Mamas, Don’t Let your Sons Grow Up to Be Dealer Techs

"Deltyn drives a meh car" (retro-mod) 04/14/2019 at 09:19 • Filed to: Rant, Mechanic, dealership

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Two years ago, I made the jump from working at independently owned repair shops to working at a dealership. One might think dealership life would be glamorous; working at the cusp of automotive technology and having the resources of a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate at your disposal. And yet, its surprisingly un-fantastic. Sure, the pay is decent and the benefits are something you wont get at many independent shops but it’s loaded with bureaucracy and in my case monotonously boring cars. This isn’t what lead me to want to be a mechanic.

Privately owned repair shops get a far more diverse range of automobiles, and while a lot of them fall into the category of “piece of shit” or “snooze-mobile” I’ve gotten to work on some really cool stuff in my years at Joe Blows Garage. I miss getting excited to go into work, knowing I was going to get my hands on a classic car or go balls deep into an interesting import. I’ve changed engines, upgraded brake systems, installed aftermarket parts and performed general repairs on a plethora of desirable vehicles, but now I’ve been relegated to replacing CVTs, diagnosing rattles, and aligning frickin sonar waves on CUVs. And recalls. So many recalls. Its just not fun.

Cars have always been my deepest passion but modern vehicles are more like rolling couches complete with half assed robo-chauffeurs than anything I’d consider exciting, interesting, or fun to work on. If that’s not enough to turn you off then how does a fully commission-based pay scale and cut down warranty times designed specifically to fuck you sound?

While the independent shops are currently still a great place to cut your teeth on stuff you might find yourself passionate about I honestly couldn’t recommend a career in automotive, dealer or otherwise, to anyone who isn’t excited about the electrification of our roads. Times are changing fast and between the ever-evolving safety systems and the all-electric horizon this just isn’t a place for enthusiasts anymore.

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Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks > Deltyn drives a meh car 04/14/2019 at 09:45

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Welcome to hell. Those recalls? They’ve gotten worse and worse and worse because they insist on shit like parking sensors coupled to cutting weather proofing costs, shorter power steering lines to save money, and just piling shit on top of shit.

Biggest recall I did was PT Losers. PCM flash because under very specific edge conditions that were incredibly hard to trigger, the IPC would turn off the lights and speedo. But I was printing money with it, because it paid 0.25 and I was doing them in 5 minutes, 2-3 at a time.

These days? The Takata recall keeps expanding because they made every excuse they could to keep the criminal supplier who was also the cheapest supplier. Toyo ta’s recalled every fucking transmission they’ve made in the last decade at multiple poin ts , or been forced by lawsuits to extend the warranty to 100k. Ford’s got, what, 10 open recalls for fire risk? I mean, you get the idea.

Shit like this is why anyone who knows the least damn thing, is dead set against shit like electrification and ‘oh we’ll just fix it in software.’ There is an absolute race to the bottom in terms of both cost and quality. Making things ten times as complicated while also slashing and burning your engi neering staffing and just piling patches onto 30 year old code does not fucking work anywhere.

Deltyn drives a meh car > Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks 04/14/2019 at 10:18

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Yea, the recalls and tsb repairs are making me a little bit of money, but it’s just not fun man. I miss working on cool shit. I see build quality dropping with every new model and as you said, they keep piling poorly designed “driver assistance” systems on top of each other. I see these distance sensors, parking aids, lane departure warnings, and hands on wheel self driving systems as stage 1 of all cars being linked to a single self driving ai grid. It’s scary.

vondon302 > Deltyn drives a meh car 04/14/2019 at 10:32

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Damn what haven't you worked on? I've wondered what tech life is like these days. My older brother was a dealer tech in 80s and 90s. He talked me out of that line of work pretty quickly. 

Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks > Deltyn drives a meh car 04/14/2019 at 10:37

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That shit is why I got into drivability. It used to be the cool shit. People don’t get just how legitimately challenging it is to truly diagnose and repair a car literally by ear with nothing useful in the factory manual . I used to talk to engineers all the time for all sorts of reasons. Even when you’ve got 500 of the same, it’s the interesting  problems and the challenge.

But even back then, the race to the bottom was already well under way. Those cars didn’t land in my bay until the parts cannon had been fired at them blindly multiple times. I’d literally have to waste 30-45 minutes reading service history and trying to get the last two guys to work on them to remember what the hell they actually did, since none of them took notes for shit.

And book rates have just gotten so completely ridiculous. It’s impossible to even make book on almost anything. I know one Takata recall has the book rate for the passenger module is like 2 hours, despite it requiring complete disassembly of the dashboard.

Deltyn drives a meh car > vondon302 04/14/2019 at 10:40

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No Ferraris or Lamborghinis or french cars. I was trying to upload more pictures into the slideshow, but once downloaded off Google photos, some of them just won’t load to Kinja. Some other cool things I tried to include are  AMG 5-ton and 2.5-ton personnel trucks, old Dodge power wagon, 1949 F100, acouple of Z32, a jag xj12, Saabs, Mercedes, BMWs etc. I've been blessed

Deltyn drives a meh car > vondon302 04/14/2019 at 10:43

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Being a tech in the 80s and 90s would have been a dream for me. I was just born a little too late. The job is less romantic than you'd think most of the time.

vondon302 > Deltyn drives a meh car 04/14/2019 at 10:43

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Pretty cool.

