This all sounds something like the long haul trucker ads I keep hearing on the radio - ‘Drive for XYZ Freight and make great money!’ Then I read an article about how hard it is to do that, given the costs involved. Something about paying to lease the truck, with payments eating up much of the pay.
Some years ago I sat down one weekend to watch some drag racing on TV. I entered on the last 10 minutes of a UTI infomercial which was telling these naive young dupes how they would be earning a 100k in 5 years or so.Yada, yada…
In the last minute they cut over to a huge billboard inside of the UTI institute that was slathered with “Help Wanted” ads.
What caught my eye was the dealer name on a poster sized ad. Lo and behold, it was the name of the last dealer I worked for in OK City (and one that swore me off working for dealers forever).
The ad promised the moon along with a 5k sign on bonus. I was thinking, on what planet is this going to happen.
A 5k bonus? When the shop got broken into and every mechanic lost their top box which was slid off into the bed of a new pickup which the thieves were also taking the dealer told the mechanics to get bent. They, and their insurance, were not going to pay a dime. Thankfully this happened 2 months before I went to work there.
In the part of the import shop where I worked 80% of the overhead lights were out. They would not fix it.
The fire marshal walked in one day, spent 2 minutes shaking his head, and walked out. He issued citations which were ignored.
All factory import special tools were dumped onto the floor of an unlit closet because they were too cheap to put up a pegboard.
The owner said during a meeting once that “the service dept. is nothing but a pain in the xxx. If I could I’d bulldoze it down and park new cars there”.
That kind of illustrates the divide between what the UTI/WyoTech/Lincoln Tech students are told and what the reality is…
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In the years that I operated a shop I never spent any money on advertising for work or for help and I never ran out of work and regulary took applications from mechanics ranging from beginners to 20 year pros. While I’m sure that there have been some changes over the years it’s likely that for anyone determined to operate a business offering good work at a fair price while employing good help by offering a fair wage they can find a great deal of success. Delivering more than you promised will pay off in the long run but today people are getting much too impatient and promise much while they deliver little. They sometimes rake in a good chunk of change on the front end but find the well to be quite shallow.
I recently passed through a small town,(population <5,000), near me where a young mechanic who walked away from a national tire chain rather than lie to a customer about unneeded work lived. I new he had borrowed some money and opened an independent tire store more than 6 years ago but now his business has obviously grown and along with tires he has diversified into a building supply business and selling and servicing farm equipment. It’s amazing what hard work can accomplish. They don’t teach ethics and money management at the highly acclaimed technical schools do they?
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That’s a high probability. Done all the time. And the internet is full of them.
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That’s the whole idea behind the H1B visa program. Companies say they can’t get qualified software engineers here, so they need to open up H1B program to hire more foreign workers - at least that’s what the program was designed to do.
Now it’s all about the money. The H1B visa program hasn’t changed since it was written. The bad part about is wage which they’re allowed to bring in a foreign worker and replace an American worker. As long as they pay the foreign worker $60k/yr they can replace an American worker. The problem is, the jobs they are replacing - the average salary is $120k - $150k a year. Companies like IBM, Oracle, Microsoft want to raise the H1B visa program to bring over MORE foreign workers.
As someone who works in the IT field. I can tell you that H1B Visa programs are rife with abuse, and the U.S. IT professional is the one who takes the brunt of it. Companies hire people from other countries, in I.T. there’s a lot of Indians. These people almost never have the qualifications or expertise that they claim to have, they just need a way into the country. Headhunting agencies in India serve up these folks, and try to sell them as I.T. Professionals, they get their visas, come over to the U.S. get hired for 50%-65% of the prevailing market rate, and after awhile when it becomes apparent that they aren’t who they claimed to be, they get fired and the next group of visa-seekers gets hired and the people that came over first who in theory should be sent back to India or wherever simply don’t leave.
They must be hiring the wrong people. Over my 40+ year career as a Software Engineer/Architect and manager I’ve worked with a lot of people from India. And still do. Most are highly qualified. The high tech colleges in India are extremely good. There have been people who didn’t get accepted to these colleges, but yet are offered full scholarships to MIT, CalTec, Harvard, Yale…etc…etc.
Personally I like to hire American Citizens. But several were born and educated in India. Top notch engineers.
What a lot of companies are doing to get around the H1B visa is to outsource the job to India and have it managed here in the US. All the big tech companies have built campuses in India and moved a lot of jobs over there. Pay a engineer here in the states $120k/yr, or pay the equally qualified engineer in India $40k/yr. Guess which one they’re choosing.
