Why Can't YOUR Shops Find Good Techs????
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I’m pretty much retired work northern remote sites in Canada for years. Had to work on everything from small engine to d10 dozers. I stuck around at home since 2020. I got yelled at buy the owner of the fleet I work for. Found low oil pressure bad lifters and solenoids in a14 Silverado. That’s after I fixed put plugs 3 coils and fixed 7 broken plugs to the coil packs. Turns out it was my fault for finding the engine damage and low oil pressure problem. I was told a good mechanic wouldn’t need parts lol. I was told they were going to use it like it was because it runs now and I don’t know anything. This morning they were shocked when I showed up with my trailer and loaded my box.
Well done! This is the way, let those bastards go under.
I keep hearing this “find good techs” rhetoric as if they’re just wondering around lost in the job market. The truth is there’s none left looking for employment. Thats what happens when an industry suppresses wages for 30 yrs. Those that have stuck it out are reaching the end of their careers, and those that got tired of pinballing around town looking for decent employment have moved on. The only way any shop is going to get good techs these days is by making them. To do that shops are going to have to offer above average compensation and benefits. It’s simple math. Nobody is going to spend $5k-$10k on tools and $30k on school to land a back breaking job in a sweatshop for $32k a yr. When other trades and even semiskilled jobs are offering better compensation/benefits and a much lower cost of entry. Shop owners are going to need to invest back into their business instead of buying a new Harley and boat every yr, or go under. Which is a good thing and should help weed out the bad shops in this completely over saturated market.
This x10000. I used to be full time mech tech, 25$ hour flat rate is a joke. Im almost 40 years and i started having back pain and arthritis in my wrist and arms. I transitioned from flat rate mech to salary body tech, doing quarter panels etc and light suspension mechanical, I make more now then i did at a Benz shop being the only mechanic..I still do my own mech work etc. Any young techs DO NOT go into auto repair unless you are owing your own shop!! not worth the headache and expense!!
Yup. Owners don’t want to invest in anything that doesn’t make them money right then and there. Also we have techs that want more money, more experience but won’t invest in their career. Won’t buy tools, won’t do training
@@foodskewed9197 true there’s always going to be techs that aren’t ambitious, but the market would work them out if it was competitive enough. Same as all trades with automotive being by far the worst, most of these companies screaming they can’t find help are offering 2004 wages in 2024. It’s a different world now things are more expensive, there’s a lot more career opportunities, and the labor pool is shrinking. Yet I still see shops / trades advertising for help and offering $16-$25 an hr. Who’s going to take a sweaty job being bent over the hood of a vehicle, or crawling around under a house cutting out 💩pipes when office and retail jobs are offering the same if not better wages/benefits plus more comfortable working conditions? Skilled tradespeople are a rare commodity now, and the businesses that depend on them are going to have to follow the laws of supply and demand.
Sir that is the best I've heard it stated.
This ☝️ It's the same in the forklift world with forklift techs. The handful of good techs either have good gigs that they are not willing to leave or they've left employment and started working for themselves. People have left the industry in droves, mainly through retirement. Very few new have entered the last 20 years.
any shop that says "fast paced environment" but doesn't offer top pay can just shut their doors. too many shops trying to save 2 bucks an hour labour. 16 dollars a day gonna close your doors? i aint interested.
I like seeing "competive pay" then them listing 15-20k less than I made last year as their tippy top pay.
The grass is not much greener in many technical fields. It’s hard to work for other people period. Any technical skill should start @ $25/hr
When I was interviewing a shop I wanted to be paid 20$ a hour which I thought was fair they said the most they could do was 17 a hour. Then I asked the regional manager what he could do for me. They said 20$ was for the experienced technicians and then they wanted to put me on flat rate. I left the industry and now I make twice as much doing 3 times as less work.
So glad to be out of that crazy business 😢
You got out? What are you doing now? I'm a C tech and are considering doing something else
@@user-rr7je8iw3bI recommend diesel or going to forklifts.
Same here
I got out of retail repair and now work for a large auction dealing with commercial accounts only. I make more money, have better health benefits, and more PTO than I ever did at any retail repair facility. No way in hell I'd ever go back to that nonsense.
What they should do is have the department of transportation inspect every shop , and if the shop does bad work and the result is a car accident or a death the shop should be held responsible
Pay pay and more pay, if you’re charging 160 tech should be making 60 plus an hour
22-25 percent of the door is the only way shops stay profitable
@@kylepowell4906not really if the owner is debt free including owning the building you can do 50% ive saved up enough that i can build my shop by 2026 debt free already got 2 guys ready to go at 50$ a hour
Dealerships in my area charge $190/hour for service. Tech pay?
