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I would like to hear your opinions on flat rate versus hourly pay in the industry. Personally I do not have a problem with flat rate if the business is generating enough customers every week that each technician has the opportunity to flag at least 40 hours.
I would like to know how other technicians cope when they work on flat rate in an environment where flagging 40+ hours isn’t always an option. Do you work other jobs?
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Auto mechanics have UNIONS in the USA??? Holy crap. How does that work? I’m not one for unions, but if there was any trade needing one, it’s ours. I even heard that German mechanics don’t have to buy their own tools. Blows my mind!
As for flat rate, here in Calgary, Canada, flat rate techs make way more than I do as an hourly tech. The few flat rate guys I worked beside during my time at the dealership (when I was apprenticing), were mostly pretty good and honest about what they did. Being a Toyota dealership, there wasn’t much warranty stuff for them to deal with.
i have worked with the flat-rate system at the dealership, hourly system at an independent shop, i was on salary when i co-owned my shop, and i’m on salary now (although it’s teacher’s salasry so it sucks!). so i’ve dealt with them all. obviously, the best is when you’re an owner on salary, it’s good money and easy to budget. i really think the systems depend on the experience level. if you are an experienced tech with good knowledge it is easier to make money then a guy who’s just starting out when on the flat-rate system. getting paid hourly is better for the guys still learning the ropes. most independent shops can’t afford to pay hourly because they don’t have a lot of disposable capital to pay techs who aren’t producing revenue. my guys were paid flat rate when i had my shop. i used to always tell them to figure out what the bare minimum of hours they needed to turn to pay their bills. say it was 35 hours. so on the weeks that they turned 45 they needed to save that difference for the weeks that they only turned 25. “banking” those big checks to offset the little ones is how you survive on flat rate. i was a single parent with two kids under the age of 4 when i started turning wrenches and i survived because i was good with my money, so i always hated hearing the whiners about their crappy paychecks when they had a home with dual income or no kids. personally, for me i preferred getting paid hourly vs. flat rate. when i was getting paid hourly it gave me the chance to work on anything and learn new things because i was getting paid no matter what i did. now i wasn’t the slack off type that stood around on the clock with her thumb up her ass either, i worked when i was on the clock and the cameras he had in the shop made sure of it. when you negotiate hourly if you are used to flat rate you need to take your average flat-rate gross pay and find an hourly gross paycheck using usually a 45 hour week, that way you will make about the same or more, but it will be steady pay. i made $18 flat-rate at the deaership when i left, but only made $16.50 hourly at the independent shop, but i made a ton more getting paid hourly. anything over 40 hours is overtime too! the best pay hands down is salary if you negotiate it right and get paid what you are worth. i never settled for what they first offered me, i always knew what i was worth and i always got paid what i negotiated, except of course as a state paid employee, as a teacher your screwed either way. you don’t teach for the money you teach because you like to teach. not to mention the 6 weeks i get off in the summer, 1 week at thansgiving, 1.5 weeks at xmas, and 1 week for spring break-that’s why you teach, lol. sorry so long!! stepping off the soapbox now.
i have worked with the flat-rate system at the dealership, hourly system at an independent shop, i was on salary when i co-owned my shop, and i’m on salary now (although it’s teacher’s salasry so it sucks!). so i’ve dealt with them all. obviously, the best is when you’re an owner on salary, it’s good money and easy to budget. i really think the systems depend on the experience level. if you are an experienced tech with good knowledge it is easier to make money then a guy who’s just starting out when on the flat-rate system. getting paid hourly is better for the guys still learning the ropes. most independent shops can’t afford to pay hourly because they don’t have a lot of disposable capital to pay techs who aren’t producing revenue. my guys were paid flat rate when i had my shop. i used to always tell them to figure out what the bare minimum of hours they needed to turn to pay their bills. say it was 35 hours. so on the weeks that they turned 45 they needed to save that difference for the weeks that they only turned 25. “banking” those big checks to offset the little ones is how you survive on flat rate. i was a single parent with two kids under the age of 4 when i started turning wrenches and i survived because i was good with my money, so i always hated hearing the whiners about their crappy paychecks when they had a home with dual income or no kids. personally, for me i preferred getting paid hourly vs. flat rate. when i was getting paid hourly it gave me the chance to work on anything and learn new things because i was getting paid no matter what i did. now i wasn’t the slack off type that stood around on the clock with her thumb up her ass either, i worked when i was on the clock and the cameras he had in the shop made sure of it. when you negotiate hourly if you are used to flat rate you need to take your average flat-rate gross pay and find an hourly gross paycheck using usually a 45 hour week, that way you will make about the same or more, but it will be steady pay. i made $18 flat-rate at the deaership when i left, but only made $16.50 hourly at the independent shop, but i made a ton more getting paid hourly. anything over 40 hours is overtime too! the best pay hands down is salary if you negotiate it right and get paid what you are worth. i never settled for what they first offered me, i always knew what i was worth and i always got paid what i negotiated, except of course as a state paid employee, as a teacher your screwed either way. you don’t teach for the money you teach because you like to teach. not to mention the 6 weeks i get off in the summer, 1 week at thansgiving, 1.5 weeks at xmas, and 1 week for spring break-that’s why you teach, lol. sorry so long!! stepping off the soapbox now.
