Advice for a starting mechanic.

[savageskaterkid]

I have been going to school to become an automotive technician for a little over a semester now, and I've been thinking a little bit. School actually got me a job working for an RV dealership where I was hired as a technician. Well, about a week after I got hired, the service manager decided to go back to selling RVs, this is where he originally was. When I came to work the next week, the new manager had the idea that the dealership needed a parts runner, so thats my job. Its been almost three months and I still haven't gotten to do any tech work, which is what I need-I've tried talking to the manager about it, and he always says we'll see what happens. I WAS hired as a tech, thats what I need to do, he doesn't think I'm getting cheated cause I'm still making pretty good money doing it, but I am being cheated out of the experiance. 1 year of school counts as 1 year of experiance in the field. I need 2 years experiance for each ASE, and I'll be lucky to have 1 year for each ASE depending on if its a 1 or 2 semester class. On top of all this, I just relized that even if I had years of experiance on RVs I couldn't go for my ASE certifications. Bottom line, I'm gonna quit, I'm not getting what I need out of this job-the money is there, but not the experiance.

 

My plan is to try and fill out an application at Nissan tommorrow, possibly toyota and honda too. The local college has a good reputation for having quality teaching and such, and alot of people attending get jobs as techs at dealerships in there first year. Although it wouldn't be a great paying job, as a starting technician, atleast I'll be getting the experiance I need. Each local Chevy dealership offers a sponcership program for one student. The local chevy dealership doesn't have a student yet, so I may apply. Altough loving Chevys I would rather stay away from the Chevy dealership, I believe more money is to be made in the import market. I'm not sweating finding a new job, as I will not put in my 2 weeks notice untill I have another job already.

 

The thing I'm sweating is the tools, I have a limited amount of tools. Most of my tools are poor quality and falling apart and I wouldn't even bring them to work. The only good quality tools that I have is the Husky full socket set I got for xmas, and a few little things like a creeper and ramps and such. I have nowhere close to a complete set. My question is, what would you do? Do alot of dealerships have a tool credit program, where you buy and they subtract it from your pay? My friend has that through his macinest job. My school also has a Snap-On tool program where I can get Snap-On stuff fairly resonably priced.

 

They do this on a tool-credit program, and you can get alot of the stuff at around 50% off. Now I can only do this 3 times, with a max of 8500 dollars, and this is only while I'm in school. So I'm not really looking into spending 200 dollars a time, but more like 2000 at a time. Would this be a good idea?

 

For all you mechanics out there, and even DIY guys(which just about all of you are) WHAT WOULD YOU DO IN MY POSITION?

[gsr355]

my experience is limited, but i was in the same situation you are currently in. while going to tech school, i was working for an independent mercedes repair shop. at the time, my school had multiple tool programs with snap on and matco, both offering tools at 50% of retail (up a certain amount of course). they also allowed students to buy tools on credit, but i think the interest rate was close to 24%. i ended up maxing out my allowable tool purchases with snap on and some with matco. having your own tools gives you good bargaining power when looking for an entry level tech position. most employers require their techs have their own tools. also, most tool trucks will carry your debt from the tools you purchase off their truck interest free, you'll just have to make weekly payments. regardless, tools are a must in this trade, so buy as much as you can at your school's discounted price. another thing is always buy snap on if you can afford it, their hand tools are just far better than their competitors. i found myself re-buying snap on tools to replace the matco tools that i bought previously. good luck

[randy 77zt]

advice from laid off 20+ year journeyman ford tech-get out of this trade while your young.it makes a fun hobby -but you will find that the dealership service managers have found many ways to rape you with the flat rate pay system.get a mitchell time manual and study it for awhile.most warrenty times will pay 1/2 to 2/3 of mitchell time.the trade schools say you will make big bucks -but they dont explain flat rate pay system.when you get to be 40+ years old and you are broke ,have hand and back problems and your other buddies are making over $100k a year you will wonder what happened.i was working at a union shop getting $24 an hour straight time-but of cousre the dealership owner wants to bust the union.when the tech next to me had 40 hours changing head gaskits on crappy 6.0 diesel pick-up and warrrenty clerk comes out to the shop and tells the tech fords only paying 18 hours tthe shop had to eat it because it was a union shop-in a flat rate shop you would have worked 22 hours for FREE

