Flat Rate vs. Hourly

[SpawnedX]

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?

Topic

[Austin Hansen]

hey eric i am working for a shop and am paid hourly and i’ve really come to like diagnosing electrical problems and i would like to go to school and i would like to specialize in electrical diagnostics but i’ve been reading about the whole flat rate issue. my question is if i got really good at electrical would i have any better leverage when it comes to wage. i know you spend a lot of time on the forum answering questions so thanks in advance.

[Joshua Thompson]

[quote=”adhtech” post=77354]hey eric i am working for a shop and am paid hourly and i’ve really come to like diagnosing electrical problems and i would like to go to school and i would like to specialize in electrical diagnostics but i’ve been reading about the whole flat rate issue. my question is if i got really good at electrical would i have any better leverage when it comes to wage. i know you spend a lot of time on the forum answering questions so thanks in advance.[/quote]

In answer to your question, if it is driveability, it may be paid flat rate as general diagnostic…then you get paid to fix whatever sensor or whatever you find to be bad. In some cases, there are exceptions…we had an old cadillac. Major wiring issues. Could not find it. Guy litterally tore up every peice of carpet trying to find this wire that was bad. After about two days, he figured it out and was paid for every hour he spent(or pretty close) chasing them down. A good/decent shop will pay you hourly for chasing wires in some cases.

I worked a summer in an independent shop(very short period of time actually). I had 13,000 invested in tools. I only lasted maybe 3 weeks. I was working flat rate at 17 dollars an hour. And I believe the shop rate was 55 o r 65 an hour. There were Three of us total. The owner, myself, and another tech. I had a year of formal training at school in Basic automotive electronics, steering, suspension, and brakes. The other tech had zero formal training and only a couple years of experience. Now the killer part. Two hoists and one flat stall.
I would spend most of my time sitting on my hands waiting for parts than anything. And the place he ordered parts from was the cheapest in town and they sucked. At least once a week it would cost me an extra two hours because they delivered the wrong ones.

Or I would have one torn apart to diagnose, tell the owner, he would get prices on parts, call the customer, get their consent, order the part, wait for delivery, replace, and move on. This all wrecked me. And that doesnt include times the customer doesnt answer and you sit and wait two hours for them to pick up their phone….but usually by the time you put it back together and roll it out, they call and ask if you fixed it or not >:(

I asked one of my automotive instructors how he managed to book 50 hours plus. Turns out he had four hoists, a flat stall, and the alignment rack. He also told me the parts house was right next door and they were delivered extremely fast. The problem now is that shops put one tech on every hoist because it doesnt hurt them to have people sitting around with a thumb up their ass. It just means when they do get busy, work gets done maybe 15% faster, but it hurts everyone working there….

The absolute worst part, I had no idea what money I was making on jobs. I did not have alldata or any other website for information on diagnostics unless I asked the owner to print off something, and I only did that once. It made me feel ike an idiot for asking for a wiring diagram or sensor information. And I never knew what the jobs flat rate was. When I did quit his shop after a few weeks, I was turning about 4.5 hours a day…and I was usually there close to 9 hours. The other tech was turning about 5 or 5.5. But he did help me a couple times and was pretty good to me if I had a question and I tried to repay the favor whenever I could. And the owner was a chrystler/nissan master tech….he had to bust his ass to make 8 hours a day. He said he usually spent a good 12 hours a day at the shop plus saturdays to feed himself through the winter.

And it was hot, in the upper 90s/100s most of the time and no AC….Working on cars that are already 225 degrees in that heat sucks….and working on the cars in the winter when it was 5 degrees outside(temps in the summer here are easily 100s and in the winter -15F without windchill usually)…workin under a car and it would drip just right so that it your nose and went right into your eye or dripped into your crotch or anywhere sucks so much.