My dealer charges $350/hr no tech makes more then 50/hr flate rate
That's not how it works, each state has different types of taxes on payroll. Some states like Oregon have very high payroll taxes. The tech has to be able to diagnose and do quality repairs for that type of money too and those types of techs are far and few between. Every shop has different fixed cost that can very greatly..
I am at a dealer. In the last few weeks we have had a road tech of 10+yrs, Foreman of 8+yrs and a lead tech of 8+ yrs leave without notice. Our problem is management, pay and benefits. Will be interesting to see what happens this week as we were already buried in work and because of the restrictions when work was assigned and the lack of available resources and tools/equipment those of us remaining are not going to be beat book times. We have issues with parts as well so when we request/quote what is needed for a ticket we either get the wrong stuff or will miss stuff for basic/common/repetitive repairs that they know needs this gasket or bolt that we may not have remembered because we are still learning. Shop will probably be empty soon and the fault is from above. Telling us no more snap on truck, can't wear anything unless it has their logo, if we take a break we deprive the customer so let's go go go, no more mini fridges at our bay/box, no music and if we are on lunch and a customer comes or there is a issue we have to get up and assist none of this were on lunch nonsense. Shame as aside from the small building and lack of space it was not a bad place
writing is on the wall then, find a new shop! Sorry you have experience such horrible management!
Sounds like you need to report them to your states labor board
This sounds like they want you all to quit than to terminate you all due to having to pay for unemployment.
Why haven’t you left already?
Wow those are signs its time to lube up the tool box wheels , they are an employer not your master
Most shops still using pay scale from 2000 yet the labor rate for the consumer has doubled. So the money is there but most businesses use the profits for other investments , like property or other businesses. Heck if they pay 19% of the shop rate to there techs they would have applicants for a 100 yards. Some shops (few) actually hire you and supply you with ALL the tools & tool box.
it's 33-40% my friend.
@@PonkyKong hell most shops pay 12% of the labor rate they charge
@@sonofmontezuma3732 that's insane...
@@sonofmontezuma3732yep and they wonder why they can't keep them around
@@PonkyKong these parts shop rate is $200.00 an hour in most shops. Tech pay ? 21/30 flate rate but wait they charge min 2hours but you only get 1 hour to read fault and diag!! SMH
ive been looking for a job for months now with over 20 years of diag experience 50k worth of tools i cant find one good shop im willing to work for cause i do good work and bust my ass and im not willing to work for 30 dollars i have friends that are 4 years into hvac and make 40 so why would i bring my 50k of tools to make jack crap. pay what we are worth or just shut up. where i live wages should be 100k-150k
I'll definitely agree that the majority of techs are parts hangers and are terrible at that job.
True. But the huge number of makes and models of cars, built all over the world, with every manufacturer building things their way, plus constantly changing technology (and required tools and software) and models to gain an edge on the competition, make auto repair one of the most difficult trades out there. Cars, which has evolved into a show off/luxury item for so many consumers, are overly complex and require far too many tools. Most trades don't have this problem. Shops and techs need to specialize and get good at a few brands rather than taking in any car offered.
@@paulsmith5611don't forget the engineer's design the engine compartment, like they are putting 10 pounds of shit in 5 pound bag
That sounds about right
The auto biz is a really really hard biz to make money in, I saw alot of tish as a car detailer at a Chevy dealer in 1993. I eventually got fired, thank god! If I know now what I don’t know then I’d punish them for firing me, move to Japanese autos and never buy a GM product again.
Im starting a new shop in a new building in a small town in South dakota. I was able to ut the shop in my back yard my property is 5 acres The The shop is insulated and heated floors and air conditioning. I have a new snap on tools, tire machine, and tire balancer. It's a tire shop and a driveability shop. Im not hiring anyone now but might be down the road. It's a 40 by 60 foot building. Love the 12,000-pound challenger lift I got. The niebhorhood is all gravel country roads. The paved highway is 7 miles from me people get flat tires all the time out here.
auto-mechanical technician is a very poorly paid job you double or triple your income in the construction area, easily.
