned dealer networks. Corporate and shareholder profits truly screwed the industry.
I started in 1969.Toyota tech started at 60% of labor charge.Then dealers got very greedy.First time I made $1000 on flatrate general manager threw my paycheck at me.Said he pays me to much F-ing money.
One thing I'd like to see more of, are establishments where OWNERS can work on their own cars. I've seen and been to one, back in 1992-93. It was staffed, and had techs on hand to assist. You rent out a bay and tools, maybe attend a safety briefing, and you do your own maintenance, e.g., oil/brakes/tires, whatever t/f. Paying upwards of a C-note for an oil change (synth.) on most cars is re-cock-ulous!
I'm actually working on that myself. It's a lot of legal leg work, and insurance is insane, but there is a shop already out here that does it. They charge 44.00/hr to rent a lift. They provide you with "some" tools. Nothing too crazy. A lot of DIY and mobile mechanics rent the place when they need a lift.
I gave it 15 years, miss having an alignment rack, tire machine and balancer but otherwise I'm good. Even stopped doing side work since the gov wants a piece of that too.
No. Other parts of a company's expenses are hard and flat. Insurance, utilities, parts, building rent. For the most part, they don't negotiate those things. But for humans, the expense is persuasive, flexible and set by the group(the market). Companies know humans are soft, flexible. They know people need money to live life. They do this in every sector and it's catching up to them. Imagine there are unskilled workers making $20-$30 per hour.
@@RaptureHead1993 I never heard a plumber saying he has has 100k worth of tools. Never heard an electrician or construction worker makeb that claim either. None of those trades need a several thousand dollar scan tool to do a job. No other trade requires the exorbitant amount of money even to show up as does a mechanic.
@@iamtheoffenderofall True, but some of us master toilet mechanics [plumbers], if self-employed. end up with around a hundred grand in it; truck, sewer augers, etc.
I come from the paper industry and we have the same issues. The companies dont appreciate the old guys who know the machines so they give up and leave. One was on the cusp of retirement and offered if they'd put him on days, he'd give them another year to interact with all four teams as they rotated though days. The manager declined and 35 years of experience walked out the door the next day. As an aging GenX guy, I've seen guys try to counsel the young guys and they either won't listen or go to HR about being "harrassed". HR comes down on us and we just leave. Good luck making paper. Good luck finding competent help.
Most if not all corporate-level businesses are owned or ran by folks who are somewhere on the psychopath/sociopath spectrum, with shareholders wanting "go-getters" who could give two shits about morals or ethics, they literally destroy everything they touch. It's easiest to picture someone attempting to operate a pointy shooty thing with the barrel on a 360-degree swivel, and being directed to shoot at one specific thing (More profits! Yay!), but end up only hitting the target once...and hit everything else instead as collateral damage. This is the one thing nobody's talking about, the third rail of mental illness: Sociopathy/psychopathy in the professional classes.
I know this comment is eight months old but, you're right. A lot of the experience is currently retiring and only a few come back for contract work after doing so. Saw this happen at every mill I did business with. Shuts got messy, reliability went to crap.
I was doing $17/hr flatrate on the lube rack at a Toyota dealership and then got thrown in the main shop to do special services with no raise or bonus. Figured things would turn around, but the work just kept piling on since we didn’t have an express shop to handle the oil changes, so I left. It was also pretty shocking to learn that I had to buy my own tools.
It also didn't help that a bunch of master techs were leaving because the people from the express shop that moved into the master shop were stealing work from them.
Started in a Jaguar dealership in 1987 not long after 50/50 split of shop rate. Watch it decline gradually over the next 25 years. The dealer principals and manufacturers always talked a big game about taking care of techs. Unfortunately they are like politicians talk a big game when they want something but unfortunately they almost never deliver. It’s all about sales a yet service carries most dealerships. Being a mechanic was a great trade in the 70s thru the 90s then it started declining rapidly. Everyone wants a mechanic no one wants to pay or listen to them. So fix it yourself is what I say. Or do like the manufacturer wants ( when it breaks throw it away and by a new one. ). Sorry to be negative but I know a lot of mechanics that feel the same way.
Auto repair has become a low profit margin business. I blame excessive complexity of modern cars. Diagnosis is complicated and costly, a multitude of complex mechanical and electric systems exist, EFI, VVT, DI, complex emissions systems with multiple catalysts, a whole array of intricate electronic sensory monitoring. Jobs become rushed and of poor quality. It is all too much and cuts deeply into shop owners profits from repairs. I think if hydrogen were tamed and gained popularity engines could become simple again and repairs more profitable.
I can tell you why I stopped turning wrenches full time. I am a diesel mechanic, I got my degree, plus I was a 91B for the U.S. Army(active duty). I was only paid $13.50 starting out in 2016. I didn't even come close to being able to live on my own. I was 25-26 years old, living with my parents. Since I am a diesel mechanic/tech, I was forced to buy really expensive tools to be able to work on the tractors and combine. Just for refenerce, I worked for a John Deere dealership. Well, one day, my old boss called me and asked if I still had my cdl, which, of course, I still did. He told me what he was going to pay me to drive a semi again, and it was almost double what my yearly salary was turning wrenches. So I basically spent 2 years(5 semsters) to become a truck driver, which I still do today. Sh@tty pay, price of tools, and flat rate is killing the industry. I make damn good money just to slam gears all day.
@scottywhittaker287 If you're OTR, then you live in your truck and you arent getting paid to be away from home. If you're oilfield, you're working twice as many hours. Maybe you found a nice niche gig like hazardous tanker.
@@GuldeScott Yeah, I was gonna drive for PAM transport, but the more I looked into it, the worse that company seemed. It payed like 25 cents a mile for a year under contract, and the training was in Mobile, Alabama which is like 10 hours from my house.
i was in the body refinishing side of things for 30 years , they kept finding ways to cut our pay over the years , until i found out by taking to the detail car washers that just started a month ago were making more than me. i packed up and never went back 😫
yeah....i had 10 years experience and found out that a guy i was training who knew NOTHING was hired in at 50¢ /hr less than i was making....this guy was a cluster fluck. I told my boss to make a choice. He did, I left. He was out of business about 8 months later. Did not choose well.
@seanfox4551 You are f-ing kidding right? No discount to body men being skilled and needing skill, but to say mechanics (really good ones) don't have or need skill on same level? You don't know the requirements of the profession or you have a big bag of some really good stuff and you just did about 8 bong hits before commenting on it
My mechanic ( a fellow marine) recently passed away from leukemia, and it’s not been easy to find a new one. When I met him he was rebuilding a transmission. Good luck finding someone that can work on one of those these days.
Just UA-cam it. I’m not a mechanic but have been able to fix all my cars following UA-cam videos. In the middle of pulling my trans for a new clutch as we speak. 0 training, I am a computer programmer. It’s as simple as following the tutorial, it’s not rocket science by any means.
@@zfunk9Most modern day techs don't even know where to begin on a transmission because they don't touch them at the dealerships, sans a drain and fill, or flush. Some dealers don't even touch the filter. When the units manifest problems, they replace the entire units for dumb stuff like sensors and solenoid failures. That's the state of the current industry. The guys putting out the content that helped you fix your transmission, have decades of experience under their belts. They didn't learn that in an afternoon.
@@zfunk9 Try pulling apart an automatic transmission, something you'll find in 99% of vehicles these days or CVTs. I mean actually tearing it all the way down as if you were repairing it not just removing it. I guarantee you that you won't get very far. Transmissions aren't something you can learn how to fix just by looking it up on UA-cam. The people that work on them (the few that still remain) have years if not decades of experience doing so.
A welder needs a welding helmet and a good attitude and gets $50 an hour. A mechanic needs $30K in tools in Australia to get $28 an hour. It does not make financial sense to be a mechanic.
A rig welder will have that or more in truck and equipment easy, but those guys pull MUCH more than singlehand welders let alone mechanics (and can do all the side work they like when they're off the road, my instructor shortened and lengthened truck frames when at home on his ranch.
Depends on what kind of welding, MIG , and stick, I often seen pay about $22-25 an hour. To get to $50 usually you are also a fabricator too and can weld some tricky metals.
The industry has managed to run off all the competent techs. You can't make living on a job that pays half the time it takes to complete. It used to be that you ate it on certain jobs but made it up on others. I left six years ago, and it was hard enough then just to break even. The system that was designed to make a tech efficient and to be motivated, no longer worked. The only part I miss about my old job is the satisfaction I got from fixing a problem. That's something only a good tech could feel. I was fortunate to work with a sharp group of guys, we took pride in our work. Unfortunately, we had to move on. For those that have moved on to something better, I'm happy for you. For those who are still working under worsening conditions, I feel for you. I don’t have any regrets, I worked with some good people and made some good memories.
When I was 21, never got bumped up from a tire tech. So I ended up going towards industrial maintenance at a bakery. I'm 26 now, getting paid 2.5x more than I was 5 years ago with CAD drafting, electrical troubleshooting, and much more specific machine knowledge (fillers, seamers, blow moulding, etc.)
I agree 100%. I was running my Auto repair business that I had operated for 45 years in 2020 when Covid hit. Two of my top people decided to retire. I thought about trying to find replacements but quickly realized that that was not going to be possible. I retired and closed my shop. No regrets. Retirement is very nice.
Yes Ive had a few Honda Dealer techs tell me Honda Master Cert no longer requires ASEs so Honda dealers dont require them. Imagine that. Honda USA no longer requires a nationally recognized certification for automotive technicians.
I'll be starting an automotive tech program in January for a year. I've seen a lot of people say that it is bad or something else. To be honest, no matter what anyone tries to tell me I'm going to be one. It took me years to finally figure out what I want to do, and I'm already almost 24. Thank you for the helpful information anyways!
Nobody wants to work for a wage that isn't survivable unless you are living in a 2+ income household and/or shacking up with all sorts of roommates. But, that is the unfolding American social & economic dystopia that is our future.
Bankruptcy of American style capitalism, also bankruptcy of US. Representative democracy. Popular adoption of anti-labor union policies helped immensely. Edit: "helped" ruin the market
I'm not in a top earner state by any means and all the people I know who do trades or went to be a mechanic make 32+ an hour plus bennies. Shouldn't be hard to pay your guys when shops want 100/hr to work on a car or more.
Planning on leaving the trade myself, everyone else pays more for less work/stress. The guy’s washing cars make more money than the guys fixing the cars (cuz of the flats rate system). How does that make sense?
I don't want to hear any complaints from company owners. I went to over 100 interviews over a year and a half for any tech/mechanic positions at every kind of shop, dealership, independent small shops, used car dealerships, junk yards, fleet operations. You name it I applied for it. At every single one I was told to leave the second I mentioned I have a felony conviction from over 13 years ago. I hope all these business go out of business. I made one mistake 13+ years ago and still can't get a job and yet they still complain they can't find workers. I"M RIGHT HERE!!!
They can’t because of HR and/or insurance. You’re going to have to just work by yourself and be a contractor. Consider that a blessing. You’re working on only the equipment you like and 1 hour of labor is like working an entire day in a sweat shop.
Find out if you can have the conviction expunged (erased from your record). Each State and the Federal court systems have different laws and procedures; some crimes can be expunged or sealed (sealing requires a court order to view the record, but is not as good as expungement).
Life in the colonies (!)...where penal system exists not to rehabilitate problematic colonists but to ruin them and make room for new arrivals. My sincere apologies.
Im sure theres many factors at play here , yes people make mistakes that follow for life , thats your burden to carry. Some simply cannot hire somebody like that. Some will not waiver from personal rules and regs. Its a business , they have their name and reputation to account for and to uphold and build upon at the end of the day. They cannot put the business in jeapody. If this is what you want to do , you have to sell yoursef. Keep trying and a door will open eventualy.
I was a tech for 30 years, ASE Master, certified in all the Japanese models and including Vw, Porsche and Audi. I got out because the dealers went to “Team Concept” and I started losing about $500-600 per month supporting supposed “Technicians” that didn’t know a wrench from a screwdriver. The dealerships wanted ME to train them. Finally had enough and left the trade and took a government job at better wages AND benefits. New guys didn’t want to “Learn” the trade, just wanted do the gravy jobs and leave the tough ones to the “old guys”.