No wonder your bored.

Kiltedpadre > Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks 04/14/2019 at 10:59

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I took one of our company trucks in for recall work, and that has snowballed into me suddenly being responsible for identifying which vehicles have recalls and coordinating getting them actually fixed.

Thankfully with the local Chevy dealer I gave them a list of the VINs we have, and they’ll let me know if any new recalls are issued for them. With Ford I’m going to be going into the dealer every six months with the list to have them check. The two F-650’s we have don’t show through the NHTSA website so I figure they can just check them all for me when I come in about those two. Why every 6 months? Because the company VP emailed me when I suggested checking annually and asked to do it more often.

The good news: the CEO was cced on some of the emails and told me to make sure my boss remembers I found and set this up at my next annual review.

Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks > Kiltedpadre 04/14/2019 at 11:18

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Nothing like added responsibilities and work without any additional compensation.

F650's are ‘chassis’ so the NHTSA assumes that somewhere in the Ford, upfitter, and commercial end user chain somebody will actually bother to monitor for and notify about recalls.

You know, because a four truck towing shop totally has time and money to dedicate one person to nothing but recalls. And the upfitter totally has the money and time to build a customer database and notification system.

fintail > Deltyn drives a meh car 04/14/2019 at 11:56

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So you mean when I roll up to my local indy shop like this, someone might get excited instead of fearful?

(the red on red 63 Galaxie convertible with a 406/manual was also there for some kind of work).

I have one local shop/mechanic who welcomes me with open arms, and is honest to a fault. I feared eventually that having a car you can’t simply plug into a computer would leave me without resources, but I haven’t had a problem. It may help that the the car is generally very reliable, the flatbed pic was just a bad day when a fuel injection component finally gave up the ghost after 50+ years.

Deltyn drives a meh car > fintail 04/14/2019 at 12:09

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As an employee, I would love to work on something like this but from a shop owners perspective it may be more trouble than it's worth depending on the issue and your expectations. But when you get a reputation for working on this kind of stuff, they just keep coming in, and that's good for business.

Kiltedpadre > Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks 04/14/2019 at 12:20

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For a small shop it would be a nightmare. Thankfully we have enough people and vehicles that scheduling is the only difficulty. If there’s ever one on either F-650 it’ll be a real nightmare.

Thankfully I know it will help boost my raise and bonus next year. This company has a program where finding and correcting safety issues is tied into your annual review. The minimum requirement is two issues per year. This let me turn in more than a dozen before the first quarter was finished.

I also have an atta-boy letter from the CEO which is always good.

GoodIdeaAtTheTime > Deltyn drives a meh car 04/14/2019 at 12:30

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When I had my shop I worked on Ferrari , Lamborghini , Aston, Bentley, Roller etc. A nything with a V12 and more. After awhile, they are just cars that need repair. I wont get into the plethora of specia lty tools and equipment needed. Balancing 12 carbs is the thing of night terrors. The luster wore off pretty quick... i was glad to go back to a dealer honestly.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > Deltyn drives a meh car 04/14/2019 at 12:30

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I’m going to disagree. To a point. I think it depends on which specific dealer you work for and which manufacturer (due to product variety and how they treat techs) that dealer services. Almost half of my career has been various indies, of almost every kind imaginable.

Overall, this industry fucking blows. But oases do exist.

I love cars. But if not for my experience with Mercedes, I would have burned out years ago. I was actually looking at going back to school before landing this gig.

GoodIdeaAtTheTime > Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks 04/14/2019 at 12:35

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I run more straight time than actually labor time at work. Like 80% of my check. And it sucks. I used to average 130 hours ever 2 weeks. I am lucky to hit 100 now. Being a diagnostic tech is a bitch. The parts hangers get 120 hours and make almost what I do per hour. I might have to change my job description...

Deltyn drives a meh car > AMGtech - now with more recalls! 04/14/2019 at 12:38

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I could see that being the case. I'll keep my chin up and hope for a better experience in future employment.

Deltyn drives a meh car > GoodIdeaAtTheTime 04/14/2019 at 12:41

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There is a happy medium dealing with less exotic but still interesting cars.. although I guess interesting is a relitive  term depending on your tastes

Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks > GoodIdeaAtTheTime 04/14/2019 at 12:58

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Oh, the pay was the absolute worst fucking part of it, by far. When you get into the real drivability shitshow, book goes out the window, it’s all straight time. So the customer’s getting billed $1,000+ for 8 hours of electrical but you’re netting less than 15% of that.

And diagnostic, ugh, fuck that shit. The only reason I got so much diag shit was because back in those days, computers were still ‘newfangled junk ’ and I was the only guy in the shop that didn’t need 15+ minutes to pull codes and flowchart it (also the only guy that knew how to pull codes on everything without the DRB-III .)  