I love my job and my shop, I’m just a diesel fleet maintenance mechanic. My boss in my shop is cool and “gets it” he’s been on this job sense the late 80’s the problem is not my co workers and boss it’s the bosses above my boss from other departments They have NO clue and constantly take the drivers side even when they’re clearly wrong. having a coolant leak and know about it ? Let’s just leave it in service and go home”because it’s Friday” had a driver go up over a cut on to grass and ran over a rock (big ol rock… destroyed the bumper and the R-12 valve behind the bumper and punched a big ol foot ball sized hole in the oil pan. Hazmat and a recker had to be called between the tow, hazmat/eco, materials and labor for the repair he should be fired This isn’t his first time causing damage He took a 48’ trailer with a lift gate on it never put the lift gate all the way up when he folded it in jumped a curb and the liftgate caught the curb and pulled on it destroying both rails on the lift gate and the bottom plate Again should of been fired but again my point is my shop is cool but the bosses in transportation that technically are one step above fleet bosses are the problem
My previous captive shop I worked in had alot of this and then some. Never unhooked air lines=replaced about 3 sets a day plus one way check valves on the service line. Doing a yard check and come across a tractor missing front bumper and headlight assembly with no write up=get told it just fell out going over a train track. Jumped a concrete barrier on a highway with 39k in the trailer=replaced both axles on the brand new trailer which was only in service for 2 weeks. Half the drivers at one point for weeks were just rent a wrecks=Temps. Weekly to monthly meetings about damage charges. Would show pictures and if there was a write up would show it vs the trucks condition and ask that he make sense of it for me if the complaint is that it is not the driver. Had a driver leave with the low fuel warning light and alarm on but didn't care. Was in a angle dock so the tractor nose is raised. Truck coughed and turned off. He kept cranking it despite being told not to and got air in fuel system=Mack MP8 diesel engine. Said he put $20 in the tank to shut the warning off but it didn't work. Cranked till he killed batteries. Well that was one of the easiest 5hr road calls to go and release the trailer, pull him level, purge fuel system, fire it and escort to truck stop to fill tanks because he refused to pump hid own fuel. Missed my boss there as I just had one and he would stand up for me every week to his managers that I was aware and handling anything that came up. But please tell any tech how we just do not want tomorrow and so on. Sorry to rant
@@djpie2138 dude the Rant is fine!! Sounds like job Garage is 90% (there’s a knuckle head mechanic in the garage) but ultimately the garage is a cool roster of people to work with as well as my boss .. Too many times we have drivers write up stupid shit and stress about it and run upstairs and bitch to transportation on how they wrote it up and no one fixed it (100 truck drivers in our fleet with 6 mechanics lol do the math and not all 100 drivers have their own truck a small chunk share trucks … shuttle driver at night and delivery driver during the day) about 70 ish freightliners hand full of dollys and the rest are trailers 28’-53’ refrigeration trailers some lift gates some regular) my rant is drivers whine whine whine WHINE about one little marker light out or a license plate light out or because their delivery drivers they complain about the inside lights of the trailer (which I get in the morning it’s dark ) also mind you I understand that a light that is out is a DOT ticket but it’s not the end of the world and it’s a “fix it ticket” NOT a shit down and wait for repair on site at the dot inspection. These same drivers cry oh I don’t wanna break down because my engine light…dude it’s nothing big you’ll be fine for a few more days till we get time to bring it it. (Various DEF/SCR codes) Or my truck pulls a little okay that sucks we’ll get to it soon as other more pressing stuff is taken care of BUT YET WHEN A WHEEL SEAL IS SO FUCKING BLOWN ITS RUNNING DOWN THE ROTOR AND THE TIRE FLINGS IT ALL AROUND we don’t notice that do we ?!??? We tell transportation about it and they’ll “coach them” and they constantly miss the wheel seals or they’ll tell us oh they don’t know they’re not mechanics Dude you got your CDL RIGHT ?? You know that’s on the test LOL (that’s me to management) Or how many times if found tires (mainly steers) down to and showing a fair amount of cords… nothing no response but yet we don’t fix on small small marker light they run upstairs and whine and then they come down and talk to my boss and they want them to move heaven and earth for one little marker light but that same driver misses cords sticking out of a steer tire NOTHING!!! my favorite is I was pulling a radiator out of a 2018 cascadia drive comes up Hey my license plate light is out. Mind you I just hooked the chain hoist to the radiator and I just started to lift it out. I look at him and said oh okay yeah little busy but I’ll get it tomorrow He looks at me and says “but it’s a safety issue” I looked at him and was like safety ?? Does that light kill some one of its not working or does unadjusted brakes kill some one … “Well it’s part of the inspection” I said you pull me off this radiator for a light I’m going to give your truck and trailers and dolly a full DOT inspection NOT just a walk around for the lights and horn . I ended up tagging the truck because the driver side steer had oil down the rotor and up the inside of the tire (wheel seal) the trailer with precious license plate light out had both brake strokes at nearly 3” and no they’re not long stroke 30/30 it’s a standard 30/30. and the rear trailer had a crack in the middle leaf in the leaf spring. And yet I got talked to for not handling that properly the next day
If you ever want to make over 30 an hour you have to go to a truck repair shop fleet mechanics will always be seen as just an expense
@@Zach________ it’s not the money that I’m worried about I mean don’t get me wrong more money per hour is awesome sounding but I don’t feel like I deserve more I just want transportation to actually do their job and hood driver accountable etc etc and so forth
What does it mean when the shop your applying at calls you back to set up an interview and they dont want to do the interview at the shop. The shop owner want to the interview at a Starbucks or Norms or Denny's iv experienced this a few times. Anyway i backed out of the process and pulled my resume.
