80LS1T Posted December 18, 2005 Share Posted December 18, 2005 I might be changing jobs due to the fact that my current employeer is screwing with my paychecks/hours. Basically rather than paying me booked hours(I'm flat rate) he will pay me most of my booked hours and then "bank" the rest incase I have a slow week(less than 80 hours for 2 weeks). Not to mention my new service writer is a complete moron who can't call customers back to get oks for work or upsell crap! I absolutly love the other techs that I work with, well about 80% of them anyway but I need to make money too and I dont feel like Im being treated with the respect that I deserve and have earned. I am one of the highest producing techs in the shop with a very low "comeback" rate. I dont dick around like some of the other guys do. I dont do tranny work yet but I am starting to with some help from the older techs who do trannys. Basically I think I should be making more like $16-17 per hour rather than the $13.50 Im getting paid. I pick up the slack on my team because 2 of the guys on my team are not flat rate and really dont think that they should have to do more than say 30-35 hours per week were as Im booking 40-50 hours per week. The one guy is absolutly crazy in every sense and really shouldnt be fixing cars and the other guy is just plane a "stroker"(basically if a job pays 2.0 hours it will take him atleast 2.0 hours if not more even though I know he could do it in less time). He just doesnt care because he knows his check will have his guaranteed 45 hours on it and hes happy with that. Now my old service writer left about a month ago and is working at a Mazda/Hyundai/Mistubishi dealership. He's the Mazda service writer. My old service manager also works there and is now the general manager of service for the 6 car lines(Nissan, Audi, and VW are also part of this dealership but are in different buildings) and he also wants me to come over there. I just visited the dealership today and was told that I would be working on Mazda and Hyundai. I have never really liked working on Imports just because of the crappy wiring diagrams(IMHO). I havent had very good luck with Mitsubishi stuff but I wouldnt be working on them much if at all. I guess what Im looking for is some info on what does warrenty pay, what kind of tech support is there, hows the training programs do they have, and whats the typical pay for a guy with 3 years of experiece, 4 ASE's(other 4 in spring), and good productivity? Thanks, Guy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randy 77zt Posted December 20, 2005 Share Posted December 20, 2005 whats journeyman pay back there?i work at a ford dealer in central ca.its union-not flat rate.i quit the flat rate dealer when they reduced times on alot of work.union scale is $23.75/hour.but a cheap house is $350,000 and everything is expensive.and its a traffic jam all the time .if you can get out of the car repair business do it.its a dead end job.the way that work is dispatched in a dealership can kill you financially.working on cars for a living has killed it as a hobby for me.mazda should be easy after awhile though.hyundai is just left over mitsubishi parts .i would take a cut in pay to get out of being an auto tech.i get to spend 2 days laying on my stomach working on a ford 6.0 diesel this week.if it was flat rate i would be working 1 day for free.i could make more money delivering pizza. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrandonsZ Posted December 20, 2005 Share Posted December 20, 2005 Is that legal? Not paying you because you worked more than 80 hours in two weeks? I think you could sue successfully. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
80LS1T Posted December 21, 2005 Author Share Posted December 21, 2005 I was given this as an excuse..... We go off two basic pay scales for customers....1 is GRID($84.95/hour) and the other is MAINTANCE($55.00/hour). Grid is your normal stuff like engine work, tranny work, diagnosics, etc. Maintance is just that, stuff like brakes, belts, tires, flushes, etc. So what he (my service manager) has been doing is taking my stuff booked at GRID and turning it into Maintance. So for ever hour that I book at Grid he turns it into 1.54 hours(84.95/55= 1.54). The customer doesnt know the difference but I get more hours for the same amount of work. So when I booked 110 hours (2 weeks) for my pay period I only got paid 88 hous because thats all I was there. He figured that was good. I told him that was BS. I told him there was no way that he "helped" be with 22 hours by switching the pay type over. He said it was probably more. Well I made him check and he only helped with 10 hours. So what he did was "bank" those 22 hours for weeks when Im slow. Like this pay period Im only going to book 73 hours for an 80 hour pay period. So he will take those "banked" hours and put them on this check so that I have 80 hours for an 80 hour period. The only reason hes doing this is because the front office is only looking at hours per repair order and not dollars per hour. So when he switchs the pay type it makes it look like we are a lot busier than we really are, so he looks good. Which Im fine with just as long as I get paid. I just think (and most of the guys I work with) that I should get paid more because I am picking up the slack for the guys that choose to work slow because they are hourly. Even though they say there are flat rate, no one believes it though because they work that slow! I will be talking with the Mazda dealership about pay and if its a good enough offer I will have to seriously consider it. I really dont want to work on Imports though. Although I really wouldnt mind driving one of those RX8's! Guy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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