[Half-Inch Stud]

Mhhh yea. Fixed for clarity.i feel better.

Originally Posted by mgarblik

I have been in the repair end and education area of the automotive business for just over 50 years. I have some facts..... 1. Starting pay has always been extremely low and often working on 100K+ vehicles, doing complex repairs for a sub-minimum wage pay, $10.00-12.00 an hour in 2025! fantastic technicians are penalized by getting all the jobs no one else can fix.....
6 The elephant in the room is the flat rate pay system. There are many, many technicians shooting the "parts cannon" at these cars. That's the only way they can earn top pay. They have to replace something, anything. Diagnosing the root cause of a problem often takes allot of time, research and experience which they DO NOT get paid......older experienced mechanics like gaming the system and have figured out how to get 60 hours of pay for a 40 hour work week. . "That's why tool boxes have wheels".

[necdb3]

I started my career as a tech, moved up the ladder till I was running Parts and Service Dept's at dealerships. As long as I had been working, there was always a shortage of 60K tech's across the country. Doesn't seem much has changed on that front. Over half my career was at Ford. Tech's are always scarce, especially good ones. Everyone thinks they are an "A" class, when in reality, your lucky if 2-3 out of a dealer of 30 tech's are true "A' class tech's.

[pont3]

Personally, I think the problem will be short-lived as repair prices have skyrocketed so much that the same folks struggling to pay their car payments won't be able to afford repairs. Many shops now offer payment plans, ON CAR REPAIRS! Recently I paid Car-x 1400 dollars to replace a starter and battery in my 2004 GMC Envoy. They charged me 90 dollars to install the 339 dollar battery, which I did not need, and another 120 dollars as a diagnostic fee to confirm that the starter was bad.

[Baron Von Zeppelin]

Small and medium size independent repair shops usually pay mechanics the best salary / commission by far. But usually little to no benefits.

New car warranty work is ridiculous pay scale.
The whole design is a rip off to all technicians whether mechanic , body or paint.
The dollar rate is higher - but hour rate is much much lower.
Like - impossibly low.
It doesn't balance out - you lose everytime - versus standard rates.

[mgarblik]

As mentioned in my first post, new car dealers are essentially independent contractors of the manufacturer, franchise holders. They have specific agreements and guidelines to follow but technician pay must be a gray area with a ton of latitude. One thing for sure, the percentage of actual labor charged to the customer had been dropping steadily since I entered the business in 1979. At that time, the top mechanics, (masters), were paid 50% of the labor charged to the customer. The customer only sees what they have to pay and the labor rate. Around here that rate is $150.00 per hour. Some rural, small dealers may be at $130.00, that's the lowest I see and suburban Cadillac dealers are $200.00 per hour. I have 2 students placed at Cadillac dealers who are nearing graduation that are at $15.00 per hour. That's 7.5% of what the customer pays! They are both going to be top techs when they graduate, and they are already being approached by other dealers offering them 4 times what they are currently being paid the day they graduate to leave the training dealer and jump ship. So another piece of the puzzle is the really good technicians are constantly being poached by other dealers to jump ship. I say shame on the training dealer! They should have had these young people on an escalating pay scale each semester when they came back with more and more skills. The mismanagement of technicians and their pay borders on criminal in some cases. The dealers mostly operate on a crisis management game plan. They really do use and abuse their technicians in many cases. The top pay percentage in most dealers today is about 25% of what a customer actually pays. Average is around 15%. Compare that to what an electrician, plumber, finishing carpenter, computer technician, or industrial machine repairman makes! A modern automotive technician has to have all these skills combined.

[KS circutguy]

Spot on mgarblik.