I will 100% back up the pay is a joke in this field. I worked 4 years at Toyota and 3 years at carmax. Now I 100% work for myself and I'm making a lot more money than I ever had in my career working for someone. I love the fact I'm not working nearly as hard, and I'm now making my old paychecks in a day or 2 working on 2 to 4 cars a day, depending on the job.
I can now afford the tools I wish I had when I was younger to make certain jobs easier. I can also now afford all the things I couldn't do back then that I wanted to do or experience. I also can afford to max out my retirement accounts and investments. And I am so happy I don't have to penny pitch to make things work anymore.
My advice to all people who are entering this trade the first 5 years It's rough. Efficiently manage your money and your time to the absolute best of your ability. Learn and experience everything you can in this field. Always invest in your tools, and once you're experiencing enough and confident In your ability and diagnosing and repairing vehicles, start slowly doing sidework and go a 100% as soon as you can into working for yourself. Now as a business owner and master ASE auto technician, I have selective clientele. I do not work on everyone's vehicle. Remember, this rule of thumb is that all money isn't good money. I have some friends who fell into that trap of working on just anything and taking every sob story that comes along and it didn't end well for them. Be honest And transparent with your customers, and make sure they have a good understanding of why you have selective clientele and why they were selected. In my experience It cuts out a lot of BS, very little wasted time, no cars with a million problems, Also it cuts down on customers lying. With good reputation, good work I get tons referrals up to 15 to 30 calls a day for the past two years. I've just hired 3 employees who have known for some years who have good reputations at diagnosis and repairing vehicles to start working at my shop. I am a now about to start advertising On Facebook and Instagram and the future looks more promising than ever.
Joshua Anderson
Shoot its not even just the techs getting screwed over. Customers dont wanna pay you right, so they find the cheap mechanic shop, they are cheap because they screw their techs. Why is it all so expensive to begin with? Well the dealership is throwing $80k cars off the lot that cost $1ks in repairs. And the idiots buying brand new cars that are worth half their asking price cant afford that bill.
The house alwasy wins. Dealer sells an overpriced car, car is too expensive to repair, so techs get paid trash to secure profit. Dealer already won that battle. Dealer sells cars that are hard to repair, shops that screw their techs cant even get it low enough for the customer to pay (especially those OEM scanner/tool required jobs), so the dealer screws their tech extra hard while screwing the customer too!
Austin L
Gotta get into the heavy duty stuff. All I do is inspections, Lube tech shit, tires for about 28 an hour
phantom night
I have over 70k in tools and over 97 years experience and only get paid 180k on flat rate ðŸ˜
Carelock
I work at a Fleet Shop. I made $80k last year and am on pace to beat that this year. Great benefits as well. They pay for my uniforms and boots. Company buys most specialty tools. We even get a small allowance on the Snappy truck. I’ve never done flat rate and couldn’t imagine doing so with the horror stories I hear. Good luck to you, hope I gave you something to consider…
snikwad003
A good independent shop will not have any of the bs at the steeler
chris G
Don't worry the oilfield's calling you bro come on over
Spiritual Protector
I just started out in automotive always worked on cars my whole life cuz never could afford to pay someone to fix my car so I always took it upon myself to do my own repairs then I decided to go to college to get my mopar certificate and 2 year aos degree and If you work you’re ass off and take advice from everyone and constantly learn new things everyday you will be just fine I did a engine 3 months into my program with no one’s help and it never came back then I started to do all the transmissions in any car I got good at them in about a month averaging 4-5 transmissions a week I started to ball out it all depends on the work flow, time management and knowledge then skill. You must be able to understand the game of flat rate the ball is in the corporations hands understand the rules and learn to bend them and think outside the box.
audikid89
Learning about investing huh? 😂
Fredted
30 yrs turning wrenches for the dealerships, then Covid came and I seen a way out. I now work as a Patient Care Tech along side my wife at the local hospital. 80k a yr job. Still work on our own stuff though, only trust myself to do the work. Good thing is I have an endless supply of surgical gloves to do it with 😂
I will 100% back up the pay is a joke in this field. I worked 4 years at Toyota and 3 years at carmax. Now I 100% work for myself and I'm making a lot more money than I ever had in my career working for someone. I love the fact I'm not working nearly as hard, and I'm now making my old paychecks in a day or 2 working on 2 to 4 cars a day, depending on the job.