[hoov100]

im glad i work for the SO.CO. gas company and do the mechanical part of my life at home. its a good thing i didnt go to work for a damn illegal hiring dealership

[kuntry]

One of the biggest mistakes you can buy is go head over heels on the tool truck and get into ton of debt with them. Ive seen several new mechanics do this and when they cant make the payments, they get their tools taken back. Ive done it myself, not realizing that in the beginning, the money wont be that great. Just this past year I finally bought a box off of a truck, and only because I was trying to rebuild my credit. Sears sells some great tool kits with most of what youll need. When I got back into wrenching, I spent about 1800 and had all the basics covered, including a box thats now in my garage at home. They have a kit with like 350 pieces for somewhere around 300 bucks. Get a couple sets of duplicate wrenches (a set of combo standard and metric), a few good air tools (I prefer IR), some impact sockets and a few other odds and ends and your set to start. Of course youll have to hit the tool trucks for the specialty stuff, theres no choice about that. Later on, once the money is rolling in, you can slowly start replacing your tools with the fancy ones, at least you can spread it out over the years and take such a big bite all at once. IMO, craftsman is just as good as the tool trucks. YES I own snap on and matco tools. But I do my best to stay away from them because I feel like they are overpriced. I would rather spend money on parts for my cars than on name brand tools to fix them.

 

Now, one other thing you might want to look at. I started working on cars in high school and went to a dealership after I got out. Ive worked at several auto dealerships and shops and made decent money. I got tired of working on cars all the time and my toys suffered. I made the switch to diesel mechanics at a Pete dealership and havent looked back. I still love to work on my cars, and the money is TWICE what I ever made working on cars. Just something to think about.... cars are my passion, but working on them all day kinda ruins it for me on the weekends.

[dr_hunt]

Tools, damned expensive, I hate to think of what I have in my shop, but probably around $50K in tools all together. There's nothing wrong with Craftsman, don't by into the Matco, Snap-on, Mac hype. Also look closely at S-K tools!!!

 

IMO the real money is in RV's and Diesels and the combination of both. First off your dealing with customers that have money. Second the jobs take alot of time. Troubleshooting electrical, lights, A/C, plumbing, water tanks, grey water, black water, axles, bearings, etc. etc. Not to mention the new diesel pushers and the service that goes with those and the diesel gensets. If you want to make some $$$ look for a small shop with an owner you like that does towing and repair or do your own down the road, places like small RV parks. People (RV'ers) are more likely to have you fix it than tow it or drive it many miles to a dealership. And they pay in cash or travelers checks. Work as a 50%'er, I was able to pull down over 1K per week at the place I worked at driving semi-tow trucks and fixing RV's.

 

One time I towed in a new RV that the DOT stopped for leaking water on the road. It was a leak under the sink area that was running down through a hole in the floor onto the highway. $400 tow bill and $50 repair where the factory had forgotton to hook up a drain pipe to the tank!!! The owner was PO'd, but I got a $200 tip, just for being nice and fixing it right away so he didn't have to get towed another 150 miles to an authorized repair facility!

 

In the end I worked at an RV place, building engines, trannies and rears full time for a race team that had IMCA modifieds, Late Models and Sprint cars. All for Free! That's right, worked there for 2 years for nothing, but since I had other income, it wasn't a big deal. But I could have worked during the day at the RV place and I did help the mechanics all the time when they needed and extra pair of hands. I learned alot about RV's and that there is no flat rate for A/C electrical and troubleshooting!!!!!

[savageskaterkid]

I guess you would say my major is automotive technologies, but I am also taking classes in diesel and welding, and hope to have associates degrees in all three at some point. The RV dealership I work at doesn't do chassis work, which is what I need, and most of the RV places around me outsource to trucking companies to do the engine, trans, brakes and such. If I have to pay back my loans at some point, and am in school for it, I may as well be working towards my ASEs. That being said, I may goto a diesel shop, and work towards that experiance for school. I have heard good things about joining the diesel-union, but haven't really been able to find a place in my area or website to start at.