i don’t like the flat rate system as a technician either guys, but you have to think of it in a business perspective too. for example: i own a shop and i have 3 mechanics. i have rent to pay on my building, advertising, utilities, property insurance, workmans comp insurance, FICA and Soc Sec taxes to match my employees, on top of payroll, and all the other overhead that doesn’t go away just cause there’s no work to do. if the employees in my shop don’t turn at least 90 hours of billed labor a week, i can’t pay all of my overhead and i will go out of business within a few months. where do you think the money comes from to pay the employees if they aren’t producing paid labor hours from the customers (revenue)? how does a shop make money? off of labor and parts sales. the percentage of markup on parts from cost is not as much as you think, big chains like advance, o’reilly’s, and auto zone have caused us not to be able to mark up our parts like we used to in able to compete with their over the counter/walkin prices. so labor is my money maker and if there’s no labor being done, there’s no customers paying, and there’s no bills getting paid. that’s why the flat-rate system makes sense with shops, especially independant shops because they don’t have the extra money to pay a guy $10 an hour standing around doing nothing, not producing revenue. that would be $400 gone to the employee with $0 coming in from the customers! but on the flat-rate system that same guy would get paid for what he did, if he turned 40 hours he’d get paid $400, but at $70/hr of customer pay he’d bring in $2800 of labor revenue for the business. the shop has to make money to make payroll. so you can knock flat-rate as much as you want, but until you run a business you can’t really understand that that’s the only way small shops survive-from the flat rate system. how else could you pay those 3 mechanics their paychecks if they don’t turn(sell) enough hours to cover their pay? where does the money come from is it’s not coming from customers? i have several coins planted in my backyard waiting for that money tree to grow, but it’s not. so tell me where would it come from?
i don’t like the flat rate system as a technician either guys, but you have to think of it in a business perspective too. for example: i own a shop and i have 3 mechanics. i have rent to pay on my building, advertising, utilities, property insurance, workmans comp insurance, FICA and Soc Sec taxes to match my employees, on top of payroll, and all the other overhead that doesn’t go away just cause there’s no work to do. if the employees in my shop don’t turn at least 90 hours of billed labor a week, i can’t pay all of my overhead and i will go out of business within a few months. where do you think the money comes from to pay the employees if they aren’t producing paid labor hours from the customers (revenue)? how does a shop make money? off of labor and parts sales. the percentage of markup on parts from cost is not as much as you think, big chains like advance, o’reilly’s, and auto zone have caused us not to be able to mark up our parts like we used to in able to compete with their over the counter/walkin prices. so labor is my money maker and if there’s no labor being done, there’s no customers paying, and there’s no bills getting paid. that’s why the flat-rate system makes sense with shops, especially independant shops because they don’t have the extra money to pay a guy $10 an hour standing around doing nothing, not producing revenue. that would be $400 gone to the employee with $0 coming in from the customers! but on the flat-rate system that same guy would get paid for what he did, if he turned 40 hours he’d get paid $400, but at $70/hr of customer pay he’d bring in $2800 of labor revenue for the business. the shop has to make money to make payroll. so you can knock flat-rate as much as you want, but until you run a business you can’t really understand that that’s the only way small shops survive-from the flat rate system. how else could you pay those 3 mechanics their paychecks if they don’t turn(sell) enough hours to cover their pay? where does the money come from is it’s not coming from customers? i have several coins planted in my backyard waiting for that money tree to grow, but it’s not. so tell me where would it come from?
they sure do. the dealership gets paid a certain amount per hour of labor from the manufacturer to cover the labor for warranty repairs. that’s why the dealership likes when a $15 hr tech does warranty work vs a $25 hr tech, because they make more money when the first guy does it. that’s why they have lube techs and lower paid mechanics doing their PDI’s because then the dealership gets to pocket the difference.
they sure do. the dealership gets paid a certain amount per hour of labor from the manufacturer to cover the labor for warranty repairs. that’s why the dealership likes when a $15 hr tech does warranty work vs a $25 hr tech, because they make more money when the first guy does it. that’s why they have lube techs and lower paid mechanics doing their PDI’s because then the dealership gets to pocket the difference.