Might not want their current employees getting wise that someone is getting replaced, might want a more relaxed environment, lots of valid reasons. Shoot I have a friend that's been in the industry since the carburetor days that usually makes prospective employers buy him dinner for an interview. There's definitely a chance that they're hiding something but that's not hard to figure out.
Hell no. I want to see the shop I’m going to be grinding away in. I want the see if the other techs have positive feedback.
'Please do not...' am I the only one who wants to know what the rest of your T-shirt says?
Thanks for posting. Environments play a major role nowadays. Actually the service writer shouldn’t be yelling at the tech very unprofessional.
Due to my experiences of taking shit when I was a young technician at my shop if an advisor or even a manager yeild at a technician or gives a tech a hard time it would be last time. I watch my shop like a hawk and I get involved in everything. I love confrontation.
Go into aviation and make 60+ to 70+ per hour at one of the majors and legacy airlines!
Too many shop owners think they run plantations/prison camps...evil...
Unpopular opinion but truth. Most techs are not as good as they think they are.
accepting you have slowed down is also a thing.
And most owners are greedy unpopular opinion as well
Definitely a ton of truth in that statement. Lots of average guys running around thinking they're God's gift to auto repair. Just like there's lots of substandard shops that think they're the cream of the crop.
I want a guy that has like 3 kids. bald. wife. dog. And drives a mint 2003 Ford Taurus wagon. Smells like fabric softener because his wife cares.
Cus being a tech is f ING brutal....
Scottsdale Chrysler has been a revolving door for 15 years and still is! Low pay and just hire a body! There solution was Chrysler changed the management, Still the same!
That wide gap in pay is what turns me off from applying too.
There are very few great techs looking. They are owners or well satisfied where they are at. You’re right. Most shops poorly managed. Bad morale abounds. Being paid what they are worth would help a little. I think there is dissatisfaction in so many other job classifications so changing careers isn’t always the answer. Appreciate your videos though sometimes it’s like trying to save the Titanic ‼️
If I were to go back to working for a shop my mom would start at 50 per hour anything lower wouldn't get me there .
Good pay fixes all complaints. If you can't pay people the best rates, you better be looking for ways to improve their work environment.
Everything hinges on how you present yourself to your customers. I once knew an owner who ran a three-bay shop out of a gas station with a mini-market. When customers came in to get their vehicles repaired, there was no other place to stand but inside the mini-market. He had no office except for the countertop in the mini-market next to the coffee pot. He dressed just like the customers, so you couldn’t even tell he was the owner of the shop. I've watched three KZhead videos featuring individuals from Georgia, New Jersey, and Nevada. From the content of these videos, it's evident that they may not be ready to own and operate their own shops. Based on their demonstrated skills, they seem to be at a B or C mechanic level and might not be suited to run their own businesses.
News flash you don’t need to be anA tech to own a business
mechanic is a dying trade!!! New Guys do something else!!, it is not worth body aches and pains and expense of tools etc. Trust me i know, i got back pains and arthritis in arms and wrists etc..
Our shop charges 250
I think i will hire Bernie Thompson, but I wonder how much he wants for an hour
Good techs are few and far between.
Good shops ask their best techs for referrals. Bad shops hang signs outside .
For real. Great techs aren't applying for jobs either. They get recruited.
My dealer keeps hiring kids in high school. 🤷🏼♂️
Because they work cheap
Can someone please explain how a tool dealer can tell if a technician is good?? A snap off truck driver told me a tech was probably the best tech in his service area. Just wondering wondering 😂
There is no tech shortage. Every shop has a stack of resumes they can pick from. There is way too many techs in this field.
Just like in trucking. A dime a dozen. Sad! 😂
Maybe where you live definitely not where I do. You sound like management I had in the early 2000’s. “You want a raise, book more hours” “if you don’t like it here I have a stack of resumes who do” lmfao those were the days.
They probably only applied because they were on probation and had to. It’s almost impossible to find a good skilled tech these days
We’re all replaceable. Try to stand outside the rest, get good at diagnosing shit anyone could be a parts changer.
@@mattlenz8554 Cross-dressing will make you stand out