Comes down to people not wanting to pay what it takes to fix their car. Get people all the time that would rather pay 600 for tint but not new tires. I get tired of dealing with broke people with big dreams
This was my experience. People will only pay to fix their radio, AC, and buy new rims. I once put new rims on a Chevy Suburban with no brake pad surface left, straight metal to metal tearing up the rotor
Brought my RAV4 to the Toyota dealer for an oil change. Two days later, I popped the hood and found that the technician had left the oil filler cap off the valve cover, jammed into a little nook in the engine compartment. There was oil spray everywhere from the open oil filler hole. I've had worse experiences. Oil drain plugs not tightened and falling off. Oil filters not tightened and unscrewing. If you have your car professionally serviced, keep an eye out for obvious faults like these.
Wow thats a big deal....but if you report him, he would likely loose his job.....I just had Toyota do my oil change now at about $100...not blaming anyone, because prices for everything is much higher now(except wages).......but I decided price is too high for me, so went out and bought 2 cheap vehicle ramps....got the Valvomax brand (of many types)...quick oil change oil drain plug(w/hose..so changes can be done quickly and w/almost no mess!).....and will do my own oil changes from now on...will save me 50%. I never thought I would look forward to having fun changing and controlling the quality of my own oil changes...but I do now ha (Im retired) and its actually feels empowering to learn how to do my own tiny repairs etc when possible.
@@dm285 The cost of my last service has made me seriously consider doing the same as you, to do my own oil changes/ minor services from now on. At least maybe every other oil change. It's crazy how expensive it is nowadays to maintain your car at the dealer.
Government caused inflation through money printing, and some employers are only now feeling the effects. I don't blame them for complaining, but the problem is with the government. Being a mechanic is very hard, stressful, and highly skilled. They can get better jobs elsewhere.
When dealerships were infiltrated by MBAs they went from paying technicians commission to paying them flat rate. This allowed them to lock technician pay at one level, while the dealer operators were free to raise rates to whatever the market will bear. Technician pay has fallen from 50% of the labor line to about 25%. GM pay has risen from $125k a year to $350k - $550k. This, along with warranties that go to 100,000 miles, has driven the best people out of the profession.
The comment section here is VERY correct. The auto mechanics industry has cultivated this type of employee, you shouldn't be surprised. Even in your video you said that at your old shop the car washers were next in line to be techs. That's poor business management at it's finest. If you want good techs who know the job and show up tools in hand, you need to pay for them. As you said, the job isn't worth it for the little pay you get, and the responsibility and training you need. Btw I do see that you get that from the fact you point it out, but I'm just commenting on my experience. In 2010 I attended tech school for auto mechanics as an adult student. A smaller tech school that was in my area, at the time in the Midwest. I graduated top of my class, with honors and awards for my work, and completed a two year course in one year, while also earning a letter of recommendation from the schools head administrator. When applying for jobs after graduation I was looking for ENTRY LEVEL only positions, to build experience and work my way up. Meanwhile earning the time and experience needed to take ASE cert. exams. And no, the schools near me did not have the advancement ASE programs to cert while in school, I asked many times. I was applying for beginner level jobs, that were listed as $10 hr jobs, which I could have made work for a couple of years after the schooling, and only one of the 12 shops I applied to even contacted me back. And I interviewed at that shop, during which time they told me because I had no experience at a shop, even as an OIL CHANGE TECH, they couldn't pay me more then $8 an hour! So I interviewed for a $10 position and they offered me $8? For an ENTRY LEVEL position. I walked right out the door and started shortly after as a counter person and warehouse guy at a small electricians shop... making $10.50 and hour, with paid vacation and holidays. And within the second year I was at $12 an hour. Auto shops do not take their own businesses seriously, sorry to say. That is what has led to this. They need to PAY MORE. that's all. Shops charge $100-$150 per hour but pay techs near nothing. Often $20 per hour or less. Well when your customers get mad at bringing things back repeatedly, and your shop gets bad rep, it's deserved. They have nobody to blame but themselves. Thanks for the vid though was a good behind the scenes look. I will thumbs up
This is the same old story. I worked as a teen in my dad’s garage in the 70’s, overhauling engines, replacing tranny’s, brakes, doing it all. We could never find reliable help and were forced to close after working day and night for years for very little profit.
@@bluelightguy1 Tools, supplies, fuel, loans, diagnostic equipment, parts. Keep in mind that interest rates were around 12 to 18% at the time, gas tripled in price in 2 decades, inflation was high and wages were low. Servicing any debt was difficult. People tend not to pay a mechanic and the car they leave behind isn’t worth much.
I left retail service for Govt/Fleet with the USPS. Basically taking care of 40 year old rebodied Chevy S-10's. But since I'm fresh from the outside, I have a better understanding of newer vehicles so when the Metris fleet has issues, it comes to me. I'm also the only tech in the shop with EV safety certification from my time with HPD during the late development cycle for the 2.4 IMSA and Indy engines, so when the EV fleet rolls out, I have a feeling it'll make its way to me as well. But I gotta say, it's nice. Tools are provided (not the best stuff, but decent; lots of Proto and Gear wrench). No more flat rate stress. Flag your 8 and be done for the day essentially. Lower pay, but very good benefits and I'm in it for the retirement; something the dealerships can't offer me.
My father is a very good mechanic with all the tools you need. So whenever i have to work on my car he helps and provides the tools needed. There is no way in hell I would ever become a mechanic for anything less than $200/H plus tools, benefits and everything else. For reference I work as a sheet metal apprentice for $28/H, I've installed rooftop units in January in the snow. I'd still prefer to do that than change a power steering pump on a modern car or a beat up shit box. And remember every single problem in a car was designed by someone in an office who could have made it way better.
Yup, sitting at work for 42 hours a week to only flag 27 hours and be screamed at by advisors. Fuck that. I told the dumb advisor yesterday, I can roll my box out just as fast as I rolled it in, grabbed my shit and started walking and they watched them freak out.
You forgot to mention industry is generally more fun and interesting, and that when you are the only person who can keep their ancient cobbled-together junk they refuse to upgrade it can make you the last guy they lay off. I enjoyed it.
Speaking from an ex master tech point of view... There's no techs because the pay is generally SHIT. You have to buy thousands of £ of tools to do the job. And a lot of customers are rude and expect every job to take 5 minutes.. and then complain about nothing to try and get the job for free.. after 25 years I was done
us good techs got tired of making all the money for someone else. I will never work for someone else again. now I make a hundred dollar an hour for me. and I work half as hard as before
You forgot about the tool commitment. That brings down your take home pay a lot, at least for the first decade. Great hobby, terrible way to make a living.
Owning a independant shop now, I purposely reduce the scope of cars we work on as the tool commitment would be way to expensive. I already have $1000 tools that I only need to use once every couple yaers
I’m about to wrap up my 2nd year as a tech working on industrial equipment. I have spent every last dollar to get the best tools I want. Now that I have a full box and a couple years under my belt, I have opportunities to advance. My toolbox is worth more than my degree.
Definantly one of the biggest reasons why I didn't stay in that Career was the pay as you mentioned. Also during my time period they were requiring multiple ASE Certifications as well. Its crazy that Techs standard is lowered so much now. The reason i didn't stay in that industry wasn't just the pay, it was also how I was treated. I worked multiple dealerships back in 2006-2010. Every one of them ended up laying me off like I wasn't a valuable asset to the dealer. Which if you remember that time period there was a some economy issues during that time period. Found odd jobs until I ended up working at a Locamotive Repair Business for about 7 years, then eventy got a good contracting position for support management on websites. Been with that for the last 5 years, definitely is helping support my family. I still work on my own vehicles especially my 86. Enjoy your content, thanks for sharing!
Just quit a shop not long ago. 11 hour days, no lunch breaks, and was expected to do a ton of “complimentary” and warranty work. I’m too old to put up with that crap for such low wages. 6 techs at that job left within 5 months.
Lot of good mechanics have started their own specialized business like LS swaps, JZ swap, etc. Social media has made it easy to get your name out there.
Was a ford tech in 1999. The year flat rate was implemented. 5 years in i left. Toyota. Kia. Volkswagen.dodge. i went thru all the dealerships. Each one was more criminal than the rest. Look up jones west ford in Reno,Nv they had a drug ring selling percosets and vikodine. They got busted. I was let go for smoking weed. Lol. Meanwhile a drug ring was transpiring behind the scenes.
I have an Associates degree in Automotive Service Technology, used to work at a Honda Dealership (3years) then Ford (1year) -owned by same people. Quit because of pay and shop conditions, lack of supplies like hand soap, red shop towels. Lack of equipment like jack stands and jacks, special tools. Broken tire machine, no wheel weights, unsafe lifts. Idiot service advisors, poor management, and no parking for vehicles. I just quit, resignation letter said effective immediately, picked up my tool box and was out of there. Now they got these young high school kids working. I was reliable, always on time, perfect attendance awards every year, non smoker, non drinker. I dont want to be a technician anymore, now i'm self learning how to do automotive collision repair, painter.
I have been an certificated aircraft mechanic for 35 years , I work on everything I own and the only shop I have taken my cars to is a smog shop. I wouldn’t go back to wrenching on anything for anything less than 747 Captain money. Want mechanics? All it takes is money.
Aviation is glorious (retired fighter fixer here). I like most of my bros do all my own work (and took care to live where there are no inspections so I don't lose days every year driving/riding my collection to get smogged).
There is never a shortage of employees there is only ever a shortage of employers willing to pay a decent wage. You pay a decent wage you get all the quality technicians you need.
21.1 million people in the U.S. with a BA or higher in science and engineering that don't want to fix plastic crap under warranty for free either.They only have a shortage of idiots that work for free and cheap.
@@joebrenner4428 You definitely don’t need a BA in Science or Engineering to fix almost anything. Design it yes, modify it probably, but fix it almost never.
@@matthewhuszarik4173 I didn't say that you need a degree but why do you idiots think that somebody with a degree in auto or electronics engineering couldn't fix cars if they wanted to?THERE ARE NO FUCKING SHORTAGES OF PEOPLE CAPABLE OF DOING AUTO REPAIR IF THEY CHOOSE ONLY A SHORTAGE OF GOD DAMNED IDIOTS WILLING TO DO IT FREE AND CHEAP!
@@matthewhuszarik4173 Every fucking GM,Ford and Chrysler dealer in Michigan is looking for dummies to do free warranty work and recalls.Thousands of laid off UAW workers and engineers but still nobody to fix plastic shit under warranty for free????"General Motors is laying off 1,314 workers at two plants in Michigan, according to two notices filed with the Department of Labor "
I work in the Auto Body industry started back in 2008 and there is a huge shift in what's going on now we do have good people but like you said the company will literally pay someone right off the streets with no prior experience and will also provide all they're tools to do the they're job. Where when I got into the industry back in 2008 you were expected to have your own tools do work correctly no drugs no drinking and do good work or you were fired now if you just show up to work your given a Gold medal for participating and when your caught screwing up its a slap on the wrist and no big deal. I completely feel ya on this one.
A young kid with blue hair and a ring through his nose can make more money starting at Amazon than what most shops want to pay someone with 3 - 5 years experience.
If youre concerned about someones appearance over their quality of work and ethic youre smol and they probably dont want to work for you anyway just based on that.
@@RobynTapps Maybe consider first impressions are how people will initially judge you, and don't be stupid about it? hiring blue hair nose ring, and letting them roam a shop from the fish bowl window where customers can see them is going to LOSE them business cause of looks, not gain it.
@@exiteternium really depends on the industry i guess... its still shallow that person could potentially do a way better job than Joe Blow who you hired but you're scared because of your image and feel the need to conform to social norms.
@@RobynTapps scared? Nah, i like my bottom line over their looks, and my experiences with these people? they break more shit then they fix, every single one they hired i had to work with when i turned wrenches i had to do the clean up for, IE fix their fuckups, my experiences say blue hair likely is a know it all who knows nothing, is full of ego, and sucks at what they do, and will probably quit in a month or 2. only exceptions where the guys who mostly where normal but have cosmetology wives who needed a canvas to experiment on..