So I’ve been flat rate for over three months now and I officially hate it. This job is stressful enough as it is to be dealing with flat rate bullshit. Even when I’m really doing well, it’s stressful. The knowledge that you might have to do a really nasty job and lose lots of hours on it sucks. Dealing with come backs… yeah, we’re mechanics and it’s a very tough job. We screw up on occasion. Everyone screws up. The only difference between us and other trades, is that WE pay for it when we’re flat rate. I’m fucking done with this shit. Especially the amount of times that I’ve CONSIDERED being dishonest, which has never happened before. It’s way too tempting, and I won’t do it. I’ve seen techs calling brake pads at 5 mm. That’s bullshit. My version of dishonesty is seeing a leaky seal that would pay 2 hours to replace, but take me five to six hours to do (rear axle seal on a Toyota Sequoia), so I’d clean it up, and pretend the problem was never there. Top up the fluid if it’s bad.
Tech advice: DON’T call a rear axle seal on a Sequoia with air suspension. You’ll be sore for days. And if you do, install that seal with precision. If it comes back, you’re gonna want to shoot yourself in the face and pray that the person who has to do it instead is someone you hate. It sucks that bad, no matter how simple it looks. Well, it sucks mostly [i]because[i] it looks so simple :silly: Or maybe I just suck at this job.
So I’ve been flat rate for over three months now and I officially hate it. This job is stressful enough as it is to be dealing with flat rate bullshit. Even when I’m really doing well, it’s stressful. The knowledge that you might have to do a really nasty job and lose lots of hours on it sucks. Dealing with come backs… yeah, we’re mechanics and it’s a very tough job. We screw up on occasion. Everyone screws up. The only difference between us and other trades, is that WE pay for it when we’re flat rate. I’m fucking done with this shit. Especially the amount of times that I’ve CONSIDERED being dishonest, which has never happened before. It’s way too tempting, and I won’t do it. I’ve seen techs calling brake pads at 5 mm. That’s bullshit. My version of dishonesty is seeing a leaky seal that would pay 2 hours to replace, but take me five to six hours to do (rear axle seal on a Toyota Sequoia), so I’d clean it up, and pretend the problem was never there. Top up the fluid if it’s bad.
Tech advice: DON’T call a rear axle seal on a Sequoia with air suspension. You’ll be sore for days. And if you do, install that seal with precision. If it comes back, you’re gonna want to shoot yourself in the face and pray that the person who has to do it instead is someone you hate. It sucks that bad, no matter how simple it looks. Well, it sucks mostly [i]because[i] it looks so simple :silly: Or maybe I just suck at this job.
That’s funny chyctech…Not long ago I told my apprentice that very thing as he couldn’t understand why he had work and I didn’t.
A Backstabber in the shop heard my explanation and told the Boss and I got a strip tore off of both sides of me.When he was finished I asked him if he thought I told the apprentice a lie. His face turned red :blush: and he walked away.
That’s funny chyctech…Not long ago I told my apprentice that very thing as he couldn’t understand why he had work and I didn’t.
A Backstabber in the shop heard my explanation and told the Boss and I got a strip tore off of both sides of me.When he was finished I asked him if he thought I told the apprentice a lie. His face turned red :blush: and he walked away.
sorry you had to find out the hard way
this is why I said earlier that today’s cars
are JUNK hard to work on cant get quality
parts and with flat rate you just can not make
any money the only way this is ever going
to get fixed is NO one and I mean NO one
works flat rate only the rip off clowns
like it
what is NUTS is all of the cars today have
this variable cam trimming witch never
works right and you can’t buy a true 4×4
any moresorry you had to find out the hard way
this is why I said earlier that today’s cars
are JUNK hard to work on cant get quality
parts and with flat rate you just can not make
any money the only way this is ever going
to get fixed is NO one and I mean NO one
works flat rate only the rip off clowns
like it
what is NUTS is all of the cars today have
this variable cam trimming witch never
works right and you can’t buy a true 4×4
any more[quote=”JohnnyC” post=55698]Auto mechanics have UNIONS in the USA??? Holy crap. How does that work? I’m not one for unions, but if there was any trade needing one, it’s ours. I even heard that German mechanics don’t have to buy their own tools. Blows my mind![/quote]
Auto mechanics etc are governed by a union here as well in Denmark :P. I can find the gross minimum wage if you are interested.
[quote=”JohnnyC” post=55698]Auto mechanics have UNIONS in the USA??? Holy crap. How does that work? I’m not one for unions, but if there was any trade needing one, it’s ours. I even heard that German mechanics don’t have to buy their own tools. Blows my mind![/quote]
Auto mechanics etc are governed by a union here as well in Denmark :P. I can find the gross minimum wage if you are interested.
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