What does the Mechanic get

"Jerry Newton" wrote in news:4005764b$1 snipped-for-privacy@newspeer2.tds.net:

I have never known a dealership mechanic who didn't simply draw a salary or hourly wage for the time he was at the dealership. Are you saying that the dealership mechanics you know are independent contractors who only get paid while they're actualy working on a customer vehicle?

You have to remember that I'm talking about ancient history - 50s and

60s when many service stations were as much about repair as anything else. My FIL had a contract to maintain the curtesy fleet for a big hotel and was not the least bit bashful about sending work to other shops if he felt they could do a better job. There were 6-8 stations in the general area that had specialties and mechanics (not technicians) who had been with them for years. You don't see that any more, but those were simpler times as well.

Perhaps I've either been very lucky, as I've had far better gray area results with dealer service departments. Oddly enough by *not* attempting to be an asshole. Or discussing a touchy issue with the service manager in front of other customers.

I dunno. Why *should* someone who spends the years and time and effort learning something in great detail be willing to give away all of this effort to someone not willing to make the same sacrifices?

I tend to keep mine for decades, and discover that the older I get, the less fun the next coupla days after crawling around under the vehicle can be. The old back muscles have a bad habit of suggesting that someone else may be a bit more spry. Plus, I honestly don't have the time to do much more than a 1-2 hour repair any more...and my time is far more expensive than even the highest priced dealer.

Granted, it is extremely useful to know how to make your own repairs, not only out on the trail, but also in having discussions with the folks who may actually do the repairs.

What were you doing in the cemetary? Most of the locals just go down to the State Park by the water plant to make out. Or cut down thru the old Missile Base and head down to Crystal Geyser.

Personally I always preferred Green River to Moab. Too many would be offroad racers over by Moab leaving !@#$!@#$ black marks on the rocks. And Green River had Ray's Tavern which was pretty homey until CR got killed on the Colorado.

Plus I could get a discount on my tires, car parts, propane gas, welding, etc. by working for my landlord part time at his gas/service station when I was at the missile base.

Different for lotsa reasons. Lotsa GI's coming home with good mechanical skills. Or just hot rodders getting good training in Vo-Tech high school courses. Plus a strong preference for being your own boss even if it meant a bit of financial sacrifice. And the cars were a heck of a lot simpler. Even then tho, I used to get referrals as not more than a part time gas station monkey for electrical stuff, because all the other stations in Green River knew that I really designed radar control systems and analog computers for a living.

And lotsa computer service companies used to recruit heavily from motor monkeys, as it was far easier to teach electronics than it was to teach good mechanical troubleshooting skills. Some of this went away as the mechanical printers and such evolved into microprocessor controlled stuff, but even then it was easier to teach electronics and programming than mechanical skills. Some folks just shouldn't be allowed to own screwdrivers.

c'mon now lon be fair....thats not what ive said. im not suggesting they should work for "free". im not suggesting they should work for "peanuts". im talking about gross abuse such as those i listed in the response that you replied to.

It depends on what part of the country you're in. Many dealerships are still "flat rate" IOW they get paid what the book says they get paid on a per job basis regardless of how long it actually takes them to complete the job. The upside is that it's possible for a technician to "flag" more than 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week even though he only works for 40 hours.

For example: The Chilton's Flat Rate Manual calls for a heater core replacement to pay 4 hours so the customer is quoted 4 hours of labor at the posted shop rate. The technician happens to know a shortcut to get the job done in only 2 hours of real time but he "flags" the job at 4 hours at his hourly pay rate. The customer pays for 4 hours worth of work, the technician gets paid for 4 hours of work but he still has an extra 2 hours to complete more jobs. At the end of the day the technician's timecard could show him working 8 hours but getting paid for 10-12 hours depending on what other jobs he completed.

Perhaps it was a knee jerk reaction, being a "hired brain" for a living and having put a lot of off-clock hours into maintaining bleeding edge skills in a very competitive field. And then encountering folks who bitch at why it costs them a few hundred per hour for fixing certain types of situation that involve cross-discipline skills. Usually followed by "if you weren't in deep doo doo, I wouldn't be here, and you are welcome to continue in your current world of hurt or pay someone else even more money to save your sorry buttocks..."

Uh, sure. The neighbors don't complain about my guitar or singing.

Since CR got killed on the river, and Ray died, Rays Tavern is no longer the hot place in town. The cemetary has more life than what is left....

Cool. I will probably be out there in late July-early August. I should bring my rock hammer. I'll be on the bike though.

Yeah, the dealer has to pay for it. Same as any special tools the manufacturer requires the dealer to have. It's not optional. :-)

This is exactly correct, and the way it is done at a large majority of dealerships.