I would never work at a dealership; I always worked as an independent mechanic and did quite well charging half the flat rate that the dealerships did in labor and sold my parts at Jobber rate because I got them at wholesale. I am retired now, but still do diagnostics and teach my friends how to fix their own cars and boats.
At least you can bring up these discussions here, I remember at 18, me complaining at work just like you did in the first minute, and a manager took me into her office to say my negativity was bringing everybody down, which is weird because they agreed with me.obviously afraid of people standing up for themselves.
Lol. I'm about to quit manual/cnc machining because I only make 21/hr. Im really good at it too and completed a formal apprenticeship through work and college. I started out as the stereotypical apprentice that gets all the tedious shit jobs that everybody else with 10+ years of experience refuses to do. I kept up with it so well for 3.5 years and have a really competent tool collection. I'm better than everyone else on a milling machine. I get the nicest surface finishes and remove metal the fastest. I wanted to get into tool & die, aerospace, robotics, or even better; design cnc machines to build here in America. What do I have to show for after those 3.5 years? Asthma, a herniated lumbar disc, corporations that refuse to hire me because I'm a white guy, and a bank account that won't even get me a new car. Of course most people have no clue what a machinist is either when talking about the trades, so there is no social status or appreciation for the job either. I'm just going to take my tools home and get some desk job working for the government. None of the trades are worth it. I live worse than a medieval peasant despite making parts for shipyards, docks, construction engineering firms, steel mills, and water treatment plants. I'll come back to the trades when my pay gets tripled. I'm not interested in wearing the steel toe boots, faceshield, respirator, gloves, and hearing protection anymore. The pay is shit and I'll still get hurt/poisoned anyway despite wearing all my PPE because thats how cumulative exposure works, especially if you work more hours.
At Mercedes we were taking porters (people who just move cars around the lot) and making them express techs because no one wants to do it. I don’t blame them, I’m over it 14 years of this crap and I’m just beat.
I just got a p0327 on my Toyota. I don’t mind fixing stuff; it happens. What angers me is that the manufacturer thought it would be cool to disable 4wd, traction control, cruise control and top gear all for a knock sensor code. This is unacceptable. And if I took it to a dealer they’d charge $175 an hour and the technician would get $24. Outrageous.
be thankful you do not own a Porsche, newer Jeep etc. . Boobytrapping the operating system to disable the entire vehicle over a minor code is a new level of evil
Got rid of my newer truck, now all the cars I own are from 85, 89, and 02. Used said money to start building a garage with lift and machine shop. Soon ill be able to make any part I need and work on anything easily. I already got friends who want to rent the lift out from me to work on their stuff. If anything besides a hobby I see this whole setup as a fall back in case the economy goes bad and I lose my job. It honestly was less than I thought to build the whole place, and some of yall may wanna look into it and go independent.
@@lukemaney645 That's the modern way of doing things, adding material. Other was is taking away material, either with a CNC machine (too expensive) or getting lathes and other classical machinist's tools and doing it by hand for one-offs. Greater quality and precision if you know what you're doing.
@@lukemaney645 for cosmetic and low wear bits yeah, I have a 3d printer, but anything with high mechanical wear/stress or in a high heat environment is gonna need to be metal. You can do metal casting off 3d prints but you wont get anything near engine tolerance from that. I actually 3d printed part of a fuel pump bracket for the my 300zx since the original was gone, and it turns out pla does fine in gas.
@@LGTheOneFreeMan If you hunt around you can get some smokin deals on a used older CNC machine too, it helps to be knowledgeable about electronics if you go that route though
Same here but never got nor wanted a newer truck. I always wanted a serious home shop so I built one including welders, lathe, mill and more to come. If I weren't happily retired I could wrench for pay but I would ONLY work for used car dealers not the public.
Raise your shop rate, make a more aggressive parts matrix, increase your shop supply fees, and pay the employees a generous living wage. With raise built into the CPI calculator. 100k tech salary is right around the corner with my shop.
I got out in 2020. No regrets. Keep it a hobby. There's guys that aren't even mechanics that have 2 post lifts in their garage because they do something else that actually makes good money.
rite. if your garage is 11 foot tall minimum you can order a cheap lift for $2k, have your buddies help ya put it up for some beer and burgers. That is about shop price for one mid level repair. And you have a lift so your popularity goes up a few points 😂
So many places don't diagnose problems anymore, they just fire the parts cannon over and over and over, hoping that if they throw enough new parts at a problem, eventually they will win the lottery, and solve the problem without even having to figure out what it is. Fortunately, I have a good mechanic, and an honest shop. I 100% agree with your video.
This is too bad. I've always had respect and admiration for good technicians/mechanics. I've always enjoyed working on my own cars and do as much on them as I'm able to. I decided a long time ago that since I enjoyed working on cars as a hobby I'd hate it as a job. It wouldn't be fun anymore. I guess that was a good call.
Whats funny is that I started doing all of my own work, and it's taught me that aside from very specialized pieces of equipment (mostly having to do with alignments, all the TPMS bits or "Driver-Assist" sensors) it's not hard. Yes, it can be physically demanding, and certain parts of it can be annoying to do without specialized tools . . . but the vast majority of it is literally diagnosing issues and then just replacing a part. Adding a good Bi-Directional scan tool will get you 99% of the way there. Modern cars with their dumb computer-controlled-everything's are where this starts getting muddled, but people are finding ways around that outside of specialized tools, too.
I was a mechanic for only three years. Destroyed my body, I regret deciding to take this path and now I’m left with a skill I hate to use. I don’t even change my own oil anymore
In a pinch, like if your life depended on it, you could probably keep your vehicle running. You didn't waste your time learning those skills. Don't regret it, learn from it and move on. We all need to get creative in how we make a living. The sky is the limit. Not to mention that every business in this country is looking for responsible people. If you are one, you will never lack for good work. Good luck to you and yours. I've turned wrenches on nearly every kind of vehicle be it land, water or air. This was before they threw computers on everything, but I can still disassemble, diagnose and reassemble.
Move into a different trade brother, after a few years you'll get the urge again, especially if you can get a second hobby car. See if you can become a heavy equipment mechanic or operator. Especially if you can find a spot in a union shop. I personally can't say enough about working in a union, it's the only way to go these days. You'll get better wages, a good ass pension (mine is $7/hr on top of my regular wage just for my pension), better hours (my last non-union job had me working 12 hour days, minimum, no OT pay until 55hr/week. My union job has me working 8-hr days, any shift that goes over 8 hours immediately goes into OT pay for the rest of the shift.) plus your managers can't treat you like shit, or your steward will tear them a new one!
I was going to say the same lmao.... I am already looking for ways to bypass computers or at least dumb them down just to get the new models motors to run with an older computer say earlier 2000's ... I have a feeling a lot of resistors will be involved
One of my hobbies is auto diagnostics/repair. Do it for my friends and family, and some of their friends. Hate to boast, but I'm extremely good at it. There's no way you could get me to work for a shop at the going rate though. Wouldn't even be able to pay my modest mortgage. That could be a huge part of the problem.
Y’all need to START at 30-40/hr Six figs within 1-2 years. With all these electronics and BS you gotta watch out for; that level of expertise needs to be recognized. I will pay an extra $15-$20/hr in labor if it means you’re getting paid well and we can get our cars fixed quicker.
Back in HS in the 1970s-1980s there were auto shop programs in most schools. One of the junior colleges near me had a very extensive auto programs (regular cars, heavy vehicles, rebuilding (engine & trans) diesel tech, body & paint) so you could go through that and get a really good background in it. None of that is around anymore; the HSs have dropped auto and most 'shop' programs, the junior college still has a basic auto tech program but nothing as extensive as before, and they completely dropped the body & paint program.
That's unfortunate for your area. But take note that not all areas operate the same, as all of my local Highschools still offer automotive programs (mechanical and body) and the community college has a pretty decent certificate program as well as motorsports tracks and different body work specialty programs. The community college also has two locations for this program in my area. This is in addition to the two technical schools that offer a variety of trade training and certification to include automotive in addition to CNC, CAD work, HVAC repair and maintenance, etc. It is still very possible to get training in a trade in HS and college depending on where you live.
You forgot constantly buying new tools because some JA engineer designed some new thing that needs a $400 tool to take it apart and that tool is going to be obsolete in 2 years because the manufacturer decided the the engineer's idea was stupid and cost too much to manufacture.
When I came out the Marine Corps there were a lot of companies wanting to hire me. I had six years of being a diesel mechanic. Thank God I took my troubleshooting skills in a different direction!
This is the same way they made the “DRIVER CDL SHORTAGE “ there is no driver shortage! They just flooded the field with thousands of young inexperienced drivers that they (Big corp) can use now for CHEAP wages, unlike a salty experienced driver. It’s always has been about pay not about people leaving the field.
Its hard work and inflation made it so the pay isn’t even enough to support yourself. You will make more money driving a forklift where I live than you will as a mechanic. That’s true not an exaggeration in the slightest.
With today's inflation you have to be working a top of the line job making 50+ an hour just to be able to survive on your own let alone live remotely comfortably. Owning a house? Forget it. Houses that were 200k are now well over 500k. If you're lucky. Cars? 50-100k. We're having the life choked out of us every single day and too many people are oblivious to it.
When you look at the hourly shop rates at dealerships and then see what the mechanics in the shop are earning it's no wonder guys don't want to do the job anymore. They're expected to do the heavy lifting while the dealership rakes in the cash.
Thank you for posting, I work at the toyota dealership. We have 2 lub tech with no driver license. Lub tec gets pay more on hourly and bonus when touch each vehicles.
Canadians tech here, shops are now charging anywhere for 160-200$/hr and paying techs less then 30$/hr. Shop price went up but wages didn’t. Most places don’t pay overtime, don’t have benefits and don’t provide tools, boxes or shop use for personal vehicles. You can now get a secretary job answer phone calls and make better money than a certified technician.
Where the hell can you find a secretary who will answer the phone? All businesses in America have an answering machine, and don't bother to call customers back! They are too dumb to realize that that phone is the backbone of their business.
@@oldandintheway9805 “secretary” is a loose term. There are office admin jobs that are basically glorified personal secretaries. These positions pays 50- 70k a year up here. But they don’t have to buy tools or be exposed to hazardous chemicals and unsafe working conditions. For example I’ve never met a single admin that lost their finger or eye on the job, but I can personally name a few technicians with work place injuries. Not to mention ever dollar invested into tools doesn’t actually make you more money, it makes it easier and quicker to get the job done, meaning you boss actually makes more money. Most techs I know are in debt to their tool box, and have 20-30k in tools. If they have done a different job and invested that money instead they wouldn’t be in debt and that “investment” would be working for them.not to mention tools don’t hold their value and every retiree mechanic I’ve met has too many tools and basically has to give it away or sell small things when they can.
It's not just a problem finding auto mechanics. Nurses and other healthcare professionals are also leaving the jobs. Overall pay for talented healthcare professionals is going down because trained nurses, respiratory therapists and other specialists are being replaced with "Medical Assistants (MAs). MAs are the people that do your sign-in paperwork and sometimes take your blood pressure when you arrive at the hospital. Like the car washers that you mentioned, the MAs are important, but are not paid well and required little training. Insurance companies run the show at all hospitals, and the insurance companies force the hospitals to cut staff so that more money can be sent to the insurance companies. The doctors are fed up with the system as well, because they can no longer provide the patient care that they need to provide. In many ways, the same can be said for the difficulty in finding teachers. Student to teacher ratios are forever increasing to offset the lack of funding required by ever-increasing state and federal mandates. Also, the lack of parent involvement in teaching and raising children makes teaching more and more undesirable.
Best thing you can do is work on mechanic maintenance for a manufacturing place. Great money, benefits, retirement funding, weekends off, home early, less stress and overtime is available if you want it.
When i was working at a Honda dealership, there was this new guy from UTI with his fancy jacket. Dude was an idiot, dumb as a rock. He left a oily rag near the exhaust manifold and EGR pipe....it caught fire when customer drove home. He was fired.
I was an auto mechanic for years. ASE certified Master Technician. I enjoyed the work but it was stressful a lot of the time. During Covid we were laid off and I found a job at a Aerospace company making twice the money, no stress, they provide all the tools and in a brand new heated and air conditioned building. Why the hell would I ever want to be an automotive technician again ???
well not everybody can go from auto to aero.