Of course, shit that took me literally 5 minutes? Bill the customer $150 for.

BrianGriffin thinks “reliable” is just a state of mind > Deltyn drives a meh car 04/14/2019 at 13:05

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I guess it depends on your passions. My independent German car mechanic loves all of the tech bits; we spent the better part of a half an hour discussing the soot sensor in BMWs and how different oils and topping off oils can affect the read. But he’s also a young guy and into computer diagnostics. 

Deltyn drives a meh car > BrianGriffin thinks “reliable” is just a state of mind 04/14/2019 at 13:16

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Im only 30, and computer aided diagnostics are part of anything built after 1995, and before if you have th e right tools, so that has little to do with repairing crash prevention systems and revising engineering faults on brand new cars. I’ve enjoyed working on e36 and e46 cars myself, but that hardly relates to what I do currently

VincentMalamute-Kim > Deltyn drives a meh car 04/14/2019 at 13:51

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Your years at Joe Blows Garage may have spoiled you. It’s a job. A lot of industries could have the same complaint. The pay in my industry made up for a lot of the hassle and made quitting hard.

But I did.  T he stress was going to kill me and then what would I do with all the money.

People who say they love their jobs are lucky ass SOB’s and I don’t want to hear from them.

Deltyn drives a meh car > VincentMalamute-Kim 04/14/2019 at 14:02

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Good job on quiting there, Eeyore

VincentMalamute-Kim > Deltyn drives a meh car 04/14/2019 at 14:04

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Thank you. I’m lucky to have that option.  I like the Eeyore - I’ll have to use it for more screen names.

fintail > Deltyn drives a meh car 04/14/2019 at 20:28

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I t’s definitely the kind of car you take to an indy shop, not a dealer (although they’d take it, I’d just go bankrupt if they did anything to it). I don’t make high demands - I take the car in for a yearly servicing, and let them take their time, often letting it sit for more than a week. I just want the car to be safely roadworthy, it an unrestored 55 year old car, perfection isn’t the goal.  The shop I take it to usually has a backlog, people know a good place when they find it.

brianbrannon > Deltyn drives a meh car 04/14/2019 at 21:37

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McDonald Volvo makes their techs diagnose for free. They said it was Volvos rule it’s not that way at other Volvo dealers. I’m never doing another recall or warranty job.    

Long_Voyager, Now With More Caravanny Goodness > VincentMalamute-Kim 04/15/2019 at 07:09

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Pst............ I love my job!

Snuze: Needs another Swede > VincentMalamute-Kim 04/15/2019 at 08:18

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I love my job too... :D

Then again it’s still a job, and I don’t think I’d come in if they weren’t paying me. I think that’s the real litmus test for anyone who “ loves their job.”

HondoyotaE38: A Japanese and German Collab...wait a minute > VincentMalamute-Kim 04/15/2019 at 10:47

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hey dude guess what i love my job

/doesnt have a job

VincentMalamute-Kim > Long_Voyager, Now With More Caravanny Goodness 04/15/2019 at 11:33

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hey! I said I didn’t want to hear from you!

(lucky ass punk. I’m actually very lucky too since I don’t have to work)

VincentMalamute-Kim > Snuze: Needs another Swede 04/15/2019 at 11:37

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Good point. I actually liked the basics of my job. I didn’t like the stress resulting from the fact that what I did had highly significant impacts on peoples lives. So I better get it right.

And all the secondary crap resulting from having to work with people.

Long_Voyager, Now With More Caravanny Goodness > VincentMalamute-Kim 04/15/2019 at 12:10

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Well, most days at least.........

VincentMalamute-Kim > Long_Voyager, Now With More Caravanny Goodness 04/15/2019 at 12:12

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Most days is good enough. Better than the majority of working people I bet.

Long_Voyager, Now With More Caravanny Goodness > VincentMalamute-Kim 04/15/2019 at 12:25

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I came from a 12 hr day, 6 days a week job. I know what it’s like to hate your job every single day. The only thing that made it tolerable is enjoying the people I worked with.

Now I love my job and love what I do, I just get frustrated in management and by lack of work at times. 

Snuze: Needs another Swede > VincentMalamute-Kim 04/15/2019 at 13:21

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I didn’t like the stress resulting from the fact that what I did had highly significant impacts on peoples lives. So I better get it right.

I know what you mean, although that aspect is by far not the most stressful part . What stresses me is that I have to wade through a lot of management and b ue racracy, and also yo-yo working as in we’re either slammed or we’ve got nothing. No real inbetween.

VincentMalamute-Kim > Snuze: Needs another Swede 04/15/2019 at 13:56

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yeah. At least I wasn’t working retail. But co-workers are stressful. Not having power is stressful.

The only solution I know is to live frugally and save, save, save. Then you’ll have options - lie on the beach, change fields, work a job you like without worrying about pay, or volunteer for no money.

Actually, t he other solution is therapy.  And change your response to job stressors.  That didn’t work for me.