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RE: To all the Shops in DMV Seeking Good Technicians (Poorville)

compensation: Will review after 90 days

To all the Automotive shops in the DMV area looking for good technicians

I have a few questions:

1) If your shop is so good and the pay so high why did the last guy leave?
2) Perhaps because you cut his pay or rate recently to increase your bottom line?
3) Required them to write their own tickets so you could eliminate the service writers and make even more money?
4) Kept adding techs until you starved the good ones out?
5) Created a floating pay period but kept the pay dates the same?
6) Insisted on using ***** parts from ***** parts suppliers where the new part is of poorer quality than the broken original part?
7) Instituted longer opening hours including Saturday's and Sunday's but no plan to support it?
8) Have the beginner guys do the gravy work while the top guy struggles with complex work?
9) Pay a low rate initially but promise a high hourly rate after "some adjustment period" (which never arrives)
10) Not pay your tech on the ticket until the car is picked up?
11) Make the tech hash it out with the parts supplier for labor reimbursement (because you won't pay) when the ***** part they just installed fails? (Reference number 6)
12) My favorite: Tell the tech to hurry because the car has to be done by 4:00pm? (Then he sees it parking lot the next morning because the customer didn't really need it by then)

The 'System' is broken people. Good shops got their past reputation largely from the good techs working there. Good Technicians got shafted in recent years with the economic downturn.

Can't find a good a Technician for your shop? That's probably because most of the good ones left the business in droves for better opportunities in other skilled trades. When the guy driving the trash truck makes more than I do and has better benefits, well. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . ..

It's time to bring your shop into the modern world folks. Pay them a competitive hourly (that's clock hours) wage with benefits. Good people make you money. Loosing good people and having high employee turn-over rates for the above reasons costs you more than you know.

The flat rate system was instituted in a time when Ford Model A's were new. Last I checked there have been several model changes since then. The system barely worked 15 years ago and it sure does anything but favor today's skilled Technician.

Shops - Get with it and fix it!

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do NOT contact us with unsolicited services or offers

Seems easy enough to fix...why don't any of these "good" tech's start their own place?

Because thats only a fix for the few who are in a financial position to open said shop, along with the drive and business sense to do so. Not everybody is cut to be an owner/operator. I thought there were valid points in the ad.

8) Have the beginner guys do the gravy work while the top guy struggles with complex work?




strikes me that the experienced guys should be doing the complicated stuff and the new guys the oils changes.

Shops tell the customer that they have their 'top' guy working on their car........... that's why the hourly rate is $100/hr. Meanwhile the easy work goes to some kid who earns $15 hr with little experience and skill.

Dude is a whiner too busy running diagnostics on his man tool. Just like most of the techs I used to work with. Cry me a river bro.

Dude could rent 1 bay in a shop and start on his own for very little money but there is a reason not many people do that. Because it's hard and it's easier to cry like a girl.

Maybe because they want to be auto techs, not businessmen?

every ad I see is for master level guys with tons of certs
nothing for apprentice or journeyman levels
where do they think the masters come from?

This is how it was when I worked for GM. I would get "map lights out" on a damn Allante which would take four hours to diagnose (and pay 1) and the senior guy next to me get all of the 4.9l water pumps that we could crank out under book time.

When I was first starting out all they gave me was clutch jobs. Dude I worked for was a mr. Clutch franchise. The old fellas got all the fun stuff. I have done a LOT of clutches man. Anyways, I'm out of that line of work now.

I worked my way into a tech position, but that wasn't my intention. I was in college and had a friend who worked at an AC shop. They did it all, rebuilds, custom ac work, electrical, hoses, etc... I went up there on a Saturday with the intention of replacing a shaft seal and recharge on the 944. The shaft seal was a snap, but we couldn't get the compressor to engage. Their electrical guru was out, so I had to come back another day. After he jacked with it for several hours a few days later, he gave up, told me I owed nothing and good luck. In the hopes someone could help, I became a regular shop monkey on days when I had no classes. They let me tinker with my stuff with their tools and supplies, probably in hopes that I would leave for good when I finally gave up. However, when I figured out what was wrong and fixed the circuit board, my buddy began asking if I was going/coming to the shop almost daily. After that I worked when time allowed.

They had me do most of the diagnostic work initially, then threw me fully into the fire. Next thing I know I'm building hoses, rebuilding compressors, yanking dashes and doing custom ac work. Towards the end of my stint I was primarily dealing with BMW, Porsche and BMW's that came in. Those 3 years were pretty cool, and not bad money for a college kid who had no intention of working at all.

The worst part of flat rate is dealing with other techs for the easy jobs. Thank God those days are over for me.

How about shop fleet work? With a maximum of 10 different types of equipment?
Dumb dumb work.
When you get into the flow it's like clockwork. Bang bang done. Go home proud.

But:
-Management sitting in office and not to be bothered at all cost.
-No shop manuals.
-No parts literature or contact info. Those guys will usually know what is what.
-No specialized tools...such as that special foot-long curved wrench for holding the flywheel of xxx at exactly x degrees.
-Driver is waiting to get on the road with $100K in freight. Need a fix now? Make it yourself, or buy a one-use $150 tool from snap-on (if they even have it).

True, but sometimes it works out. We had cars, trucks, vans, patrol cruisers, big rigs, dual ac systems, etc.. stacked 21 deep at times. We didn't have much time to care who got what, and we all got paid the same hourly on book time for most ordinary jobs.

One tech I worked with didn't like Euro cars, I thought they were gravy, I hated police cruisers, he loved it. Seriously, every cruiser that came in seemed to be an evap job, and the whole dash and all the other crap along with it had to come out. Nightmare in mine eyes, you lose 2 days and hurt like hell afterwards.

I vividly remember two Ford Tauruses of the same year come in one day, he got one, I got the other. Identical failures. Book was 5 hours per vehicle. Knowing what each needed, we used one tool tray and worked together, alternating roles from one vehicle to the other. We both had seen plenty of them that summer and had them down to well under book as it were. Usually we didn't wait on parts as they were normally in stock, but we had to wait on one accumulator. So we took an hour lunch, and still knocked them out 4 hours after they came in.

We worked well together through and through. He taught me Spanish, I taught him English. Win win all around.

Makes me glad there's only three people under my roof... and one of them couldn't even change a tire if she tried. :D

Every mechanic that I know has either left the profession or is discussing it.