@@brock8281 - You miss the point. Most auto technicians have skills that will transfer to many other industries. Those new jobs pay more and come with vastly better working conditions. The hardest part is overcoming your own limits you place upon yourself.
@brock8281 YES, they can. Where I am, they prefer people with little to no experience in a mechanical field so they can train them to do the work how it should be done and not how the technician THINKS it should be done.
@@C7ZaolThere's more than 1 way to skin a cat cause some douch kid comes up with a book and says this is how it's done and not listen to the old guys that have actually done it its tough to hear that shit or want to help any of the new guys let em learn the hard and costly way who cares
@chiplangowski3298 Absolutely! I went from service tech to mechanic, then to smog tech. Got tired of the industry and people associated with it, moved to a different state and got a job working of heavy equipment, what a difference! Never thought I'd be thus happy working on stuff again!
There is no shortage of skilled mechanics. There is however a dire shortage of skilled mechanics willing to work for very low wages.
good answer, most of us work in our garage now instead of for other people making pennies. cancel the tool truck bill and do something else that is more rewarding.
Yeah especially if you are flat rate and have to deal with warranty work that pays very little, vs. Customer Pay.
100% pay a tech $60 an hr you will find techs.
@@wesleymccomb5760 I would go back to the industry for that.
Can we get this on a coffee mug please!
Workshops in Australia charge out at $150/h. The worker earns $30/h. Shop charges went up, workers wages didnt, yet companies cry theres no decent workers.......
Your minimum wage is $24 an hour. Houses in australia cost more than 1 million dollars. your funny money isn't comparable to USD when you can't buy a house.
@@sygos excuse me, they're called dollarydoos
@@sygos SOME houses costs over 1 million dollars ;) There are plenty of houses for under 300k, even lower if you move rural. Side note, you do realise how many TRILLION of those USD your country is in debt yeah? I'll take my "funny money" every day of the week
@@tellucasThe shop has all the overhead to pay for. The high level mechanics should get about 1/3 the shop rate. And, people think they’re a top level mechanic after a couple of years.
@@sygos You live in Kentucky or something? The Euro dealers near me in New England are at $190 USD / HR.
$50,000 worth of training $50,000 worth of tools 30 bucks an hour That's a hard sell
when no skill jobs pay $20/hour, it is yes. the blue collar jobs are all suffering right now as low end and high end wages rise but middle class jobs do not pay any better than they did. i was making $35hr before covid, but in the last 3 years that is no longer considered a decent wage, now it would be $60hour, which almost no one pays.
But you're forgetting about the perks like working 65hrs a week.
@@e303gt yeah, and since its 100% commission based pay there is no such thing as overtime pay, and lots of begging to work more instead of less.
@@LygerTheCLawi’d do anything for 35 an hour
Nobody forces you to buy off the tool trucks
My son is a tech. He was getting paid $28/hr after 10 years while the stealership was charging the customers $135. He quit and opened up his own shop. Now he charges $100/hr for actual hours, not the "book rate" plus the margin on parts the dealership was getting. He's so busy he has to turn work away. I basically have done all my own work on my cars for my entire life even though I work in management in a fortune 10 company. Over the years the money I've saved doing it my self has more than paid for all my tools. Now retired, I restore and restomod old cars.
100, People want to work for a fair wage and not watch the customer get charged 4-7X per hour/book time when "management" pushes for the tech to complete as fast as possible. A person doesn't want to feel taken advantage of and I can't blame them.
Then starting your own business seems to be the way to make more. I don't see why everyone is complaining then, start your own shop, make $100K. Stop complaining that the shop you work for is ripping you off, and take your own risk to open a shop. Then you can hire all those qualified guys that need to be paid more, and you can pay them $50 to $100/hr.
I can relate my friend there's nothing like hard work attaining skills through hard work and determination. I refuse to hand someone any of my hard-earned money for something I can do myself and if I can't I will teach myself through trial and error
How much of that $100/hr goes in renting/buying/maintaining the shop, buying ramps & other capital equipment, liability & property insurance, property taxes, warranty work on failed previous repairs, tax accountants & legal fees, utility bills, any advertising costs, etc.?
@@Benzknees He bought a house that was zoned for small commercial an already had a 60x25X20 metal building shop on the property. The neighbors have a similar property and building, and run a printing business out of theirs. He bought a used 2 post lift from the sales rep that installed the lifts at the dealership he worked at for $2K. It was bought back by the installer from a dealership that went out of business. He already owned his own snap-on tools since no dealer supplies those anyway. The shop already had an air compressor and lines from the previous owner. The business license was nothing, and hazard fees for oil/battery are paid for by the customer. He doesn't do tires except to rotate them. He has a salvage company that comes by every 3 months to collect all the old rotors, struts, and other metal for free. He gets to write off the area of his shop, a prorated portion of his property taxes, mortgage, utilities, and insurance. He gets health insurance through his wife's employer. He runs Xero accounting software ($25/mo) and sends it all to the guy that does his household taxes, $250 for the year to do the quarterly/annual tax return. Advertising is all word of mouth and he turns people away. The only reason there are "failed" repairs are because of his clients that want cheap autozone parts instead of factory parts. They sign a waiver that if it goes bad, the part if covered by autozone's warranty, but they must repay the labor. He's making a killing. Not hard to do, just takes motivation.
I walked away from the industry after 12 years wrenching on Mercedes Benz, Maserati and Ferrari. There is no respect or appreciation for what we know or how much we work.
Can’t find anyone reliable? They refuse to pay the ones who ARE! If we’re only paid flat rate, where is the incentive, especially for a master tech in a dealership who frequently gets massive teardown jobs under warranty? 3 days of work to get paid 7 hours and be told “that’s just what the book says” is how you drive techs out of the industry.
I’m done wrenching. I’m in college now to become a physicist. I’m much smarter and worth far more than this industry is willing to compensate for.
Good for you!
Are you going for physics out of interest or for job prospects? I went into chemistry out of interest. Most jobs that were available were awful and not well paid. With more coursework I ended up in software development.
What would you tell young person who loves cars. Wants to go to automotive tech school learn a trade. Mike Rowe says we need more trade schools college is not the answer.
@@robertslegers257 Love cars on the side. I'm a huge enthusiast, own 6 vehicles right now. 2 years ago i left my corporate job and started doing car stuff full time, and i've grown to hate them. I need a reset.
Exactly, Good luck in your new career.
Let’s take a look at the history of flat rate. The first cars ever built were very few, and owned only by the wealthy. Their coachmen were tasked with operating and maintaining them. Then came the mass production of the model T. Suddenly there was a mass influx of vehicles on the road and very few people who could maintain them. So coachmen/mechanics began leaving their positions to go service cars for the dealerships and were charging top dollar hourly for their work. This cut into the dealership profits and they didn’t like it so they propositioned Ford to come up with a solution. Ford answered by creating a set amount of time that it should take to preform certain tasks, and thus flat rate was born to screw the mechanics, and make the dealership more profitable. Fast forward to present time and the same tactics are still in play. We are very few, overworked, underpaid, and under appreciated. Yet the industry does nothing to improve on these conditions, and wonders why we’re leaving. So to sum this up, fuck em let them fix their own shit!
"fuck em let them fix their own shit!" Hellz yeah brother!
They also dont wanf cars people can fix themselves if at all
They will fix it by just opening more manufacturer approved mechanic shops, where they charge even more from customers and pay mechanics working there a bit more than in completely privately owned companies could. This is bit like what Apple is doing with their phones for example, where they demand that their products be fixed in places that are approved by them and pay tons of money for parts.
As long as people keep on buying their products with prices and problems they come with, nothing will change.
And don’t forget govt collusion! Car companies got a build these humongously complicated machines that the average Person can barely even touch let alone fix something difficult, because government has all these stupid regulations that have to be met involving emissions and safety regulations. If people were to say “screw it“ i’m driving some thing else, the government steps in and says that those alternative vehicles can’t be allowed on the road because they are “unsafe“. Other countries build these less complicated vehicles and government has already stepped in and refused to allow them to be imported. The only way they can is for a special antique exception law be used and the less complicated vehicle has to survive for 25 years in order to be allowed in.
Just watch, these electric bicycle thingies are gonna get regulated soon the way mopeds have been clamped down on. Heck, some of them even are. If they don’t have pedals they get classed as something not roadworthy and you’ll get a ticket even if you’re in a bike lane since they say you’re not a bicycle. How are you supposed to ride one of those little EV Scooty things off road? They are definitely not built for it.
I was ASE Master certified with 15 years of experience, and work as an hourly employee in a manufacturing plant brought home the same amount of money. The problems I ran into is that if I did make a mistake nobody would tell me, they'd send the car to a different tech, the customers never had the money to fix the problems, I ended up doing a lot of the warranty work that barely paid. I spent most of my time inspecting cars or doing warranty garbage. Then they want to do hack jobs because they want a fix without replacing the parts. Gee, wonder why I don't do it professionally anymore.
Here’s the deal. Years worth of training and $50k in tools for $28hr with no medical and retirement. This is what mechanics made back in the 80s and 90s but it has not increased today. Today a shop is charging $200+hr, the average truck is $75k, and the average car is $50k. But the shops only want to pay $28hr with no incentives to basically be it’s doctor. To top that off back in the day you could make time, now book time is reduced and is a joke. Today in California you can make more than $20 working fast food with no training or tools. To keep up to today’s inflation a mechanic should be making $75hr. I guarantee if shops payed this they would have a tech in every bay.
Not this lame argument again with the $50k in tools.
@@GooglePixelGoogle yep, it’s true I’ve lived it. Every mechanic I know is paying hundreds of dollars every week to multiple tool trucks. To top it off most shops these days don’t even want to supply the shop with the big tools. Many techs are having to supply everything. The only people making money in shops is the owners.
@@GooglePixelGoogle Not a lame argument. You can only get so far when you have to constantly borrow others' equipment.
@@GooglePixelGoogleyou sound uneducated on the subject. I was a mechanic for years. Yup. Youre uneducated on the subject.
Are you serious ?? I’m a french doctor (GP), and I make $75 / hour. And I have so much stress and responsabilities to deal with my job. Auto mechanics are a joke in their claims.
I've been in the tech industry for just over 30 years and I recently been laid off. One of the skills that God gave me is the ability to fix cars. And it's something I love. It's something I'm good at. I approached my local dealership about fulfilling a mechanics position. Everything went well until they offered me the job at $20 an hour and I needed to bring about $4,000 of my own tools. I told them they could kiss my grits.
42 year tech here. When I started in the '82, I thought I would have it mastered in 4-5 years. Technology only picked up speed. You can never "master" this constantly evolving tech. There are literally of thousands of DTC's (trouble codes) for today's vehicles. Thousands of wiring circuits & data lines. Some vehicles have dozens of computer modules. This shit ain't easy at all. I began in a Ford/Isuzu dealership. After a decade of dealerships, I went to independents to get away from dealership politics. The hourly wages in my industry haven't much changed since the early 1990's. And I still go to school to stay up with this GARBAGE they build now. It's a shitty job with no appreciation from shop owners who can't fix a goddam thing. I've even quit a few shops over their greed & dishonesty with customers. The thieves seem to thrive in this industry. It's sickening to see the shop owner's favorite techs are the biggest ripoffs of customers. And watch these crimminals stay in business. Thank goodness I went self employed 15 years ago.
Don't ruin your life & be a mechanic like I did lol. Most techs blow out their lower discs between age 45-55 ( age 44 for me), after being hunched over the hood of cars for a few decades. Have fun kiddies !
thank you for your testimony
100%
Your right it takes more then a 7th grade education and if your not willing to work for yourself you won’t get far
Well, they need to start making vehicles that don’t require maintenance. Gasoline engines no longer have as many professionals to work on them. I’m 100% sure superior technology for vehicles have sprouted up here and there only to be raided by the FBI to make sure there’s no competition for fossil fuel.
Best comment, thanks for sharing your experience, I couldnt agree more!
I was a tech for eight years. When the shop was busy I could easily book 60-80 hrs a week, but the shop was rarely busy year round, pay sucked, and vacation was below average. A younger tech left to go work for a firetruck manufacturer doing entry level assembly work and was pulling in more money then most of us there. Needless to say I gave it a shot starting out as an electrician there. Almost doubled my income in the first year. Good techs should be making a minimum of 100k a year.
