Dealerships are a free for all 

Exactly!!! What other career pays less when you get better at it ? The entire industry needs to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up.

Luckily I work at a dealer where we have a good dispatcher, service manager and shop foreman. Work is dispatched fairly. We have 20 techs and everyone will help each other out.

Sounds just like what the bosses want, every man for themself no matter how...wonderful. And people wonder why people don't want to work.

run, i have been there. Your life is better away from wrenching for dealership. Everyone look down on you but success is from teamwork. The dealership don't understand that mentality.

6 year Tech here, I know i dont have the experience that some of this 20 year techs do but Ive experienced this for the first 2 years as a tech. Straight out of UTI going to a dealer and manager and service advisor expecting me to have the answers to everything because i went to UTI even though Ive never worked in cars before that. I am lucky now that i am in a dealer that is protected by union and everyone is friendly and helpful. No one is attacking anyone because your base pay is guaranteed and if you flag over it’s a bonus.

Yeah, I once had a service writer who would come out of his office every 15-20 minutes and ask “when’s this going to be done “ or “ isn’t that done yet “ or some other BS. I finally ask him “ do you want it done right or done fast” he said “both” I told him maybe he should get off his fat ass and come out here and do it himself if he thinks it’s that easy, For the next month I got every non paying crap job that came in, Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut, So after almost 15 years of working for that dealership I quit and just started working out of my garage doing side jobs, I’m making about the same amount of money and I don’t have to deal with that anymore, Now I just have to deal with customers (who can sometimes be unreasonable) but at least I can pick the jobs I want to do and the people I work for.

Very very true. I'm glad my mentor was a real mentor. He walked me through these things within my first month. Kept telling me to get out of this industry as best I can.

Not a mechanic but it hits home in other avenues of life. Everyone knows they're suffering but no one's able to do anything about it without being withdrawn or exiled from the system, or ridiculed by their pears for thinking differently.

I quit a yr ago and I don't regret it at all. No money left to make and the bar for expectations is still high while offering poor training if any and customers just dont spend like they used to. Good riddance. Young techs, leave while you still can.

I left the automotive field about 10 years ago. Best decision I ever made. Went to UTI and what a waste of money. Shitty pay and yes, some people get all the gravy

What I explained to my manager, something he doesn’t seem to understand, is when you talk down to workers, you are hurting your own business. You may get a dopamine rush from feeling like you’re the man, but productivity suffers. Turnover is not good a good thing. ID understand it. Encouraging people and making them feel good about working for you is key. Positive energy works for all. Trying to intimidate others doesn’t work. Ie, Well, that’s what happens when you hire your family members instead of talented, experienced individuals.

Fixing cars is a great hobby but a horrible career

This man is 100% right, I have experienced this working at a dealership

I agree with CM Autohaus comments. Worked at a dealership and the diag/lead tech was a scam. Gravy work, made up labor hours for fix, cherry-picked work, and didn’t perform work appropriately. Didn’t change brake fluid completely or didn’t do difficult spark plug or disregarded head gasket until off warranty. Techs can be the root SCAMMERS. He always made 120 hours every 2 weeks. Love this video ❤

Dude i worked at a euro car dealer long time ago and the service manager would pit techs against each other instigate conflicks in the shop. It was one of the worst expeirience during my time in auto repair

I still work at the dealership, few tech know it’s a shitty job but we all share the issue and plain of low income. But then you have other tech would love to see you fail and act like they are helping you, but then report you for a mistake.

I know exactly what you have said and it's 100% true. Sometimes it's almost a "cut throat " hostile environment, management doesn't care about moral they just want numbers! When there down who do they blame, low men on the tatem pole. The techs. Not weak service writers, lack of parts support or just customers not coming in. One time I had service manager who believed animosity breeds profits by posting everyones hours that needlessly created a very hostile and almost counter-productive environment in the service dept. It didn't last long and shortly after he was let go.

Come to hvac/r your life will change for the better

I think this has been going since at least 2010- my wife and I bought our first new car together from Toyota in Newton, NJ - and that service department always seemed to be a little way off. When they used 5w20 instead of 5w30 (on the V6) on the second oil change (during free maintenance) and didn't think it was a big deal....I sort of knew that 'me' doing the maintenance to save on labor costs was sort of shifting into 'me' doing the maintenance assure it's done right.

Learned this the hard way moving to main shop. Can't help but lend out a hand to other workers until I had service advisors breathing down my neck.

This was my experience at a Ford dealership in Seattle. Was there for 1 month, everybody had a superiority complex because I had less experience and tools, besides maybe 3 people. I work at a dealer a but further south, and it is definitely a full on team between the flat rate and hourly guys, no hesitation for anybody to help one another

Dealer life is competitive, fuck everybody. You got to be up your service advisors ass before 8am every morning

Depends on what manufacturer you also work for. My last 17 years before I retired were in a Honda dealership. 80% of our work was customer pay. Techs would upsell timing belts, brakes, valve adjustments, and so on. We also had a Ford dealership and techs said 75% was warranty work Why would anybody work for a dealership that was mostly warranty work ? Toyota and Honda would be the only dealerships I would work at. I worked 31 years at four dealerships and the last five years as a Shop foreman and dispatcher.

