“average pay is a prince $20/hour!”
Are you talking average nationwide pay . . . or your current location?
$20/hr isn’t much in Los Angeles . . . you had better be flagging a LOT of hours to eke out a living, much less save for a downpayment or money for the kids’ school(s)
As far as I’m concerned $20/hr isn’t much anywhere, but there it is.
Just think, in Seattle soon you’ll be able to get a job at McDonalds for $15 where all you have to provide is your own shoes. Or for $5/hr more you can provide $20,000 in tools.
[quote=“asemaster, post:39, topic:30728, full:true”]
Not true. When I had my own place the local Autozone wholesale rep got us set up on a commercial account. My cost for even professional level parts like differential overhaul kits and transmission parts was within 10% of what Joe Public off the street would pay. Hardly a significant discount. Not to mention their inventory was geared to the DIY crowd and not professional shops.
[/quote]The discount varies by part and by purchase history. The higher the volume, the greater the discount.
I believe there’re other significant factors. For generations moms, dads, and even academic advisors pushed kids to get college degrees in just about anything and diverted them away from “blue collar jobs” even when the kids were hands-on oriented. Socially, “blue collar workers” were looked down upon… except when something needed to be repaired. Nobody wanted their kid to be a “grease monkey”. Kids who had their heads under the hoods constantly during their “off time” were encouraged to get a liberal arts degree. Everyone wanted their kid to be a “white collar worker”. Many of you may be too young to remember those days, but they left deep impressions on many of us old folks when we were young. Even community colleges, who were originally focused on providing skills to kids who weren’t university material, morphed into focusing more on liberal arts and “general education” degrees simply to keep operating costs down and get “asses in the classes”. Everyone was doing what they thought was right for the kids, but over the years I became convinced that it wasn’t.
During my (third or forth) career in academia, I was occasionally queried by a student who had no idea what he/she wanted. My first question eventually became “what do you do in your spare time?” What a kid does in his/her spare time can be a clue to whether he/she is academically oriented, hands-on oriented, clerically oriented, or whatever. Sometimes that can help them to figure out an area to focus on, and the job then becomes helping them put the building blocks together to try to build a career related to those skills.
Auto Zone seems to be the biggest show in town for replacement parts right now and I would never have guessed that 40 years ago. I never saw a significant commercial discount at Auto Zone but they were never the first number that I called and it’s been severall years since I retired. While the chain has made some improvements in the quality of many parts lines I wouldn’t want to stake my reputation on an Auto Zone water pump for a Cadillac V-8 or a rebuilt Quad-4 engine. Not to mention my aversion to being hustled to keep up the level of purchases to qualify for a discount.
Yeah, woo hoo! If I maxed out my commercial discount rate I would have been able to save $9 on a set of brake pads vs. Joe Public off the street. Their inventory of AC Delco, Motorcraft, Bosch, Mopar, Denso, and other OEM parts was nowhere near what the commercial wholesalers carried. This is just my experience, perhaps others have had better.
Don’t forget the service aspect of it as well. When AZ was hitting me hard for business I tried, I really tried. I called them, asked the sales rep to send me over 2 CR2036 key fob batteries for a customer who was waiting. “Key what?” Key fob. “What’s a key fob?”
[quote=“asemaster, post:46, topic:30728, full:true”]
Yeah, woo hoo! If I maxed out my commercial discount rate I would have been able to save $9 on a set of brake pads vs. Joe Public off the street. Their inventory of AC Delco, Motorcraft, Bosch, Mopar, Denso, and other OEM parts was nowhere near what the commercial wholesalers carried. This is just my experience, perhaps others have had better. [/quote]The store I worked at didn’t have a commercial department so we didn’t have any commercial accounts of our own. However, we did service some accounts from other stores, and I saw some parts discounted between 30 and 40%. We did not carry a lot of OE brands, as was your experience.
[quote]Don’t forget the service aspect of it as well. When AZ was hitting me hard for business I tried, I really tried. I called them, asked the sales rep to send me over 2 CR2036 key fob batteries for a customer who was waiting. “Key what?” Key fob. “What’s a key fob?”
[/quote]It all depends on the employees in the local store. I worked with some “questionable” employees for sure. As they say, YMMV.
This isn’t unique to auto repair @the_same_mountainbik. It’s in all the blue collar skilled trades. I have a friend who is a manager for the local electric and water board. He just can’t find enough skilled utility workers. They’ve raised the pay scale for these jobs almost 30% over the last few years and still are unable to recruit enough workers. Somewhere, somehow, people got the idea that working on the power lines or sewer system wasn’t a worthwhile occupation. $90,000 a year and he still can’t find enough lineman.
I will say that I believe that auto technicians’ pay hasn’t kept up with the demands and requirements of the job. Mechanics need a lot more tools and equipment than they did 30 years ago, and yet, in general, their pay as a percentage of the shop hourly rate, has gone down.
Absolutely.
In my youth I just took it all for granted, but as the years passed, the economy floundered, and white collar workers began to get laid off in droves (eventually often replaced by computers) I began to think it’s misdirected. When I went with the college I began to realize that it was reinforced by colleges to keep heir operating costs down… and due to academic “elitism”. There are millions of us who love to work with our hands and are good at it who were misguided toward four year degrees in fields with zero skills. Only now are people beginning to wake up to the problem.
I used to have a cartoon in my office depicting a guy with a hot dog cart telling a customer “I finally found a way to apply my degree in psychology”.