I am honestly thinking I made the biggest mistake of my life spending close to 45,000 dollars and two years of my life learning how to fix cars….No AC, always dirty(a little dirty is okay) but being constantly covered in grease and oil is not fun. I do not like spending 9 hours covered in fifth and having to come home and shower most of it off and being too tired and too broke to do anything beside go to bed….seems for every good story I hear about working with cars, there are 4 or 5 bad ones…. 🙁

[Joshua Thompson]

[quote=”adhtech” post=77354]hey eric i am working for a shop and am paid hourly and i’ve really come to like diagnosing electrical problems and i would like to go to school and i would like to specialize in electrical diagnostics but i’ve been reading about the whole flat rate issue. my question is if i got really good at electrical would i have any better leverage when it comes to wage. i know you spend a lot of time on the forum answering questions so thanks in advance.[/quote]

In answer to your question, if it is driveability, it may be paid flat rate as general diagnostic…then you get paid to fix whatever sensor or whatever you find to be bad. In some cases, there are exceptions…we had an old cadillac. Major wiring issues. Could not find it. Guy litterally tore up every peice of carpet trying to find this wire that was bad. After about two days, he figured it out and was paid for every hour he spent(or pretty close) chasing them down. A good/decent shop will pay you hourly for chasing wires in some cases.

I worked a summer in an independent shop(very short period of time actually). I had 13,000 invested in tools. I only lasted maybe 3 weeks. I was working flat rate at 17 dollars an hour. And I believe the shop rate was 55 o r 65 an hour. There were Three of us total. The owner, myself, and another tech. I had a year of formal training at school in Basic automotive electronics, steering, suspension, and brakes. The other tech had zero formal training and only a couple years of experience. Now the killer part. Two hoists and one flat stall.
I would spend most of my time sitting on my hands waiting for parts than anything. And the place he ordered parts from was the cheapest in town and they sucked. At least once a week it would cost me an extra two hours because they delivered the wrong ones.

Or I would have one torn apart to diagnose, tell the owner, he would get prices on parts, call the customer, get their consent, order the part, wait for delivery, replace, and move on. This all wrecked me. And that doesnt include times the customer doesnt answer and you sit and wait two hours for them to pick up their phone….but usually by the time you put it back together and roll it out, they call and ask if you fixed it or not >:(

I asked one of my automotive instructors how he managed to book 50 hours plus. Turns out he had four hoists, a flat stall, and the alignment rack. He also told me the parts house was right next door and they were delivered extremely fast. The problem now is that shops put one tech on every hoist because it doesnt hurt them to have people sitting around with a thumb up their ass. It just means when they do get busy, work gets done maybe 15% faster, but it hurts everyone working there….

The absolute worst part, I had no idea what money I was making on jobs. I did not have alldata or any other website for information on diagnostics unless I asked the owner to print off something, and I only did that once. It made me feel ike an idiot for asking for a wiring diagram or sensor information. And I never knew what the jobs flat rate was. When I did quit his shop after a few weeks, I was turning about 4.5 hours a day…and I was usually there close to 9 hours. The other tech was turning about 5 or 5.5. But he did help me a couple times and was pretty good to me if I had a question and I tried to repay the favor whenever I could. And the owner was a chrystler/nissan master tech….he had to bust his ass to make 8 hours a day. He said he usually spent a good 12 hours a day at the shop plus saturdays to feed himself through the winter.

And it was hot, in the upper 90s/100s most of the time and no AC….Working on cars that are already 225 degrees in that heat sucks….and working on the cars in the winter when it was 5 degrees outside(temps in the summer here are easily 100s and in the winter -15F without windchill usually)…workin under a car and it would drip just right so that it your nose and went right into your eye or dripped into your crotch or anywhere sucks so much.