Yeah, that’s the one thing Trump is trying to do that doesn’t send me into an instant rage. Of course, being who he is, I’m sure he’ll find a way to do it wrong, but he is right that we cannot compete for our jobs on a global scale because unlike people in 3rd world countries, we cannot work for 20 bucks a week and survive.
Actually me to. Everything else I cringe at.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he gave his companies and companies of his friends an exemption on an H1B visa changes.
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My experience is quite the opposite. Our hardware vendor employs quite a few of them apparently. If something fails under warranty, they’ll send someone out. Of the 11 or so of them that I’ve encountered only about 3 actually knew their stuff. The rest were not impressive to say the least. A few years ago we had one of our Smartboards stop working. I did the diagnostics and sent a log out to the vendor, they said that it was a bad camera (this smartboard has cameras at each corner that basically triangulate the position of the pen/finger/whatever is being used to touch the board. It’s an easy 15-20 minute job to do once you take the board off it’s wall mount. I told then to just send me the camera and I would handle it myself. Because it was under warranty, they insisted that their guy be dispatched to do the repair. Okay, fine with me.
They guy shows up, and asks for help taking the board off the wall, which is a very reasonable request as these things are unwieldy. So we take the board off, he says he’ll take it from here and he’ll let me know when he’s done, he mentions that he’ll have to replace two cameras because they operate in pairs with one camera being a “A” camera and the other being a “B” camera that is diagonally opposite of it. I tell him I’ll be in my office if he needs anything. About 20 minutes later I go down to check on him. He’s on his phone apparently speaking with his office. I ask if there’s a problem. He said that he forgot to bring a screw driver, and asked if I had one. I said sure, and went to get one, I return with two screw drivers, and asked if he needed anything else. He said that he was good, and that he needed no further assistance, other than putting board back up when he was done. I said, just let me know when you’re done, and I’ll help with getting the board back on it’s mount.
Another 20-30 minutes passes, and I go back to check on him. Little (if any) progress has been made, He’s looking at his phone, and the instructions that came with the new cameras (which are just pictures and arrows pointing to things). I ask if there’s anything wrong, he says yeah, I’m not sure if this is right model, the service tag matches, but I can’t find where I can disassemble the modules where the camera go. I take one look at smartboard and ask him as politely as I can if he’s ever done this before, he said, yes, plenty of times. I then ask him if he’s bothered to take a look at the back of the smartboard. The Smartboard had been facing up the entire time whilst resting on the table. He looks at me like I’m crazy.
At this point I decide to take over the operation and ask him to help me flip over the smartboard. We do so, and of course at each corner there’s a small plastic module where the cameras are housed. We each take a corner and unscrew the backs of each one and replace the cameras, we then put it back together and remount the board. It still doesn’t work. I run a diagnostic on it, and it says that a camera is bad again. it’s the one that he replaced. I asked him if he connected his camera to the controller board in that module. He says he did not. I mutter something under my breath, and we take the board back down again, he then plugs his camera into the module (it’s literally the only thing that is plugged into to it, there’s only one connector). and we put the board back on it’s mount again. Finally it works.
A 20-30 minute job turned into a 60-70 minute job because someone hired a guy from India who didn’t know how to do his job, and we’re not talking engineering here, just basic frontline stuff. Based on what I’ve heard, Now it’s entirely possible that this guy wasn’t an H1B holder. Based one what I’ve heard from colleagues, and some other buddies of mine that work for different outfits but are familiar with the vendor my employer uses. What happens is that they tend to hire the cast offs that get fired by larger companies. These are the people from India who get picked up by firms in India who grossly exaggerate their qualifications in order to get those H1B visas. When they make it to the U.S. They don’t tend to last long because they are nowhere as competent as they were made out to be, so they get let go. That’s when our vendor picks them up, on paper they are still working for moderately sized company in the I.T. sector, they just aren’t doing what they were originally billed to do, but they are keeping their visas valid. At leas that’s the basic thinking behind it anyway. I can’t say for certain if that’s what’s actually happening, but it makes sense. The vendor seems to have way more Indians working for them than is typical given the demographics of the area.
In my limited experience working with Indian scientists (at good universities) they were nearly all excellent. I suspect they aren’t all, just like the rest of us.
In the '90s MicroTimes (a computer-industry newspaper) reported the story of an HP engineer whose whole department was laid off, told that HP had abandoned their project. A few months later he learned, from friends still working there, that HP had reconstituted it with H1B-visa Indian engineers; he sued. I lost track of the story when I moved, but I would be surprised if similar isn’t still happening.