I left the motorcycle industry basically for the same reasons. The better you get, the less (as a total percentage) you make.

My dad and neighbor worked for ron price subaru as a shop forman and tech. You probably know them lol

I would rather pick bottles from the roadside. Cheers!

Just a number. Let me say Not all dealerships are created equal but there are some good ones still. I've been in the industry for 25 yrs. I once had a new service writer who came from delivering pizza get promoted to service Manger lol that didn't go to well. They trusted him more than me who was with them for 15 yrs as their lead tech 🤔. We all have similar stories, in the end the owner sold the business never to talked to his employees who were there longer than me. My son also has the same issue. the service manager is not qualified to run a motorcycle shop. Sits around, goes bowling during shop hours lol and the owners allows this to happen. He is ready to find a new place or career.

The culture in the dealership service department is very toxic and very sad. We should be helping one another! I don't miss book work, especially warranty!

Truth! Reality is about to hit the auto repair industry.

I mean when you think about its in their name "dealership" "service center" their main priority will always be to finance/lease they are not a repair shop! Another Reason they hate warranty work. Dealerships perfer basic maitenance over actual repair. Keeping it 100 i had a charger some years ago that was losing significant amount of coolant, car was still in warranty they litetally had to replace the entire engine instead of fixing the issue all his took about 45 days.

4 year “lube tech” here, it sucks when new guys come in who have no clue on what they’re doing gets paid the same as me if not more 😂

Small shops are worse. They will drop you like a hot potato when it will increase their profits

If you get killed,we know you didnt suicede...😅😂

This is how I feel at Walmart

Ben there 😎

I went to a Subaru dealership recently to buy some bolts. They didn’t have them…. I’m not sure how they make repairs without spare bolts. Are they even repairing them at the dealership?

Flat rate blows and fosters internal strife and politics which is why I won't participate in any workshop that does flat rate. Money may be great for some with endless gravy work under that system. But understand that period of easy money is FINITE. Eventually the service manager or foreman gets fired from that dealership. New management comes in and will consider you hostile. From there you'll be starved of work doing deep dive diags and warranty work while their "allies" get all the gravy. Find a good independent shop that pools hours and does group production bonuses at the end of each month. You can also go hourly transit fleet and never have to worry about your income ever again on flat rate.

I only like flat rate because you get paid for what you do. I hate when I see flate rate guys abusing hourly guys by having them do their job for them. You shouldn't be paid %100 of the work if you're not doing %100 of it.

hey CM got a really random question for you if you don't mind. I just picked up a 2020 Forester Sport with 65,000 miles. I'm interested in doing a 60k service since it was never done--how much would you say is a fair price? I'm in TX if that changes anything.

Why don’t they pay by the hour?

gyatt

I quote the late great Kobe Bryant, there's no I in TEAM. But there is a M E in dat modafukir!

Greedy small shop owner

You should stop bellyaching about the industry. You have little to limited knowledge of what your proposing are problems in the industry. Dealerships employ technicians because they are required by law to service what they sell, otherwise there would be one to fix warranty claims. Dealerships are a just part of a larger industry. Stop trying to put all of what's imperfect about being a technician on one aspect.

The weak mechanics always fold and complain🎉🎉🎉

Ezekiel, your latest string of anti-dealership videos are very misleading. You paint the industry with a dark shade of paint due to your personal experience at Subaru and ironically its a self fulfilling prophecy here in that you complain there are no good techs, because you're telling them not to enter the field. As a 20yr tech myself, you fail to mention that "A-Techs" make a higher hourly rate than "C-techs" to compensate for their time. You also fail to mention in many of your videos that with time and experience in ANY job, it's typically expected you will do the job faster and better each time. I would expect you could probably pull a BRZ oil pan in under warranty time now, the DIYer in his garage it may take half a day. Is that the system cheating him? Just because it takes someone longer to do a job, does not mean the job was done better. You complain that the flat rate system cheats you, but is that same hatred there when you do a 14hr job in 8hrs? I was told by an instructor once, "There is no such thing as a bad job. Just a bad quote." The failures I have seen in my fellow technicians when they can't flag hours are attributed to one of the following: poor time management, lack of focus (cell phones, tablets playing Netflix while working) or an inability to properly pay themselves using the correct op codes. These videos are getting traction because they pander to disgruntled technicians and customers who want to affirm their negative biases towards dealerships. I don't hear the same technicians complaining if they beat the book or the customer complain when we goodwill out of warranty repairs and they can pay their rent this month. Really wish you would trend back in a positive direction towards educational 86 videos, instead of beating down the industry that you and I are a part of and scaring off the next generation.