I am honestly thinking I made the biggest mistake of my life spending close to 45,000 dollars and two years of my life learning how to fix cars….No AC, always dirty(a little dirty is okay) but being constantly covered in grease and oil is not fun. I do not like spending 9 hours covered in fifth and having to come home and shower most of it off and being too tired and too broke to do anything beside go to bed….seems for every good story I hear about working with cars, there are 4 or 5 bad ones…. 🙁

[Bill]

[quote=”meleemaker” post=80159][quote=”adhtech” post=77354]hey eric i am working for a shop and am paid hourly and i’ve really come to like diagnosing electrical problems and i would like to go to school and i would like to specialize in electrical diagnostics but i’ve been reading about the whole flat rate issue. my question is if i got really good at electrical would i have any better leverage when it comes to wage. i know you spend a lot of time on the forum answering questions so thanks in advance.[/quote]

In answer to your question, if it is driveability, it may be paid flat rate as general diagnostic…then you get paid to fix whatever sensor or whatever you find to be bad. In some cases, there are exceptions…we had an old cadillac. Major wiring issues. Could not find it. Guy litterally tore up every peice of carpet trying to find this wire that was bad. After about two days, he figured it out and was paid for every hour he spent(or pretty close) chasing them down. A good/decent shop will pay you hourly for chasing wires in some cases.

I worked a summer in an independent shop(very short period of time actually). I had 13,000 invested in tools. I only lasted maybe 3 weeks. I was working flat rate at 17 dollars an hour. And I believe the shop rate was 55 o r 65 an hour. There were Three of us total. The owner, myself, and another tech. I had a year of formal training at school in Basic automotive electronics, steering, suspension, and brakes. The other tech had zero formal training and only a couple years of experience. Now the killer part. Two hoists and one flat stall.
I would spend most of my time sitting on my hands waiting for parts than anything. And the place he ordered parts from was the cheapest in town and they sucked. At least once a week it would cost me an extra two hours because they delivered the wrong ones.

Or I would have one torn apart to diagnose, tell the owner, he would get prices on parts, call the customer, get their consent, order the part, wait for delivery, replace, and move on. This all wrecked me. And that doesnt include times the customer doesnt answer and you sit and wait two hours for them to pick up their phone….but usually by the time you put it back together and roll it out, they call and ask if you fixed it or not >:(

I asked one of my automotive instructors how he managed to book 50 hours plus. Turns out he had four hoists, a flat stall, and the alignment rack. He also told me the parts house was right next door and they were delivered extremely fast. The problem now is that shops put one tech on every hoist because it doesnt hurt them to have people sitting around with a thumb up their ass. It just means when they do get busy, work gets done maybe 15% faster, but it hurts everyone working there….

The absolute worst part, I had no idea what money I was making on jobs. I did not have alldata or any other website for information on diagnostics unless I asked the owner to print off something, and I only did that once. It made me feel ike an idiot for asking for a wiring diagram or sensor information. And I never knew what the jobs flat rate was. When I did quit his shop after a few weeks, I was turning about 4.5 hours a day…and I was usually there close to 9 hours. The other tech was turning about 5 or 5.5. But he did help me a couple times and was pretty good to me if I had a question and I tried to repay the favor whenever I could. And the owner was a chrystler/nissan master tech….he had to bust his ass to make 8 hours a day. He said he usually spent a good 12 hours a day at the shop plus saturdays to feed himself through the winter.

And it was hot, in the upper 90s/100s most of the time and no AC….Working on cars that are already 225 degrees in that heat sucks….and working on the cars in the winter when it was 5 degrees outside(temps in the summer here are easily 100s and in the winter -15F without windchill usually)…workin under a car and it would drip just right so that it your nose and went right into your eye or dripped into your crotch or anywhere sucks so much.

I am honestly thinking I made the biggest mistake of my life spending close to 45,000 dollars and two years of my life learning how to fix cars….No AC, always dirty(a little dirty is okay) but being constantly covered in grease and oil is not fun. I do not like spending 9 hours covered in fifth and having to come home and shower most of it off and being too tired and too broke to do anything beside go to bed….seems for every good story I hear about working with cars, there are 4 or 5 bad ones…. :([/quote]

That’s a great story. Sounds like my career in a nutshell. That said, working on cars for a living does have it’s ups and downs. I believe it takes an extremely special person who loves cars and is just short of sadistic to work on them for a living. I finally shook the flat rate B.S. a few months ago and work hourly now and although the pay rate sucks, i have a job and i’m happier than I have been in years.