Jerry

I am sorry to hear about your troubles, Steve. I am intimately familiar with the Aurora, and all of the things that you talked about are very common problems.

The trim pieces in an Aurora are un-Godly expensive. They aren't just woodgrained plastic, they are shaped pieces of walnut or whatever wood that is. Unfortunately, they also break or chip rather easily in the hands of someone not familiar with how the interior is supposed to come apart, and sometimes they break even if you do know how to get them apart. Factory is pretty particular about paying for these things. It has to be shown that there is a factory defect, not just a mistake on the part of the tech. If it is broken by the tech, the dealer (and sometimes the tech) must pay for it. You can hopefully appreciate an effort to repair a trim piece rather than shell out $500-700 for a new one.

Transmission problems on the 4T80E aren't usually very serious. It is common to have TCC engagement/slip problems, and the repairs for this concern vary. Depending on when it was that you had yours serviced, it was likely that the factory was not yet allowing techs in the field to repair them. When a new piece or component comes to the field, there is usually a bulletin that comes out directing techs to not repair, but replace the component. That is so that they can return things (like your transaxle) to the factory engineering teams to take apart and see the root cause of failure, and make improvements on the design. Many times, this results in a backorder situation, as they are trying to build new cars and send out replacement assemblies at the same time. The factory will sometimes collect data this way for several years before allowing techs in the field to repair instead of replace. Allison transmissions in trucks are like this. They came out about three years ago in GM trucks, and we are just now being allowed to service only very specific parts of it, because the analysis is ongoing.

Yes, mistakes happen. Yes, wiresets for Northstar-type engines are expensive. Yes, there are morons at the dealership level. Yes, there are guys in just about every garage of any size that probably don't have any business working on cars. The industry has become much more knowledge-intense. Used to be that wrenching was what you did when you lacked other skills, like a fallback. It isn't so anymore, but some of those guys that fell back are still lingering around, combined with shop owners trying to "grow their own" technicians due to a lack of qualified techs in the workforce. I guess the quality downturn is symptomatic of the lack of qualified techs.

Speaking of your oil leak... we don't see those much anymore, but boy howdy, how we made a bunch of money fixing those. Auroras pretty much need to have the engine removed to do it (it's easier, anyway), but the Cadillac Northstars were done in-car. I only do 3-4 of them a year now, but I still do them in about 4-5 hours. Book time is about 18. Lately, we are doing a lot of piston replacements in late model Cadillac's for cold knocking. I have that procedure down to about 7.5 hours, and it pays 20 at the factory's expense.

The vast majority of the dealer techs I have known are true professionals, and worth the money that they make and more. There are boneheads in every shop I have ever worked in as well. It is probably fair to say that even the pros act like boneheads once in awhile. Everyone has a story relative to their own automotive repair nightmare. It seems like the prevailing opinion on this thread is that mechanics don't deserve the money they make. There are a couple of dissenters, but that is the impression that I get. I don't begrudge anyone's living, from the sanitation worker in San Francisco, to Bill Gates. It is a free market society, and everyone is entitled to spend their money any way they like. I am pretty sure that Nathan isn't donating his skill and equipment when he goes to a welding job. You don't go out and buy Rubicon's and Dodge Ram's on minimum wage. More power to Nathan, I hope he makes 200k this year.

Well, anyway, I just wanted to respond to you directly about your Aurora, and commiserate with you a little. Have a good day in the Great White North.

Jerry

manufacturers

A dealership isn't always a model of efficiency. It is the place that you take your car to get the best service. It is where you go when your local mechanic tells you that he can't (or doesn't want to) do the job you have asked him to do. Although there are exceptions to every rule, overall, you will not find a better trained, better equipped mechanic than you will find at your dealership. I am sorry that you have such bad feelings about your dealer, and I certainly don't defend anyone that I don't know. I do, however, defend my occupation as a whole. Like I posted elsewhere in this thread, I don't begrudge anyone's method of making a living, nor how much of a living they make. Running a service department on the scale of 23 techs is not an inexpensive enterprise, and the cost at the cashier's cage is justifiable. It is what the market will bear. If that weren't true, then dealership service departments would cease to exist.

Have a nice day.

Jerry

certainly not.....but there are several differences which i would like to point out. if you hire me to do a job you are never paying for my own inefficiency. most of what i do is x-rayed by a CWI which means it is either absolutely _perfect_, or i dont get paid. being personally responsible if something goes wrong gives me even more incentive to ensure the job is done right. if i can find a way to do something cheaper without affecting quality ill do it even if i lose money in the process because in the end ill benefit from saving you money.

i hope youre talking NET. :-)