I can now afford the tools I wish I had when I was younger to make certain jobs easier. I can also now afford all the things I couldn't do back then that I wanted to do or experience. I also can afford to max out my retirement accounts and investments. And I am so happy I don't have to penny pitch to make things work anymore.
My advice to all people who are entering this trade the first 5 years It's rough. Efficiently manage your money and your time to the absolute best of your ability. Learn and experience everything you can in this field. Always invest in your tools, and once you're experiencing enough and confident In your ability and diagnosing and repairing vehicles, start slowly doing sidework and go a 100% as soon as you can into working for yourself. Now as a business owner and master ASE auto technician, I have selective clientele. I do not work on everyone's vehicle. Remember, this rule of thumb is that all money isn't good money. I have some friends who fell into that trap of working on just anything and taking every sob story that comes along and it didn't end well for them. Be honest And transparent with your customers, and make sure they have a good understanding of why you have selective clientele and why they were selected. In my experience It cuts out a lot of BS, very little wasted time, no cars with a million problems, Also it cuts down on customers lying. With good reputation, good work I get tons referrals up to 15 to 30 calls a day for the past two years. I've just hired 3 employees who have known for some years who have good reputations at diagnosis and repairing vehicles to start working at my shop. I am a now about to start advertising On Facebook and Instagram and the future looks more promising than ever.
Shoot its not even just the techs getting screwed over. Customers dont wanna pay you right, so they find the cheap mechanic shop, they are cheap because they screw their techs. Why is it all so expensive to begin with? Well the dealership is throwing $80k cars off the lot that cost $1ks in repairs. And the idiots buying brand new cars that are worth half their asking price cant afford that bill.
The house alwasy wins. Dealer sells an overpriced car, car is too expensive to repair, so techs get paid trash to secure profit. Dealer already won that battle. Dealer sells cars that are hard to repair, shops that screw their techs cant even get it low enough for the customer to pay (especially those OEM scanner/tool required jobs), so the dealer screws their tech extra hard while screwing the customer too!
Gotta get into the heavy duty stuff. All I do is inspections, Lube tech shit, tires for about 28 an hour
I have over 70k in tools and over 97 years experience and only get paid 180k on flat rate ðŸ˜
I work at a Fleet Shop. I made $80k last year and am on pace to beat that this year. Great benefits as well. They pay for my uniforms and boots. Company buys most specialty tools. We even get a small allowance on the Snappy truck. I’ve never done flat rate and couldn’t imagine doing so with the horror stories I hear. Good luck to you, hope I gave you something to consider…
A good independent shop will not have any of the bs at the steeler
Don't worry the oilfield's calling you bro come on over
I just started out in automotive always worked on cars my whole life cuz never could afford to pay someone to fix my car so I always took it upon myself to do my own repairs then I decided to go to college to get my mopar certificate and 2 year aos degree and If you work you’re ass off and take advice from everyone and constantly learn new things everyday you will be just fine I did a engine 3 months into my program with no one’s help and it never came back then I started to do all the transmissions in any car I got good at them in about a month averaging 4-5 transmissions a week I started to ball out it all depends on the work flow, time management and knowledge then skill. You must be able to understand the game of flat rate the ball is in the corporations hands understand the rules and learn to bend them and think outside the box.
Learning about investing huh? 😂
30 yrs turning wrenches for the dealerships, then Covid came and I seen a way out. I now work as a Patient Care Tech along side my wife at the local hospital. 80k a yr job. Still work on our own stuff though, only trust myself to do the work. Good thing is I have an endless supply of surgical gloves to do it with 😂