As i am getting closer to the end of my career (16 months and counting)I still have a love for cars but I don’t envy the newbies coming into the trade. Everything has become soo sophisticated and complicated (cars and the workplace) that I’m happy that the end is near. I really have had enough of the every day grind that has takin it’s toll on my body as well as my soul.

[Bill]

[quote=”meleemaker” post=80159][quote=”adhtech” post=77354]hey eric i am working for a shop and am paid hourly and i’ve really come to like diagnosing electrical problems and i would like to go to school and i would like to specialize in electrical diagnostics but i’ve been reading about the whole flat rate issue. my question is if i got really good at electrical would i have any better leverage when it comes to wage. i know you spend a lot of time on the forum answering questions so thanks in advance.[/quote]

In answer to your question, if it is driveability, it may be paid flat rate as general diagnostic…then you get paid to fix whatever sensor or whatever you find to be bad. In some cases, there are exceptions…we had an old cadillac. Major wiring issues. Could not find it. Guy litterally tore up every peice of carpet trying to find this wire that was bad. After about two days, he figured it out and was paid for every hour he spent(or pretty close) chasing them down. A good/decent shop will pay you hourly for chasing wires in some cases.

I worked a summer in an independent shop(very short period of time actually). I had 13,000 invested in tools. I only lasted maybe 3 weeks. I was working flat rate at 17 dollars an hour. And I believe the shop rate was 55 o r 65 an hour. There were Three of us total. The owner, myself, and another tech. I had a year of formal training at school in Basic automotive electronics, steering, suspension, and brakes. The other tech had zero formal training and only a couple years of experience. Now the killer part. Two hoists and one flat stall.
I would spend most of my time sitting on my hands waiting for parts than anything. And the place he ordered parts from was the cheapest in town and they sucked. At least once a week it would cost me an extra two hours because they delivered the wrong ones.

Or I would have one torn apart to diagnose, tell the owner, he would get prices on parts, call the customer, get their consent, order the part, wait for delivery, replace, and move on. This all wrecked me. And that doesnt include times the customer doesnt answer and you sit and wait two hours for them to pick up their phone….but usually by the time you put it back together and roll it out, they call and ask if you fixed it or not >:(

I asked one of my automotive instructors how he managed to book 50 hours plus. Turns out he had four hoists, a flat stall, and the alignment rack. He also told me the parts house was right next door and they were delivered extremely fast. The problem now is that shops put one tech on every hoist because it doesnt hurt them to have people sitting around with a thumb up their ass. It just means when they do get busy, work gets done maybe 15% faster, but it hurts everyone working there….

The absolute worst part, I had no idea what money I was making on jobs. I did not have alldata or any other website for information on diagnostics unless I asked the owner to print off something, and I only did that once. It made me feel ike an idiot for asking for a wiring diagram or sensor information. And I never knew what the jobs flat rate was. When I did quit his shop after a few weeks, I was turning about 4.5 hours a day…and I was usually there close to 9 hours. The other tech was turning about 5 or 5.5. But he did help me a couple times and was pretty good to me if I had a question and I tried to repay the favor whenever I could. And the owner was a chrystler/nissan master tech….he had to bust his ass to make 8 hours a day. He said he usually spent a good 12 hours a day at the shop plus saturdays to feed himself through the winter.

And it was hot, in the upper 90s/100s most of the time and no AC….Working on cars that are already 225 degrees in that heat sucks….and working on the cars in the winter when it was 5 degrees outside(temps in the summer here are easily 100s and in the winter -15F without windchill usually)…workin under a car and it would drip just right so that it your nose and went right into your eye or dripped into your crotch or anywhere sucks so much.