[grumpyvette]

having worked for about 16 months at a chevy dealership, and 39 years plus building race engines in my own small business, MY advice would be to get back into school as an automotive systems COMPUTER & SOFTWARE TECHNICIAN.

take buisiness management and accounting classes, develope sales skills

YOULL NEVER make a decent wage as a line mechanic , as a hobby its fine but youll never make great money as a guy turning wrenchs

look the truth here is that you get PAID in EXACTLY the relation to how hard you are to replace with someone else, the more you know and the greater your skill set the higher your pay will be simply because its DIFFICULT to replace you.

doctors , skilled technitions and good salesmen are hard to find because it takes time and effort to train them and experiance to hone the skills

it takes ALOT less time to train someone to assemble and disassemble car components than it does to train a tech.to CORRECTLY use advanced computerized diagnostic equipment, then save a high percentage of your money, make alot of industry contacts/connections and develope skills, as soon as you can OPEN your own shop, higher a few young HONEST techs and you can make an excellent living in a custom shop, building and tunning performance cars if thats your goal, but youll never make good bucks working for a dealership

you only get paid to the level where you can be easily replaced, if you own and run the shop, you take a big finacial risk but if you do it correctly and develope a reputation for honest skilled work at a fair price your finacial rewards are only limited by your abiility to sell the skill set and marketing and the number of sites that you set up to do that work.

look as a mechanic you might make $25 an hour, as a business owner you could easily make many times that amount

[rossta]

While my knowledge is limited, i do have some to share. I've worked in a very reputable independent shop for going on 4 years now (summers and holidays for the last 2, college). Payed $20 an hour flat rate as an 18 year old kid is very nice, even if i was only turning 30 some hours a week. THe money is not with the dealerships, it is with a good trustworthy well known independent shop. As for tools, i do own some matco and snap on, but i also own craftsman and i have found them to be just fine for what i need. Any tool the takes a beating day in and day out buy the snap on, but if you use is once a month don't spend the money on snap on or one of the other big 3. THat all said, i enjoyed cars much more as a hobby than a job, its hard to work a 10 hour day on other peoples cars then go home and want to work on your own project, it just doesn't happen. So i've decided to do something better, Im 20 now and im a junior at wvu studying Mechanical engineering. I would really listen to some of the older fellows adive on here, If your dead set on a being a field technician, RVS and Diesels seem to the be the way to go.......

[wheelman]

I have to echo the basic statement that it's a bad idea to think you can make a hobby your job and still enjoy the hobby. I'm not a mechanic and I'm glad I didn't become one when I seriously contemplated it. Instead I pursued my other hobby (computer programming) as a career. I make very good money as an embedded software developer but I refuse to work on software projects on MY time anymore. I spend all day solving puzzles and making things work so when I get home it's the last thing I want to do. I've considered doing some work on the MegaSquirt project but can't motivate myself to do it, I'd much rather be in the garage turning wrenches, welding, grinding or even sanding. I know based on this experience that if I'd pursued a career as a mechanic I'd avoid working on my cars on MY time.

 

Having made that statement I also want to strongly encourage anyone contemplating a career as a mechanic to listen to what Grumpy had to say. The real money in pretty much any career is in being the boss and for mechanics that means owning your own shop and making sure you provide the highest possible quality of service. Once the reputation of the shop is established and you're successful you'll have opportunities to enjoy the automotive industry in ways no others can.

 

Wheelman

[MONGO510]

Savage, Grumpy is correct. I wrenched for 30 years in all kinds of shops. I was never really happy unless I was working for myself. Get some experiance, do good work for a fair price, and you will have more work than you ever want to do. My biggest beef with some of the other mechanics I have known, is that they would not own up to there screw ups. They would make up an excuse and charge you again.

I for one, on many occasion would go tell the foreman that I just F'ED something up and then I would fix it on my dime. They may not like it, but they, and the customer will respect you. You will have made a customer for life and he will send all his friends.

Be fair and honest and you can do very well.

Don't fall into the trap of buying everything off the tool trucks. Sears is ok and has the same warranty. I have 40-50k of tools in my garage that are now worth pennys on the dollar. After 30 years I would be lucky to get 5K for them. Buy someones used tools. You will save a ton of money.