There was a time when people with these degrees could go forward for graduate and professional level degrees and get teaching jobs, but there no more full time teaching jobs available… unless you have a “name” and can access federal grants or draw lots of students that might not otherwise be there.
To add insult to injury, the parts store are not paying the regular over the counter price that you would pay. They get volume discounts that can be 5-20% off the over the counter pricing. There is huge markup on these parts at the local stores.
Unless I am in a bind, I started buying my parts mostly from RockAuto. I still shop around but the online retailers are often significantly cheaper than the local parts stores. They are often cheaper than Advance when you use a $40 off $100 coupon. Speaking of Advance coupons, it is so maddening that the local store will not accept the same coupons that you use online. If I am buying parts from Advance, I always do it from my smartphone or PC to use their digital coupons and pick up at the same store that will not accept the coupon.
That is usually what the first two years of college are for. Learning what you may want to pursue for a career. You take a wide variety of courses that may or may not interest you. I think I took way too many Humanity classes for a degree in Computer Science.
I’m not so sure I believe in the argument about kids being pushed into college instead of a Blue-Collar job. Only 69% of high-school graduates go to college. While drop-out rates are down - only 71% of all high-school students graduate. And of those that do enter college only 62% actually graduate. The majority of kids don’t have college degrees.
I think the biggest push in the 60’s thru the 80’s was the decline in blue-collar skilled jobs. In upstate NY we lost tens of thousands of skilled laborer jobs. When Chrysler started their massive lay-offs there were dozens and dozens of new garages opening with some fairly skilled mechanics. When GE Television moved, there were now hundreds of very qualified electricians from the 20 thousand laid off. Parents saw no hope for their kids to get a job in a now extremely flooded market of blue-collar jobs.
Here in New England where the job market is good…with many good paying white collar jobs the push was obvious to send kids to college. Especially since the cost of living is so high.
Since we’re already way off-topic, I thought I’d like to add something, before Carolyn shuts us down . . .
While I don’t have any numbers to back this up, I believe a significant percentage of kids who immediately transition from high school to college are not emotionally ready. And I believe some of the college drop-outs could have finished, if they had worked for a few years first and gained some emotional maturity
I believe that some of these young kids enter college, before they’ve “got it out of their system” and spend too much time goofing off, and don’t yet realize how important education can be, and thus don’t give it their best effort
Theoretically, starting college at age 21 or 22 shouldn’t make much difference in the big picture, if you figure people will live into their 80s.
I have a question for you former and/or current college administrators . . . if a kid with good solid grades were to apply for college at age 21 or 22, after having worked a few years at some sort of job(s), would that be held against them, or would that somehow be seen as a plus?
…I wasn’t going to say anything for a few more posts, @db4690… 
I believe the answer is: It would neither help nor hurt, and I’d be surprised if any institution used it as a metric in its admissions process at all. Besides, even if it hurt at a private four year institution, like Harvard, there is always junior college, and they typically do a better job of serving adult working students than universities anyway.
The only place I’ve seen any time limits are in grad school, where I am expected to finish the program in five years or less. Undergraduate credits I earned in 1991 are still good.
Regarding:
That has been my personal experience, but I find that to be an overly broad generalization. There are a great many emotionally mature students coming in as freshmen, and they don’t deserve to be lumped in with the ones who shouldn’t be there because they aren’t ready.
I worked for a large manufacturer of industrial electronic equipment. Our bean counters told us that @ 30% gross margin we were breaking even, we needed 50% to be making a decent profit. A car repair shop might be able to operate at a lower margin having less overhead, but not a whole lot less. As others have mentioned you need $$$$ worth of tools, test equipment, common inventory on hand, pay health insurance, un employment SS tax for the mechanics. All these costs keep coming in even if you do not have a car on the lift. While the parts store may give a modest discount, the shop still has to mark it up higher than what the DIY could get it for.
Try 60% gross for an auto repair shop, and you’re in the ballpark.
Those who criticize shops for making a reasonable mark up on parts would be amazed if they took the time to find out what the costs of operating a repair business were and how deep the owner started in the hole every morning when he opened the doors. Maybe shop invoices should include a minute by minute rental fee for the square feet of floor space the vehicle is parked on, minute to minute charge for the air compressor and other equipment plus the value of the tools. Then parts could be sold at cost.
And as for warranty costs, those who are most critical of parts mark ups are are usually the most picayunish over any costs to them for warranty repairs.
Um, you’re reading a little into my statements
And I said a “significant percentage” . . . I did NOT say all kids. If that’s what I meant, that’s what I would have said
I feel that perhaps some of those kids who haven’t got their immature bevaviour out of their systems yet, should hold off for awhile and work a few years, while getting it out of their system
I also feel a lot of guidance counselors and parents exert TREMENDOUS pressure on kids to go to college, and those that aren’t ready, aren’t going to suddenly be ready, just because somebody is exerting pressure
I haven’t heard of too many guidance counselors telling kids to hold off on the college and work a few years first.
“There a great many emotionally mature students coming in as freshmen, and they don’t deserve to be lumped in with the ones who shouldn’t be there because they aren’t ready.”
Again, you are reading into this too much. You’re assuming too much. I’m not trying to lump anybody in with anybody else.
The internet doesn’t always work so great, does it
Apparently, you felt you knew what I was trying to convey
But you were mistaken
It happens
Maybe 2 years of universal military service would help. But we know that the sons of senators would still somehow avoid service… That’s an inside joke for the over 60 crowd.
That was a good song . . . but I forgot the name of the singer