I am honestly thinking I made the biggest mistake of my life spending close to 45,000 dollars and two years of my life learning how to fix cars….No AC, always dirty(a little dirty is okay) but being constantly covered in grease and oil is not fun. I do not like spending 9 hours covered in fifth and having to come home and shower most of it off and being too tired and too broke to do anything beside go to bed….seems for every good story I hear about working with cars, there are 4 or 5 bad ones…. :([/quote]

That’s a great story. Sounds like my career in a nutshell. That said, working on cars for a living does have it’s ups and downs. I believe it takes an extremely special person who loves cars and is just short of sadistic to work on them for a living. I finally shook the flat rate B.S. a few months ago and work hourly now and although the pay rate sucks, i have a job and i’m happier than I have been in years.

As i am getting closer to the end of my career (16 months and counting)I still have a love for cars but I don’t envy the newbies coming into the trade. Everything has become soo sophisticated and complicated (cars and the workplace) that I’m happy that the end is near. I really have had enough of the every day grind that has takin it’s toll on my body as well as my soul.

[WOTStang]

Ok, this is going to be a little long.. but this is my experience with flat rate personally…

I’ve been a technician for 5 years now. I’ve worked at two different shops in that time and both were flat-rate. The first one was an absolutely terrible flat rate experience, the second one was a wonderful experience! And i realize 5 years is nothing compared to what all of you have in, but it completely changed the outlook i had on flat rate. The first job made me *HATE* it, the second made me love it… And it all came down to one thing.. shop politics. Also the kind of work ethics each had. I dont want to make too long of a post here, but ill explain a little below what i mean.

The first job i worked (and where i started) was a national chain service/tire/repair center. I wont list names here, but im sure you have heard of them. I started as a mechanic at $14.50/hr flat rate. (but you only made that rate if you booked hours over 1/2 your time there.. 40 hours every 2 weeks. Otherwise you made $7.25/hr)

I had a lot of knowledge, but no experience. (As anyone who starts out, they think they know it all.. i had no idea how little i knew.. but even the best techs get stumped.. you never stop learning!) anyways, it started alright.. or so i thought. Having no previous shop history, i was new to everything around me. My first mistake was starting off as flat rate (mechanic) instead of ‘installer’ (or EST as they call them now.) which are hourly. Basically a lube tech/tire install person. So i was working off flat rate pay and doing .25 tire rotations, .3 LOF, .8/1hr for 4 tire mount/balance. long story short, i started off making very little money in the beginning. I remember during the slow time making $425/2wk. but i also chalked it up to being the ‘new guy’ and needing to cut my teeth on the easy stuff before they would let me jump into the bigger jobs. I then found out they used their own labor guide written by the company, and not mitchell. And they could “adjust times as they saw fit in case there was no labor time for a specific operation” which meant “pay the tech less, charge the customer more.”

On top of that, this place had terrible, dishonest management, favoritism like you wouldnt believe, and if you werent a master tech: you were cleaning bathrooms, putting tires away, cleaning the shop because management was coming..etc On top of that, i had numerous arguments with not getting paid for additional work (broken wheel studs that stripped out due to a previous person cross threading them, not getting paid additional labor for captive brake rotors, never adding additional labor time because they didnt want to call the customer back and tell them… just countless countless “just do it and get it out” mentality.

The worst experience i ever had when i started, was one with a customer with a lifted F250. He had 5 new 35×12.50R20LT (75lb) tires, 4 new rims, and 4 old rims with tires, and 4 other loose tires. He wanted the new tires mounted/balanced on the new rims (1hr bill time), the old rims dismounted (.5), and the other loose tires installed on the old rims that were previously on his truck (.5), and the spare swapped out with a new tire. (.2) (which also had a frozen spare tire winch i fixed.) (.7) The service manager was insistent on paying me no more than 1hr to complete this whole job, as thats what he quoted the customer, (boy i bet he was happy!) and boy was i pissed! I dont know how i didnt quit that day.. And this was no 185/70/14 honda civic tires that you could pick up with one hand and do a set of 4 in 20 minutes… these were 75 lb mud tire w/t assemblies. Oh, and to finish off the story the guy came back 2 days later on my day off and wanted them taken off because they were too big for the truck and they scraped at full-lock.. and said he’d be back to have a rack limiter installed… (he never came back).