I’d like to get back to auto mechanics: can they make good money? If not at dealerships, then independently? Mr @db4690 wrote otherwise; he claims relevant experience, that I don’t doubt.
Lots of good comments on H1B. The problem I’m mostly concerned about is that the H1B program is causing American high school and college kids – who worry about studying for years only to have their jobs insourced with H1b’s – to shy away from pursuing advanced science and engineering degrees. Instead they’re heading into fields that are better lobby protected from h1b intrusion, physicians, lawyers, business professionals etc. From what I read, there’s been a remarkable 25% decrease in the number of engineering Ph. D degrees awarded to American citizens over the past 10-15 years. There’s more Ph.D’s in engineering of course being awarded , but those are mostly going to non-citizens now.
Newspapers report that engineers like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or Larry Ellison – none of them hold an advance degree like a Ph.D. – are the ones who invent the technology that make their products work; but that’s not really the case. These companies hire scores of Ph.D.s who do that invention work. And to me it seems unwise to farm that out to more and more non-citizens.
Although cultures vary from coast to coast I found that undercutting the prevailing labor rate was reducing my business as well as my profits. My flat rate was $4-$6 below my competition and I wasn’t seeing much business so I added 43c to the average rate and within months found I had more work coming in than I could handle and while the higher rate resulted in the price shoppers not wasting their time or mine it also resulted in the old well established shops referring work when they were snowed under. In this area many people feel that shopping for the cheapest price tends to result in getting the worst work.
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I didn’t say a mechanic couldn’t make good money at a dealership
I said for a mechanic to earn that aforementioned 100k at a dealership, many things have to occur, and it’s unusual
There are many opportunities for earning decent money as a mechanic
For instance . . .
work for city, county, etc. You won’t get rich, but the pay’s steady, the benefits are enviable, you’ll get a real pension, plenty of opportunites for advancement, etc.
Open your own shop
and so on
If the head hunters for Lincoln Tech, UTI, Wyotech, etc. were more honest, there’d be less disillusioned young mechanics in the field. They should be upfront about what to expect
Pay for the tuition, if you choose to attend such a school
Several thousand dollars in tools for the duration of your career
Nonstop learning. There’s new technology and new models coming on the market every year
Hard work required, if you want to earn a decent living and save some money for that downpayment, for example
And stop mentioning that 100k within 5 years. For the most part, it’s 
Years ago, when I was thinking of entering the field, one of my high school teachers told me it’s field to survive in. He told me I’d have to buy my own tools, and he told me the flat rate system is cut throat, among other things. I’m grateful that he was honest. And when everything that my teacher said turned out to be true, at least it wasn’t surprising
I work with a mechanical technician that is also an auto mechanic. He said he makes the same hourly rate in both jobs, but the mechanical technician job is full time, while the auto mechanic never has been for him.
It might be noted there is a trend for dealers to spiral downward and compete with the fast lube places. At first it was cheap oil changes. Then it became tire mounting and balancing. Then brake jobs. Then scheduled maintenance. Think Ford Fast Lane…
Think a mechanic is going to make a decent wage doing 39 dollar oil changes which include brake inspections, tire rotations, battery checks, and so on? Not.
Or the 159 dollar brake job that includes machining of rotors. Not in a million years is this even a halfway lucrative money maker.
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Hey, Random Troll
Are you now getting the picture?
Or is it still just opinion . . . as YOU said . . . until somebody bothers to post an article which describes the actual conditions and wages for the average dealership mechanic . . . ?
Here’s the BLS page for wages for this category. Does it reflect reality?
https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes493023.htm
49-3023 Automotive Service Technicians and Mechanics
Diagnose, adjust, repair, or overhaul automotive vehicles. Excludes
"Automotive Body and Related Repairers" (49-3021), “Bus and Truck Mechanics and Diesel
Engine Specialists” (49-3031), and “Electronic Equipment Installers and Repairers, Motor Vehicles” (49-2096).
More accurately it is the manufactures that are taking action and providing training.
I think we all understand that you had a poor experience working for a dealer.
The upside of RandomTroll posting that NYT article is the discussion it provoked. I really enjoy learning from everyone’s views and experiences posted in these replies.
I personally know a recent high school grad in our town who went to work at a local dealership as a “lot jockey”, (parking cars, washing cars, etc). Several months later, they promoted him to doing oil and tire changes.
Shortly after that, he said the dealership wanted to help train him to become a mechanic, and told him he could make up to $100,000/yr. I tried explaining the reality behind that “$100K pitch”.