Not a shortage of techs, it's a shortage of employers that pay a fair wage for the skills required.
Correct, my brother was a mechanic for like 15 years and just started working at an ethanol plant as an operator making more money at the bottom than being the top technician at a dealership.
absolute NONSENSE. that is NOT the case at all. its not the pay that is an issue, its the freaking lazy ass younger generation that we have right now!!! They just DO NOT want to work, but they still want money.... The pay is fine, and in all honesty it is higher than nearly all other jobs out there.
@orion7741 I'm sorry but your entire post is what is nonsense.
Virtually no other technical field requires the amount of input of time, money, and training for the return that this field of endeavor pays back.
Plumbers and electricians double the wages of an auto tech with half the required input.
You can't find anybody not because they're lazy, it's because they're not fools.
@@orion7741 It's higher than wendy's pay but that's about it. Even managing an arby's my brother's wife was making more then him as a platinum tech with hyundai. He moved to a Honda manufacturing service center which was basically a union shop and he's still making more babysitting a machine making ethanol now. Any factory work is going to pay better, require no skills outside of reading and observation, and won't require you to buy your own tools. He will still do mechanic work, but never for a shop always in his own garage. The shops are the lazy ones that want to do nothing, collect the money, while their technicians do ALL the labor. It makes more sense to be a "mobile mechanic" and do jobs that let you collect 100% of your worth instead of getting 30%. Contract work should be 60% always. That's just basic business. Shops provide nothing outside of an environment to do contract work and should just pay them 60% of the work they do. The young generation doesn't have the age to learn the skill, the only thing they're going to be qualified to do is oil changes and car washes. These are people in their 30's and 40's that are leaving the industry because the pay is better elsewhere. That's why all these places are looking for people who actually know what they're doing. Young people are easy to pay in peanuts, they don't know any better and they don't have experience.
Shortage of both now.
I spent 40 years in the trenches...
When the shops labor rate versus the technician pay rate got so ridiculously stupid, I decided my slice was just too thin.
My last 20 years, I worked under the radar for cash and tripled my income.
That other 80% of the shops labor rate that I never got to see in pay, suddenly was mine.
The reason you can't find technicians is they have figured out you're a fool to be a mule.
Be your own boss, and pocket 200k a year
I could make more in a weekend than a 2 - week pay period at consistent %115-135 flat rate. Side work was good to me.
@oceania2385 Bingo sir!
Towards the end of my wrenching days I had so much business I was turning away more than I took, put all four of my kids through college and paid off the house early.
Try doing that in a shop with flat rate and inconsistent workflow
@@reubenj.cogburn8546 The downside is while you're getting enough experience to be truly competent, you have to make someone else rich. Then enrich yourself.
@oceania2385 for me, the game changer was the internet. Instead of people Networks, Mitchell manuals, and learned experience, I now had access to the whole world for information.
Hell, there are poser technicians out there that literally live through Identifix and simply do the highest probability confirmed fix on whatever issue they face.
They've never broken out the lab scope, and probably don't even know how to set it up.
But if Identifix says there's an 85% this is going to fix it.... guess what the tech tells the service advisor?
Combustion engines are headed for the scrap Heap with the steam engine soon enough.
I suppose I should be happy that I was there in its heyday.
the IRS is gonna have a field day with you
They quote your pay to take a whole engine apart takes 3 hours. For starters, it really takes 7hrs then 2 rusted bolts snap taking 2 more hours to remove it yet they still pay you only for the 3 hrs that the manual says it should take....that is if the car is brand new and everything is perfectly clean and disassembles fine.
Then you wonder why they don't want to work for you????
I left the industry because the pay is awful. I was a flat rate lube tech at GMC/Buick getting paid 30 minutes per oil change, and in that oil change you had to check the air filters (some cars like Buicks had a long process to extract the cabin filter), rotate the tires, change the oil, measure all the tire treads/brake pads, notify a main shop tech of any repairs needed so they can come inspect the car and send a write up, wash the car, install new wiper blades, etc. I didn’t list everything we had to do, but I ended up averaging 45-60 minutes on the oil changes because there was so much to do on the cars. In a 9 hour day I was only flagging 6ish hours. We were encouraged to sell air filters but only half the people wanted them, so it was a waste of time to disassemble the dash to check the cabin filters. One time i did a recall on a 2021 GMC Yukon for the third row seatbelt, and it only paid 0.2 hours (which translates to $3.8 done in 12 minutes or less to stay profitable in terms of time). I will never go back to flat-rate work. It’s just a way for companies (especially dealers) to screw over the employees and pay them peanuts
Retired now. ASE certified master tech along with additional certs (expired now) in smog testing and repair, also had my safety certs for brake (air brake also) and lamp. Few years ago before I retired (10 years) , nobody wanted to hire a 57 year old tech with over 100k in tools and pay a decent wage. Wanted to start me at 20.00. Some of those shops are still looking. I still keep in touch with a few shop owners, there labor rate at the moment is 180. per hour. Techs are getting about 30-35. Shop owners want good techs with the skills and tools, you're going to have to step up and pay it out in todays world. I stay busy at home taking on side jobs for half the price. Personally do not own a car from this century. My newest is a 91. Don't even get me going on being able to get parts that don't fail
no lie parts have gone to shit
I'm a red seal licensed mechanic. Been turning wrenches for nearly 50 years. With the abuse, flat rate systems, wages (the list goes on) - I'll stick to working on my own cars, maybe a neighbours. Beyond that? GFY.
Agreed - I would compare good mechanics to surgeons, in the level of skill and knowledge needed, and yet they get paid tupence.
@@rinzler9775 - at least if OUR patients die, they just get sent off to the scrapper. ;)
@@DrFiero lol - you think the same doesn't happen in the medical system - think about it. Big market for "spare parts".
Exactly
@@rinzler9775 that’s what all the illegal immigration’s is about….. big $$$$$
Back in the 70's and 80's techs got paid a 50 percent wage per flat rate hour. The days of 50/50 are long gone due to large corporate owned dealer networks. Corporate and shareholder profits truly screwed the industry.
agree. plus flat rate pays nothing. nobody here mentioned poor insurance.
that's the entire economy in a nutshell.... slow and steady screw job by corporations and wall street for 50+ years. doesn't work anymore.
Yeah not just the auto industry. Corporations and their shareholders have screwed up almost all sectors of this economy.
I started in 1969.Toyota tech started at 60% of labor charge.Then dealers got very greedy.First time I made $1000 on flatrate general manager threw my paycheck at me.Said he pays me to much F-ing money.
@@wpoley i used to get told by a assistant manager the same thing all the time.
One thing I'd like to see more of, are establishments where OWNERS can work on their own cars. I've seen and been to one, back in 1992-93. It was staffed, and had techs on hand to assist. You rent out a bay and tools, maybe attend a safety briefing, and you do your own maintenance, e.g., oil/brakes/tires, whatever t/f. Paying upwards of a C-note for an oil change (synth.) on most cars is re-cock-ulous!
I'm actually working on that myself. It's a lot of legal leg work, and insurance is insane, but there is a shop already out here that does it. They charge 44.00/hr to rent a lift. They provide you with "some" tools. Nothing too crazy. A lot of DIY and mobile mechanics rent the place when they need a lift.
How much would someone pay to rent a tooled up garage?
@@LynxStarAuto I figured that lawyers, legislators and insurance companies had to muck things up.
There used to be one of those near me in Mesa, AZ but it closed a few years ago. I don't know of any now.
I gave it 15 years, miss having an alignment rack, tire machine and balancer but otherwise I'm good. Even stopped doing side work since the gov wants a piece of that too.
We gone from companies not appreciating workers to companies openly hating their workers. It doesn't make sense, maybe it's class warfare playing out.
Or something like that huh?
No. Other parts of a company's expenses are hard and flat. Insurance, utilities, parts, building rent. For the most part, they don't negotiate those things. But for humans, the expense is persuasive, flexible and set by the group(the market). Companies know humans are soft, flexible. They know people need money to live life. They do this in every sector and it's catching up to them. Imagine there are unskilled workers making $20-$30 per hour.
Always is
I blame CEOs wanting more yachts.
Long hours, working weekends, dirty job, low pay, and I have to buy my own tools!
Yeah sign me up.
Trade jobs in a nutshell
@@RaptureHead1993 No other trade do you need the amount of tools as an auto mechanic
@@iamtheoffenderofall still a good amount regardless in any trade.
@@RaptureHead1993 I never heard a plumber saying he has has 100k worth of tools. Never heard an electrician or construction worker makeb that claim either. None of those trades need a several thousand dollar scan tool to do a job.
No other trade requires the exorbitant amount of money even to show up as does a mechanic.
@@iamtheoffenderofall True, but some of us master toilet mechanics [plumbers], if self-employed. end up with around a hundred grand in it; truck, sewer augers, etc.
I come from the paper industry and we have the same issues. The companies dont appreciate the old guys who know the machines so they give up and leave. One was on the cusp of retirement and offered if they'd put him on days, he'd give them another year to interact with all four teams as they rotated though days. The manager declined and 35 years of experience walked out the door the next day. As an aging GenX guy, I've seen guys try to counsel the young guys and they either won't listen or go to HR about being "harrassed". HR comes down on us and we just leave. Good luck making paper. Good luck finding competent help.
While I definitely respect your opinion here, everyone is replaceable.
Most if not all corporate-level businesses are owned or ran by folks who are somewhere on the psychopath/sociopath spectrum, with shareholders wanting "go-getters" who could give two shits about morals or ethics, they literally destroy everything they touch. It's easiest to picture someone attempting to operate a pointy shooty thing with the barrel on a 360-degree swivel, and being directed to shoot at one specific thing (More profits! Yay!), but end up only hitting the target once...and hit everything else instead as collateral damage. This is the one thing nobody's talking about, the third rail of mental illness: Sociopathy/psychopathy in the professional classes.
I know this comment is eight months old but, you're right. A lot of the experience is currently retiring and only a few come back for contract work after doing so. Saw this happen at every mill I did business with. Shuts got messy, reliability went to crap.
I was doing $17/hr flatrate on the lube rack at a Toyota dealership and then got thrown in the main shop to do special services with no raise or bonus. Figured things would turn around, but the work just kept piling on since we didn’t have an express shop to handle the oil changes, so I left. It was also pretty shocking to learn that I had to buy my own tools.
It also didn't help that a bunch of master techs were leaving because the people from the express shop that moved into the master shop were stealing work from them.
I'm sorry what u had to go through
your first mistake was accepting flat rate pay as a lube tech. the only good thing about being a lube tech for me was being paid for downtime.
Started in a Jaguar dealership in 1987 not long after 50/50 split of shop rate. Watch it decline gradually over the next 25 years. The dealer principals and manufacturers always talked a big game about taking care of techs. Unfortunately they are like politicians talk a big game when they want something but unfortunately they almost never deliver. It’s all about sales a yet service carries most dealerships. Being a mechanic was a great trade in the 70s thru the 90s then it started declining rapidly. Everyone wants a mechanic no one wants to pay or listen to them. So fix it yourself is what I say. Or do like the manufacturer wants ( when it breaks throw it away and by a new one. ). Sorry to be negative but I know a lot of mechanics that feel the same way.
Auto repair has become a low profit margin business. I blame excessive complexity of modern cars. Diagnosis is complicated and costly, a multitude of complex mechanical and electric systems exist, EFI, VVT, DI, complex emissions systems with multiple catalysts, a whole array of intricate electronic sensory monitoring. Jobs become rushed and of poor quality. It is all too much and cuts deeply into shop owners profits from repairs. I think if hydrogen were tamed and gained popularity engines could become simple again and repairs more profitable.
I can tell you why I stopped turning wrenches full time. I am a diesel mechanic, I got my degree, plus I was a 91B for the U.S. Army(active duty). I was only paid $13.50 starting out in 2016. I didn't even come close to being able to live on my own. I was 25-26 years old, living with my parents. Since I am a diesel mechanic/tech, I was forced to buy really expensive tools to be able to work on the tractors and combine. Just for refenerce, I worked for a John Deere dealership. Well, one day, my old boss called me and asked if I still had my cdl, which, of course, I still did. He told me what he was going to pay me to drive a semi again, and it was almost double what my yearly salary was turning wrenches. So I basically spent 2 years(5 semsters) to become a truck driver, which I still do today. Sh@tty pay, price of tools, and flat rate is killing the industry. I make damn good money just to slam gears all day.