Since I retired a few years ago, it has again become fun to work on my toys.

[Guest Mike]

Be aware that Sears is not supplying a lifetime warranty on ALL their hand tools anymore AND they can refuse to replace ANY broken tools if the manager believes too much force was used. At least that's what's happening here in the San Antonio, TX area.

[savageskaterkid]

Having made that statement I also want to strongly encourage anyone contemplating a career as a mechanic to listen to what Grumpy had to say. The real money in pretty much any career is in being the boss and for mechanics that means owning your own shop and making sure you provide the highest possible quality of service. Once the reputation of the shop is established and you're successful you'll have opportunities to enjoy the automotive industry in ways no others can.

 

Wheelman

 

To be honest with you guys, that was my basic goal. Not to fix cars, but to build street rods, mostly old style hot-rods, but with imports becomming more popular-I guess to be profitable I'd have to work on those too. What I really need is experiance and some money to start with. Because without extablished credit and such, I highly doubt that I could even get a buisness loan. There are a few guys around the area that I know of, that are really good at this kind of stuff, but they're only doing it as a side-job because theres really no performance orianted shops around here anymore, other then RPM which is too overpriced and are too full of themselves.

 

I want to open up a place for everything from muscle cars to your fart canned honda, anything and everything, but quality will be number one.

 

How could I get myself into this without established credit? I already know of a place where I can setup shop, it may even have lifts still installed. It was an old performance shop around the area, they just weren't making the money they wanted and closed down.

[Moridin]

My only advice I can give is to get quality tools you can afford. Yes, Snap-On stuff is somewhat nicer than Craftsman, but not for the money. I would only buy Snap-On if I was going to be working somewhere where a Snap-On truck would be coming by on at least a weekly basis. The same goes for Matco, MAC, etc...

 

If not, I would get a majority of S&K and Craftsman. The other one to look at for hand tools is Husky. They have some very nice ratchets.

[savageskaterkid]

I acually just got a husky socket set for xmas, and they're really nice quality.

[mikeatrpi]

I have to echo the basic statement that it's a bad idea to think you can make a hobby your job and still enjoy the hobby.

 

Ditto. I turned my hobby of computers into my career. When I get home at night the last thing I want to do is fiddle with a computer. I go to the garage for relaxation and for a different kind of puzzle.

[savageskaterkid]

What would be the best way of starting my own buisness then? I know pretty much what I want upto the minor details, I just don't know the best way of going with this idea giving my age and such.

[Guest Mike]

I agree about the JOB/HOBBY thing. How many people can say, "I truly love my job and, if I didn't need the money, I would do it for free."

[80LS1T]

I have been a tech for the last 4+ years. I first worked on Dodges and I am now working on Nisssan's. What I can tell you is that if you want to come home happy every night DONT GO FLAT RATE! I have been flate rate for atlest 3.5 years of the 4+ years and I can tell you it's extremely stress full worrying about if your going to make your 8 hours for the day. When you go home with only 6 hours but you were at work for 8 hours it really sucks because now you have to makeup that 2 hours some other day in the same pay period.

 

However, if you want to make money on flat rate you have to buy tools. Not just your standard hand tools either. Lots of air tools and specialty tools that will make doing jobs much faster.

 

When I worked for Dodge I "booked" about 35 hours per week out of 40. Now that I work for Nissan I book 50 hours per week(atleast if not more) out of 40 hours. Nissan's warrenty pay is pretty close to customer pay time most of the time. Dodge on the other hand is about 1/2 of customer pay time. That is what I would look at when choosing what type of car to fix, don't pick a line of cars because you like them that doesn't pay the bills!

 

Guy

[jap tin]

You can marry more in 5 minutes than you can make in a lifetime. She doesn't have to be pretty, better if she isn't. Her Daddy will be so gratefull that someone would marry her that your working days will be over. Best bet is a only child, not really pretty, with a very rich Daddy. Screw working as a mechanic for a living, marry the only child of a rich man and knock her up as fast as you can, then you have grandchildren for the rich Daddy.