Of course the service writers were making their money (+ commission on parts) and being dishonest in doing so.. I had a very stern incident with a service writer where one sold an alignment against a customers intent with swaybar bushings I was replacing, saying it needed to be done, just to sell it! (they got extra money out of alignments too). And while 80% of alignments are gravy money for techs, when i confronted the service writer about it.. i said “what if this guy goes to his mechanic friend someday and says “yeah, i got swaybar bushings done the other day, and they told me i needed an alignment done with it too” and his friend is going to say ‘boy, they ripped you off.. you dont need an alignment for swaybar bushing replacement’. And then he looks at his copy of the WO with my name clearly stated on it… and it make ME look like the bad guy.

Long story, i know.. I have so many others… but its situations like these that make anyone cringe at being a technician. There is so much greed i saw at the service advisor/manager level. You cant enjoy a job if you dont have a good relationship with these people. Then they pick favorites and everything goes south from there (techs taking them out to lunch so they can get more work was another example i constantly experienced.) In my opinion, a lot of the downfall to flat rate pay is the honesty level as to what everyone adheres too, and sadly the truly honest ones are the ones that end up getting burned.

On the plus side, the second job i worked for was a reputable nationwide used car dealership. I started at $15/hr flat rate there, but the atmosphere was extremely professional. While i was labeled as a technician, i was more of a ‘refurbisher’ We bought cars from auction or trade-in and did a 125 point inspection on them. Interior/exterior/mechanical/frame..etc And everything was done at your own pace, all work orders were computer controlled, and you entered your own labor times and submitted them and they were approved or denied on the spot. The service manager had enough trust in you (and the experience) to know if you needed .6 to ‘remove dash trim to replace broken vent clip’ or .8 to ‘access and drill out broken shock bolt’ The inspections paid 2 hours with test drive and we were expected to do 2 cars a day with repairs (unless parts needed ordered). I worked 10 hour days, 4 days a week and had 4 days in a row off once a month, and worked one saturday a month. (every sunday off). You could work days off if you wanted and still flag hours. There was a guy that would practically live there flagging 80/100 hours a week. So much so, that HR came in to investigate that he truly was working that many hours. Myself, i was happy with 45-50 and it was also a heated/air conditioned shop.. no pressure or time constraints (as you were only hurting your own pocket if you weren’t working hard), and so many benefits. Only reason i left there was because I moved. It just goes to show that flat rate isnt inherently “evil” per say. Although i still agree it is a flawed system, but the atmosphere in which it plays its role has a direct connection to how happy and productive you can be with it.

[WOTStang]

Ok, this is going to be a little long.. but this is my experience with flat rate personally…

I’ve been a technician for 5 years now. I’ve worked at two different shops in that time and both were flat-rate. The first one was an absolutely terrible flat rate experience, the second one was a wonderful experience! And i realize 5 years is nothing compared to what all of you have in, but it completely changed the outlook i had on flat rate. The first job made me *HATE* it, the second made me love it… And it all came down to one thing.. shop politics. Also the kind of work ethics each had. I dont want to make too long of a post here, but ill explain a little below what i mean.

The first job i worked (and where i started) was a national chain service/tire/repair center. I wont list names here, but im sure you have heard of them. I started as a mechanic at $14.50/hr flat rate. (but you only made that rate if you booked hours over 1/2 your time there.. 40 hours every 2 weeks. Otherwise you made $7.25/hr)

I had a lot of knowledge, but no experience. (As anyone who starts out, they think they know it all.. i had no idea how little i knew.. but even the best techs get stumped.. you never stop learning!) anyways, it started alright.. or so i thought. Having no previous shop history, i was new to everything around me. My first mistake was starting off as flat rate (mechanic) instead of ‘installer’ (or EST as they call them now.) which are hourly. Basically a lube tech/tire install person. So i was working off flat rate pay and doing .25 tire rotations, .3 LOF, .8/1hr for 4 tire mount/balance. long story short, i started off making very little money in the beginning. I remember during the slow time making $425/2wk. but i also chalked it up to being the ‘new guy’ and needing to cut my teeth on the easy stuff before they would let me jump into the bigger jobs. I then found out they used their own labor guide written by the company, and not mitchell. And they could “adjust times as they saw fit in case there was no labor time for a specific operation” which meant “pay the tech less, charge the customer more.”