Trucking pay sucks too though.
@GuldeScott I am making over 45k more than what I did turning wrenches. I own my own house and live by myself. So yeah trucking pays pretty good.
@scottywhittaker287 If you're OTR, then you live in your truck and you arent getting paid to be away from home. If you're oilfield, you're working twice as many hours. Maybe you found a nice niche gig like hazardous tanker.
@@GuldeScott Yeah, I was gonna drive for PAM transport, but the more I looked into it, the worse that company seemed. It payed like 25 cents a mile for a year under contract, and the training was in Mobile, Alabama which is like 10 hours from my house.
i was in the body refinishing side of things for 30 years , they kept finding ways to cut our pay over the years , until i found out by taking to the detail car washers that just started a month ago were making more than me. i packed up and never went back 😫
yeah....i had 10 years experience and found out that a guy i was training who knew NOTHING was hired in at 50¢ /hr less than i was making....this guy was a cluster fluck. I told my boss to make a choice. He did, I left. He was out of business about 8 months later.
Did not choose well.
@@ssnerd583 I'm having similar issues at work, but I handle hazardous waste
It's a joke what panel beaters get, far more stills needed that mechanics.
@seanfox4551 You are f-ing kidding right? No discount to body men being skilled and needing skill, but to say mechanics (really good ones) don't have or need skill on same level? You don't know the requirements of the profession or you have a big bag of some really good stuff and you just did about 8 bong hits before commenting on it
My mechanic ( a fellow marine) recently passed away from leukemia, and it’s not been easy to find a new one.
When I met him he was rebuilding a transmission. Good luck finding someone that can work on one of those these days.
Just UA-cam it. I’m not a mechanic but have been able to fix all my cars following UA-cam videos. In the middle of pulling my trans for a new clutch as we speak. 0 training, I am a computer programmer. It’s as simple as following the tutorial, it’s not rocket science by any means.
@@zfunk9Most modern day techs don't even know where to begin on a transmission because they don't touch them at the dealerships, sans a drain and fill, or flush. Some dealers don't even touch the filter. When the units manifest problems, they replace the entire units for dumb stuff like sensors and solenoid failures. That's the state of the current industry.
The guys putting out the content that helped you fix your transmission, have decades of experience under their belts. They didn't learn that in an afternoon.
@@zfunk9 Programmers (I'm into computers but don't code) tend to understand logic and logical thinking is delightfully portable!
Probably got cancer from all the solvent exposure..
@@zfunk9 Try pulling apart an automatic transmission, something you'll find in 99% of vehicles these days or CVTs. I mean actually tearing it all the way down as if you were repairing it not just removing it. I guarantee you that you won't get very far. Transmissions aren't something you can learn how to fix just by looking it up on UA-cam. The people that work on them (the few that still remain) have years if not decades of experience doing so.
A welder needs a welding helmet and a good attitude and gets $50 an hour.
A mechanic needs $30K in tools in Australia to get $28 an hour.
It does not make financial sense to be a mechanic.
A rig welder will have that or more in truck and equipment easy, but those guys pull MUCH more than singlehand welders let alone mechanics (and can do all the side work they like when they're off the road, my instructor shortened and lengthened truck frames when at home on his ranch.
@@Comm0ut off shore fitters are paid accordingly. I’m taking about a shop welder in a town and a mechanic in a town.
It is as simple as that. I thought about being a mechanic, and frequently feel grateful that I dodged that bullet.
Welders have a shorter lifespan.
Depends on what kind of welding, MIG , and stick, I often seen pay about $22-25 an hour. To get to $50 usually you are also a fabricator too and can weld some tricky metals.
The industry has managed to run off all the competent techs. You can't make living on a job that pays half the time it takes to complete. It used to be that you ate it on certain jobs but made it up on others. I left six years ago, and it was hard enough then just to break even. The system that was designed to make a tech efficient and to be motivated, no longer worked. The only part I miss about my old job is the satisfaction I got from fixing a problem. That's something only a good tech could feel. I was fortunate to work with a sharp group of guys, we took pride in our work. Unfortunately, we had to move on. For those that have moved on to something better, I'm happy for you. For those who are still working under worsening conditions, I feel for you. I don’t have any regrets, I worked with some good people and made some good memories.
When I was 21, never got bumped up from a tire tech. So I ended up going towards industrial maintenance at a bakery. I'm 26 now, getting paid 2.5x more than I was 5 years ago with CAD drafting, electrical troubleshooting, and much more specific machine knowledge (fillers, seamers, blow moulding, etc.)
I agree 100%. I was running my Auto repair business that I had operated for 45 years in 2020 when Covid hit. Two of my top people decided to retire. I thought about trying to find replacements but quickly realized that that was not going to be possible. I retired and closed my shop. No regrets. Retirement is very nice.
Enjoy that senior breakfast special
So you admit you wouldn't pay enough to attract talent. Fuck you you useless boomer.
meanwhile all the shops near me won't hire me because I don't have 2 years experience despite wanting to work.
crazy bruh😥
Shops near me will hire anyone. No experience needed. 2 lube techs at my shop didn’t even graduate high school.
No they're desperate for employees ans you don't need 2 years experience....you need to know somebody...I'm going through this in the trades
Because you don’t have blue hair and a drug addiction problem
@@nyflo718 "you need to know somebody" is the problem. that's why there are so many mismatched jobs, people refuse to attempt to train
The place I work at dropped the ASE requirement 2 years ago that tells you how bad it's getting.
Yes Ive had a few Honda Dealer techs tell me Honda Master Cert no longer requires ASEs so Honda dealers dont require them.
Imagine that. Honda USA no longer requires a nationally recognized certification for automotive technicians.
I'll be starting an automotive tech program in January for a year. I've seen a lot of people say that it is bad or something else. To be honest, no matter what anyone tries to tell me I'm going to be one. It took me years to finally figure out what I want to do, and I'm already almost 24. Thank you for the helpful information anyways!
Nobody wants to work for a wage that isn't survivable unless you are living in a 2+ income household and/or shacking up with all sorts of roommates. But, that is the unfolding American social & economic dystopia that is our future.
Bankruptcy of American style capitalism, also bankruptcy of US. Representative democracy. Popular adoption of anti-labor union policies helped immensely. Edit: "helped" ruin the market
yeah it doesn't help that housing is insanely expensive and you cannot afford to even rent a place, let alone buy one, on most salaries
I call it "forced communism".
I'm not in a top earner state by any means and all the people I know who do trades or went to be a mechanic make 32+ an hour plus bennies. Shouldn't be hard to pay your guys when shops want 100/hr to work on a car or more.
All these comments her are great Amen Brothers
Lets pump more oil
Planning on leaving the trade myself, everyone else pays more for less work/stress. The guy’s washing cars make more money than the guys fixing the cars (cuz of the flats rate system). How does that make sense?
It makes great economic sense for the Dealerships!
@klaus1085 If you have never visited a communist country, you should go and pay a few of them a visit, then write another comment.
I don't want to hear any complaints from company owners. I went to over 100 interviews over a year and a half for any tech/mechanic positions at every kind of shop, dealership, independent small shops, used car dealerships, junk yards, fleet operations. You name it I applied for it. At every single one I was told to leave the second I mentioned I have a felony conviction from over 13 years ago. I hope all these business go out of business. I made one mistake 13+ years ago and still can't get a job and yet they still complain they can't find workers. I"M RIGHT HERE!!!
Certain criminal offenses put you in a caste system in the US. Its a shame
They can’t because of HR and/or insurance. You’re going to have to just work by yourself and be a contractor. Consider that a blessing. You’re working on only the equipment you like and 1 hour of labor is like working an entire day in a sweat shop.
Find out if you can have the conviction expunged (erased from your record). Each State and the Federal court systems have different laws and procedures; some crimes can be expunged or sealed (sealing requires a court order to view the record, but is not as good as expungement).
Life in the colonies (!)...where penal system exists not to rehabilitate problematic colonists but to ruin them and make room for new arrivals. My sincere apologies.
Im sure theres many factors at play here , yes people make mistakes that follow for life , thats your burden to carry. Some simply cannot hire somebody like that. Some will not waiver from personal rules and regs. Its a business , they have their name and reputation to account for and to uphold and build upon at the end of the day. They cannot put the business in jeapody. If this is what you want to do , you have to sell yoursef. Keep trying and a door will open eventualy.
I was a tech for 30 years, ASE Master, certified in all the Japanese models and including Vw, Porsche and Audi.
I got out because the dealers went to “Team Concept” and I started losing about $500-600 per month supporting supposed “Technicians” that didn’t know a wrench from a screwdriver. The dealerships wanted ME to train them. Finally had enough and left the trade and took a government job at better wages AND benefits. New guys didn’t want to “Learn” the trade, just wanted do the gravy jobs and leave the tough ones to the “old guys”.
Comes down to people not wanting to pay what it takes to fix their car. Get people all the time that would rather pay 600 for tint but not new tires. I get tired of dealing with broke people with big dreams
💯% spot on
big dreams? lol, they're just stupid
If you own an older car, it's getting so anything other than a small repair costs more than the car is worth.
This was my experience. People will only pay to fix their radio, AC, and buy new rims. I once put new rims on a Chevy Suburban with no brake pad surface left, straight metal to metal tearing up the rotor
Brought my RAV4 to the Toyota dealer for an oil change. Two days later, I popped the hood and found that the technician had left the oil filler cap off the valve cover, jammed into a little nook in the engine compartment. There was oil spray everywhere from the open oil filler hole. I've had worse experiences. Oil drain plugs not tightened and falling off. Oil filters not tightened and unscrewing. If you have your car professionally serviced, keep an eye out for obvious faults like these.
Wow thats a big deal....but if you report him, he would likely loose his job.....I just had Toyota do my oil change now at about $100...not blaming anyone, because prices for everything is much higher now(except wages).......but I decided price is too high for me, so went out and bought 2 cheap vehicle ramps....got the Valvomax brand (of many types)...quick oil change oil drain plug(w/hose..so changes can be done quickly and w/almost no mess!).....and will do my own oil changes from now on...will save me 50%.
I never thought I would look forward to having fun changing and controlling the quality of my own oil changes...but I do now ha (Im retired) and its actually feels empowering to learn how to do my own tiny repairs etc when possible.
@@dm285
The cost of my last service has made me seriously consider doing the same as you, to do my own oil changes/ minor services from now on.
At least maybe every other oil change.
It's crazy how expensive it is nowadays to maintain your car at the dealer.
Do not let anybody touch your car, it is that simple, Any OEM part you need is at the U-pull junk yard, just swap it out
Its times like these im glad i got into fixing my own stuff years ago
Amen 🙏
Same. Thank God for youtube videos to repair all of our own stuff.
You stated "the pay isn't good" at least twice. There's your answer. All the other things you mentioned are just symptoms of low pay.
Government caused inflation through money printing, and some employers are only now feeling the effects. I don't blame them for complaining, but the problem is with the government. Being a mechanic is very hard, stressful, and highly skilled. They can get better jobs elsewhere.
When dealerships were infiltrated by MBAs they went from paying technicians commission to paying them flat rate.
This allowed them to lock technician pay at one level, while the dealer operators were free to raise rates to whatever the market will bear.
Technician pay has fallen from 50% of the labor line to about 25%.
GM pay has risen from $125k a year to $350k - $550k.
This, along with warranties that go to 100,000 miles, has driven the best people out of the profession.
The comment section here is VERY correct. The auto mechanics industry has cultivated this type of employee, you shouldn't be surprised. Even in your video you said that at your old shop the car washers were next in line to be techs. That's poor business management at it's finest. If you want good techs who know the job and show up tools in hand, you need to pay for them. As you said, the job isn't worth it for the little pay you get, and the responsibility and training you need.
Btw I do see that you get that from the fact you point it out, but I'm just commenting on my experience. In 2010 I attended tech school for auto mechanics as an adult student. A smaller tech school that was in my area, at the time in the Midwest. I graduated top of my class, with honors and awards for my work, and completed a two year course in one year, while also earning a letter of recommendation from the schools head administrator.
When applying for jobs after graduation I was looking for ENTRY LEVEL only positions, to build experience and work my way up. Meanwhile earning the time and experience needed to take ASE cert. exams. And no, the schools near me did not have the advancement ASE programs to cert while in school, I asked many times.
I was applying for beginner level jobs, that were listed as $10 hr jobs, which I could have made work for a couple of years after the schooling, and only one of the 12 shops I applied to even contacted me back. And I interviewed at that shop, during which time they told me because I had no experience at a shop, even as an OIL CHANGE TECH, they couldn't pay me more then $8 an hour! So I interviewed for a $10 position and they offered me $8? For an ENTRY LEVEL position. I walked right out the door and started shortly after as a counter person and warehouse guy at a small electricians shop... making $10.50 and hour, with paid vacation and holidays. And within the second year I was at $12 an hour.
Auto shops do not take their own businesses seriously, sorry to say. That is what has led to this. They need to PAY MORE. that's all. Shops charge $100-$150 per hour but pay techs near nothing. Often $20 per hour or less. Well when your customers get mad at bringing things back repeatedly, and your shop gets bad rep, it's deserved. They have nobody to blame but themselves.
Thanks for the vid though was a good behind the scenes look. I will thumbs up
This is the same old story. I worked as a teen in my dad’s garage in the 70’s, overhauling engines, replacing tranny’s, brakes, doing it all. We could never find reliable help and were forced to close after working day and night for years for very little profit.
Why for very little profit?
@@bluelightguy1 Tools, supplies, fuel, loans, diagnostic equipment, parts. Keep in mind that interest rates were around 12 to 18% at the time, gas tripled in price in 2 decades, inflation was high and wages were low. Servicing any debt was difficult. People tend not to pay a mechanic and the car they leave behind isn’t worth much.
Makes owning a Honda trail 125cc my next vehicle.
100+ mpg!
Fun!
Have 68, 71, 78 ct90s and a 74ct70. Didn't know they were gold....
@@sixtyfourchebby4507 Hang on to em!
Great fun for kids / grandkids!
I left retail service for Govt/Fleet with the USPS. Basically taking care of 40 year old rebodied Chevy S-10's. But since I'm fresh from the outside, I have a better understanding of newer vehicles so when the Metris fleet has issues, it comes to me. I'm also the only tech in the shop with EV safety certification from my time with HPD during the late development cycle for the 2.4 IMSA and Indy engines, so when the EV fleet rolls out, I have a feeling it'll make its way to me as well. But I gotta say, it's nice. Tools are provided (not the best stuff, but decent; lots of Proto and Gear wrench). No more flat rate stress. Flag your 8 and be done for the day essentially. Lower pay, but very good benefits and I'm in it for the retirement; something the dealerships can't offer me.
How hard was the USPS 955 Exam?
@@blues03 don't know. Auto tech is 943/944/955 exams
Employers aren't paying good enough. I work out of my home garage and I make almost twice as much as I used to.
My father is a very good mechanic with all the tools you need. So whenever i have to work on my car he helps and provides the tools needed. There is no way in hell I would ever become a mechanic for anything less than $200/H plus tools, benefits and everything else. For reference I work as a sheet metal apprentice for $28/H, I've installed rooftop units in January in the snow. I'd still prefer to do that than change a power steering pump on a modern car or a beat up shit box. And remember every single problem in a car was designed by someone in an office who could have made it way better.
Yup, sitting at work for 42 hours a week to only flag 27 hours and be screamed at by advisors. Fuck that. I told the dumb advisor yesterday, I can roll my box out just as fast as I rolled it in, grabbed my shit and started walking and they watched them freak out.
I found a good mechanic near me and I'm stoked. He's not cheap but I don't care. He's honest and does great work
Lol even the good ones will do a bad job. Learn to do it yourself.
@@roastbeef4918 replacing diesel injectors is a little above my pay grade
@@BurtBartlow oof
Anyone who's worth their salt as a wrench is worth significantly more in Industrial Maintenance.
You forgot to mention industry is generally more fun and interesting, and that when you are the only person who can keep their ancient cobbled-together junk they refuse to upgrade it can make you the last guy they lay off. I enjoyed it.
Cars are getting more and more complicated, the bar gets lower and lower for the techs and pay is stagnant. Awesome!
Speaking from an ex master tech point of view... There's no techs because the pay is generally SHIT. You have to buy thousands of £ of tools to do the job. And a lot of customers are rude and expect every job to take 5 minutes.. and then complain about nothing to try and get the job for free.. after 25 years I was done
us good techs got tired of making all the money for someone else. I will never work for someone else again. now I make a hundred dollar an hour for me. and I work half as hard as before
same here!
@coryament what do you do? Just graduated got an associates in Auto Service Tech but having second thoughts about going the dealer route..
@@shaquillemajor1520 after 25 years in the business I decided to work for myself from home.
You forgot about the tool commitment. That brings down your take home pay a lot, at least for the first decade. Great hobby, terrible way to make a living.
Owning a independant shop now, I purposely reduce the scope of cars we work on as the tool commitment would be way to expensive. I already have $1000 tools that I only need to use once every couple yaers
I’m about to wrap up my 2nd year as a tech working on industrial equipment. I have spent every last dollar to get the best tools I want. Now that I have a full box and a couple years under my belt, I have opportunities to advance. My toolbox is worth more than my degree.
Definantly one of the biggest reasons why I didn't stay in that Career was the pay as you mentioned. Also during my time period they were requiring multiple ASE Certifications as well. Its crazy that Techs standard is lowered so much now. The reason i didn't stay in that industry wasn't just the pay, it was also how I was treated. I worked multiple dealerships back in 2006-2010. Every one of them ended up laying me off like I wasn't a valuable asset to the dealer. Which if you remember that time period there was a some economy issues during that time period. Found odd jobs until I ended up working at a Locamotive Repair Business for about 7 years, then eventy got a good contracting position for support management on websites. Been with that for the last 5 years, definitely is helping support my family. I still work on my own vehicles especially my 86. Enjoy your content, thanks for sharing!
Just quit a shop not long ago. 11 hour days, no lunch breaks, and was expected to do a ton of “complimentary” and warranty work. I’m too old to put up with that crap for such low wages. 6 techs at that job left within 5 months.
Lot of good mechanics have started their own specialized business like LS swaps, JZ swap, etc. Social media has made it easy to get your name out there.
Was a ford tech in 1999. The year flat rate was implemented. 5 years in i left. Toyota. Kia. Volkswagen.dodge. i went thru all the dealerships. Each one was more criminal than the rest. Look up jones west ford in Reno,Nv they had a drug ring selling percosets and vikodine. They got busted. I was let go for smoking weed. Lol. Meanwhile a drug ring was transpiring behind the scenes.
I have an Associates degree in Automotive Service Technology, used to work at a Honda Dealership (3years) then Ford (1year) -owned by same people. Quit because of pay and shop conditions, lack of supplies like hand soap, red shop towels. Lack of equipment like jack stands and jacks, special tools. Broken tire machine, no wheel weights, unsafe lifts. Idiot service advisors, poor management, and no parking for vehicles. I just quit, resignation letter said effective immediately, picked up my tool box and was out of there. Now they got these young high school kids working. I was reliable, always on time, perfect attendance awards every year, non smoker, non drinker.
I dont want to be a technician anymore, now i'm self learning how to do automotive collision repair, painter.
I have been an certificated aircraft mechanic for 35 years , I work on everything I own and the only shop I have taken my cars to is a smog shop. I wouldn’t go back to wrenching on anything for anything less than 747 Captain money. Want mechanics? All it takes is money.
A&P here as well and i agree
Aviation is glorious (retired fighter fixer here). I like most of my bros do all my own work (and took care to live where there are no inspections so I don't lose days every year driving/riding my collection to get smogged).
@@Comm0ut Anyone who is exmilitary and had to deal with titanium screws and bolts has my upmost respect lmao.
There is never a shortage of employees there is only ever a shortage of employers willing to pay a decent wage. You pay a decent wage you get all the quality technicians you need.
21.1 million people in the U.S. with a BA or higher in science and engineering that don't want to fix plastic crap under warranty for free either.They only have a shortage of idiots that work for free and cheap.
There have been shortages of people to work for free since the dawn of time.Isn't anything new.
@@joebrenner4428 You definitely don’t need a BA in Science or Engineering to fix almost anything. Design it yes, modify it probably, but fix it almost never.
@@matthewhuszarik4173 I didn't say that you need a degree but why do you idiots think that somebody with a degree in auto or electronics engineering couldn't fix cars if they wanted to?THERE ARE NO FUCKING SHORTAGES OF PEOPLE CAPABLE OF DOING AUTO REPAIR IF THEY CHOOSE ONLY A SHORTAGE OF GOD DAMNED IDIOTS WILLING TO DO IT FREE AND CHEAP!
@@matthewhuszarik4173 Every fucking GM,Ford and Chrysler dealer in Michigan is looking for dummies to do free warranty work and recalls.Thousands of laid off UAW workers and engineers but still nobody to fix plastic shit under warranty for free????"General Motors is laying off 1,314 workers at two plants in Michigan, according to two notices filed with the Department of Labor "
I work in the Auto Body industry started back in 2008 and there is a huge shift in what's going on now we do have good people but like you said the company will literally pay someone right off the streets with no prior experience and will also provide all they're tools to do the they're job. Where when I got into the industry back in 2008 you were expected to have your own tools do work correctly no drugs no drinking and do good work or you were fired now if you just show up to work your given a Gold medal for participating and when your caught screwing up its a slap on the wrist and no big deal. I completely feel ya on this one.
A young kid with blue hair and a ring through his nose can make more money starting at Amazon than what most shops want to pay someone with 3 - 5 years experience.
If youre concerned about someones appearance over their quality of work and ethic youre smol and they probably dont want to work for you anyway just based on that.
@@RobynTapps Maybe consider first impressions are how people will initially judge you, and don't be stupid about it? hiring blue hair nose ring, and letting them roam a shop from the fish bowl window where customers can see them is going to LOSE them business cause of looks, not gain it.
@@exiteternium really depends on the industry i guess... its still shallow that person could potentially do a way better job than Joe Blow who you hired but you're scared because of your image and feel the need to conform to social norms.
@@RobynTapps scared? Nah, i like my bottom line over their looks, and my experiences with these people? they break more shit then they fix, every single one they hired i had to work with when i turned wrenches i had to do the clean up for, IE fix their fuckups, my experiences say blue hair likely is a know it all who knows nothing, is full of ego, and sucks at what they do, and will probably quit in a month or 2. only exceptions where the guys who mostly where normal but have cosmetology wives who needed a canvas to experiment on..
@@RobynTappsYou will never be a woman.
I would never work at a dealership; I always worked as an independent mechanic and did quite well charging half the flat rate that the dealerships did in labor and sold my parts at Jobber rate because I got them at wholesale. I am retired now, but still do diagnostics and teach my friends how to fix their own cars and boats.
At least you can bring up these discussions here, I remember at 18, me complaining at work just like you did in the first minute, and a manager took me into her office to say my negativity was bringing everybody down, which is weird because they agreed with me.obviously afraid of people standing up for themselves.
Lol. I'm about to quit manual/cnc machining because I only make 21/hr. Im really good at it too and completed a formal apprenticeship through work and college. I started out as the stereotypical apprentice that gets all the tedious shit jobs that everybody else with 10+ years of experience refuses to do. I kept up with it so well for 3.5 years and have a really competent tool collection. I'm better than everyone else on a milling machine. I get the nicest surface finishes and remove metal the fastest. I wanted to get into tool & die, aerospace, robotics, or even better; design cnc machines to build here in America. What do I have to show for after those 3.5 years? Asthma, a herniated lumbar disc, corporations that refuse to hire me because I'm a white guy, and a bank account that won't even get me a new car. Of course most people have no clue what a machinist is either when talking about the trades, so there is no social status or appreciation for the job either.
I'm just going to take my tools home and get some desk job working for the government. None of the trades are worth it. I live worse than a medieval peasant despite making parts for shipyards, docks, construction engineering firms, steel mills, and water treatment plants. I'll come back to the trades when my pay gets tripled. I'm not interested in wearing the steel toe boots, faceshield, respirator, gloves, and hearing protection anymore. The pay is shit and I'll still get hurt/poisoned anyway despite wearing all my PPE because thats how cumulative exposure works, especially if you work more hours.
im a night cleaner for wawa store. 22$ hour. no tools needed to buy. no training. just a simple job
At Mercedes we were taking porters (people who just move cars around the lot) and making them express techs because no one wants to do it. I don’t blame them, I’m over it 14 years of this crap and I’m just beat.
I just got a p0327 on my Toyota. I don’t mind fixing stuff; it happens. What angers me is that the manufacturer thought it would be cool to disable 4wd, traction control, cruise control and top gear all for a knock sensor code. This is unacceptable. And if I took it to a dealer they’d charge $175 an hour and the technician would get $24. Outrageous.
be thankful you do not own a Porsche, newer Jeep etc. . Boobytrapping the operating system to disable the entire vehicle over a minor code is a new level of evil
Don't forget the $300+ diag fee ...
That building cost nothing!
An engine knock could potentially cost you an engine. It’s going into a limp mode so that you don’t destroy it faster
@@BrokeMekanic .....unless its just a junk sensor, which is all too common today.
Got rid of my newer truck, now all the cars I own are from 85, 89, and 02. Used said money to start building a garage with lift and machine shop. Soon ill be able to make any part I need and work on anything easily. I already got friends who want to rent the lift out from me to work on their stuff. If anything besides a hobby I see this whole setup as a fall back in case the economy goes bad and I lose my job. It honestly was less than I thought to build the whole place, and some of yall may wanna look into it and go independent.
You can make your own parts, 3D printing?
@@lukemaney645 That's the modern way of doing things, adding material. Other was is taking away material, either with a CNC machine (too expensive) or getting lathes and other classical machinist's tools and doing it by hand for one-offs. Greater quality and precision if you know what you're doing.
@@lukemaney645 for cosmetic and low wear bits yeah, I have a 3d printer, but anything with high mechanical wear/stress or in a high heat environment is gonna need to be metal. You can do metal casting off 3d prints but you wont get anything near engine tolerance from that. I actually 3d printed part of a fuel pump bracket for the my 300zx since the original was gone, and it turns out pla does fine in gas.
@@LGTheOneFreeMan If you hunt around you can get some smokin deals on a used older CNC machine too, it helps to be knowledgeable about electronics if you go that route though
Same here but never got nor wanted a newer truck. I always wanted a serious home shop so I built one including welders, lathe, mill and more to come.
If I weren't happily retired I could wrench for pay but I would ONLY work for used car dealers not the public.
Raise your shop rate, make a more aggressive parts matrix, increase your shop supply fees, and pay the employees a generous living wage. With raise built into the CPI calculator. 100k tech salary is right around the corner with my shop.
I got out in 2020. No regrets. Keep it a hobby. There's guys that aren't even mechanics that have 2 post lifts in their garage because they do something else that actually makes good money.
rite. if your garage is 11 foot tall minimum you can order a cheap lift for $2k, have your buddies help ya put it up for some beer and burgers. That is about shop price for one mid level repair. And you have a lift so your popularity goes up a few points 😂
So many places don't diagnose problems anymore, they just fire the parts cannon over and over and over, hoping that if they throw enough new parts at a problem, eventually they will win the lottery, and solve the problem without even having to figure out what it is. Fortunately, I have a good mechanic, and an honest shop. I 100% agree with your video.
This is too bad. I've always had respect and admiration for good technicians/mechanics.
I've always enjoyed working on my own cars and do as much on them as I'm able to.
I decided a long time ago that since I enjoyed working on cars as a hobby I'd hate it as a job. It wouldn't be fun anymore. I guess that was a good call.
Whats funny is that I started doing all of my own work, and it's taught me that aside from very specialized pieces of equipment (mostly having to do with alignments, all the TPMS bits or "Driver-Assist" sensors) it's not hard.
Yes, it can be physically demanding, and certain parts of it can be annoying to do without specialized tools . . . but the vast majority of it is literally diagnosing issues and then just replacing a part. Adding a good Bi-Directional scan tool will get you 99% of the way there.
Modern cars with their dumb computer-controlled-everything's are where this starts getting muddled, but people are finding ways around that outside of specialized tools, too.
I was a mechanic for only three years. Destroyed my body, I regret deciding to take this path and now I’m left with a skill I hate to use. I don’t even change my own oil anymore
In a pinch, like if your life depended on it, you could probably keep your vehicle running. You didn't waste your time learning those skills. Don't regret it, learn from it and move on. We all need to get creative in how we make a living. The sky is the limit. Not to mention that every business in this country is looking for responsible people. If you are one, you will never lack for good work. Good luck to you and yours. I've turned wrenches on nearly every kind of vehicle be it land, water or air. This was before they threw computers on everything, but I can still disassemble, diagnose and reassemble.
You sound like a Debbie downer 😂
Move into a different trade brother, after a few years you'll get the urge again, especially if you can get a second hobby car.
See if you can become a heavy equipment mechanic or operator. Especially if you can find a spot in a union shop. I personally can't say enough about working in a union, it's the only way to go these days. You'll get better wages, a good ass pension (mine is $7/hr on top of my regular wage just for my pension), better hours (my last non-union job had me working 12 hour days, minimum, no OT pay until 55hr/week. My union job has me working 8-hr days, any shift that goes over 8 hours immediately goes into OT pay for the rest of the shift.) plus your managers can't treat you like shit, or your steward will tear them a new one!
Thats why I have gone 'Full-Cuba." I fixed up my 1967 Buick and all is well.
I was going to say the same lmao.... I am already looking for ways to bypass computers or at least dumb them down just to get the new models motors to run with an older computer say earlier 2000's ... I have a feeling a lot of resistors will be involved
Construction will be taking a shit soon. I was in hvac for 40 yrs. I drive truck now. Pay is better, insurance is awsome. No weekend bullshit!
One of my hobbies is auto diagnostics/repair. Do it for my friends and family, and some of their friends. Hate to boast, but I'm extremely good at it. There's no way you could get me to work for a shop at the going rate though. Wouldn't even be able to pay my modest mortgage. That could be a huge part of the problem.
And this is why I have taken to working on my own cars.
I was going to be an auto mechanic back in 1980. The pay has no retirement benefits. I went to the post office instead.
Most people seem to think that a technician just plugs in a scanner and it tells them what to do and they don’t have to think.
Y’all need to START at 30-40/hr
Six figs within 1-2 years. With all these electronics and BS you gotta watch out for; that level of expertise needs to be recognized.
I will pay an extra $15-$20/hr in labor if it means you’re getting paid well and we can get our cars fixed quicker.
Back in HS in the 1970s-1980s there were auto shop programs in most schools. One of the junior colleges near me had a very extensive auto programs (regular cars, heavy vehicles, rebuilding (engine & trans) diesel tech, body & paint) so you could go through that and get a really good background in it. None of that is around anymore; the HSs have dropped auto and most 'shop' programs, the junior college still has a basic auto tech program but nothing as extensive as before, and they completely dropped the body & paint program.
That's unfortunate for your area.
But take note that not all areas operate the same, as all of my local Highschools still offer automotive programs (mechanical and body) and the community college has a pretty decent certificate program as well as motorsports tracks and different body work specialty programs. The community college also has two locations for this program in my area. This is in addition to the two technical schools that offer a variety of trade training and certification to include automotive in addition to CNC, CAD work, HVAC repair and maintenance, etc.
It is still very possible to get training in a trade in HS and college depending on where you live.
YUP ...... and the morons who cause that stuff wonder why people move out of the area .... or won't have any kids.
You forgot constantly buying new tools because some JA engineer designed some new thing that needs a $400 tool to take it apart and that tool is going to be obsolete in 2 years because the manufacturer decided the the engineer's idea was stupid and cost too much to manufacture.
That’s why I do work myself I don’t trust shops especially dealerships
When I came out the Marine Corps there were a lot of companies wanting to hire me. I had six years of being a diesel mechanic. Thank God I took my troubleshooting skills in a different direction!
This is the same way they made the “DRIVER CDL SHORTAGE “ there is no driver shortage! They just flooded the field with thousands of young inexperienced drivers that they (Big corp) can use now for CHEAP wages, unlike a salty experienced driver. It’s always has been about pay not about people leaving the field.
The good news is even though your car might not run properly after service at a dealership, it will be spotless and smell nice LOL
If your car smells nice you are probably inhaling carcinogens.
Its hard work and inflation made it so the pay isn’t even enough to support yourself. You will make more money driving a forklift where I live than you will as a mechanic. That’s true not an exaggeration in the slightest.
With today's inflation you have to be working a top of the line job making 50+ an hour just to be able to survive on your own let alone live remotely comfortably. Owning a house? Forget it. Houses that were 200k are now well over 500k. If you're lucky. Cars? 50-100k. We're having the life choked out of us every single day and too many people are oblivious to it.
When you look at the hourly shop rates at dealerships and then see what the mechanics in the shop are earning it's no wonder guys don't want to do the job anymore. They're expected to do the heavy lifting while the dealership rakes in the cash.
Thank you for posting, I work at the toyota dealership. We have 2 lub tech with no driver license. Lub tec gets pay more on hourly and bonus when touch each vehicles.
Service managers hate good techs because good techs are “slow.”
I was once a tech. Crazy expectations, the cost of the tools, not much better than min wage caused me to go a different route in life.
Canadians tech here, shops are now charging anywhere for 160-200$/hr and paying techs less then 30$/hr. Shop price went up but wages didn’t. Most places don’t pay overtime, don’t have benefits and don’t provide tools, boxes or shop use for personal vehicles. You can now get a secretary job answer phone calls and make better money than a certified technician.
"You can now get a secretary job answer phone calls and make better money than a certified technician." Bingo
Where the hell can you find a secretary who will answer the phone? All businesses in America have an answering machine, and don't bother to call customers back! They are too dumb to realize that that phone is the backbone of their business.
@@oldandintheway9805 “secretary” is a loose term. There are office admin jobs that are basically glorified personal secretaries. These positions pays 50- 70k a year up here. But they don’t have to buy tools or be exposed to hazardous chemicals and unsafe working conditions. For example I’ve never met a single admin that lost their finger or eye on the job, but I can personally name a few technicians with work place injuries. Not to mention ever dollar invested into tools doesn’t actually make you more money, it makes it easier and quicker to get the job done, meaning you boss actually makes more money. Most techs I know are in debt to their tool box, and have 20-30k in tools. If they have done a different job and invested that money instead they wouldn’t be in debt and that “investment” would be working for them.not to mention tools don’t hold their value and every retiree mechanic I’ve met has too many tools and basically has to give it away or sell small things when they can.
It's not just a problem finding auto mechanics. Nurses and other healthcare professionals are also leaving the jobs. Overall pay for talented healthcare professionals is going down because trained nurses, respiratory therapists and other specialists are being replaced with "Medical Assistants (MAs). MAs are the people that do your sign-in paperwork and sometimes take your blood pressure when you arrive at the hospital. Like the car washers that you mentioned, the MAs are important, but are not paid well and required little training. Insurance companies run the show at all hospitals, and the insurance companies force the hospitals to cut staff so that more money can be sent to the insurance companies. The doctors are fed up with the system as well, because they can no longer provide the patient care that they need to provide.
In many ways, the same can be said for the difficulty in finding teachers. Student to teacher ratios are forever increasing to offset the lack of funding required by ever-increasing state and federal mandates. Also, the lack of parent involvement in teaching and raising children makes teaching more and more undesirable.
Best thing you can do is work on mechanic maintenance for a manufacturing place. Great money, benefits, retirement funding, weekends off, home early, less stress and overtime is available if you want it.
Wow. I don't even have to attend UTI?! And I already know which end of a screwdriver to hit people with (it's the handle, people...THE HANDLE!).
When i was working at a Honda dealership, there was this new guy from UTI with his fancy jacket. Dude was an idiot, dumb as a rock. He left a oily rag near the exhaust manifold and EGR pipe....it caught fire when customer drove home. He was fired.