On top of that, this place had terrible, dishonest management, favoritism like you wouldnt believe, and if you werent a master tech: you were cleaning bathrooms, putting tires away, cleaning the shop because management was coming..etc On top of that, i had numerous arguments with not getting paid for additional work (broken wheel studs that stripped out due to a previous person cross threading them, not getting paid additional labor for captive brake rotors, never adding additional labor time because they didnt want to call the customer back and tell them… just countless countless “just do it and get it out” mentality.

The worst experience i ever had when i started, was one with a customer with a lifted F250. He had 5 new 35×12.50R20LT (75lb) tires, 4 new rims, and 4 old rims with tires, and 4 other loose tires. He wanted the new tires mounted/balanced on the new rims (1hr bill time), the old rims dismounted (.5), and the other loose tires installed on the old rims that were previously on his truck (.5), and the spare swapped out with a new tire. (.2) (which also had a frozen spare tire winch i fixed.) (.7) The service manager was insistent on paying me no more than 1hr to complete this whole job, as thats what he quoted the customer, (boy i bet he was happy!) and boy was i pissed! I dont know how i didnt quit that day.. And this was no 185/70/14 honda civic tires that you could pick up with one hand and do a set of 4 in 20 minutes… these were 75 lb mud tire w/t assemblies. Oh, and to finish off the story the guy came back 2 days later on my day off and wanted them taken off because they were too big for the truck and they scraped at full-lock.. and said he’d be back to have a rack limiter installed… (he never came back).

Of course the service writers were making their money (+ commission on parts) and being dishonest in doing so.. I had a very stern incident with a service writer where one sold an alignment against a customers intent with swaybar bushings I was replacing, saying it needed to be done, just to sell it! (they got extra money out of alignments too). And while 80% of alignments are gravy money for techs, when i confronted the service writer about it.. i said “what if this guy goes to his mechanic friend someday and says “yeah, i got swaybar bushings done the other day, and they told me i needed an alignment done with it too” and his friend is going to say ‘boy, they ripped you off.. you dont need an alignment for swaybar bushing replacement’. And then he looks at his copy of the WO with my name clearly stated on it… and it make ME look like the bad guy.

Long story, i know.. I have so many others… but its situations like these that make anyone cringe at being a technician. There is so much greed i saw at the service advisor/manager level. You cant enjoy a job if you dont have a good relationship with these people. Then they pick favorites and everything goes south from there (techs taking them out to lunch so they can get more work was another example i constantly experienced.) In my opinion, a lot of the downfall to flat rate pay is the honesty level as to what everyone adheres too, and sadly the truly honest ones are the ones that end up getting burned.

On the plus side, the second job i worked for was a reputable nationwide used car dealership. I started at $15/hr flat rate there, but the atmosphere was extremely professional. While i was labeled as a technician, i was more of a ‘refurbisher’ We bought cars from auction or trade-in and did a 125 point inspection on them. Interior/exterior/mechanical/frame..etc And everything was done at your own pace, all work orders were computer controlled, and you entered your own labor times and submitted them and they were approved or denied on the spot. The service manager had enough trust in you (and the experience) to know if you needed .6 to ‘remove dash trim to replace broken vent clip’ or .8 to ‘access and drill out broken shock bolt’ The inspections paid 2 hours with test drive and we were expected to do 2 cars a day with repairs (unless parts needed ordered). I worked 10 hour days, 4 days a week and had 4 days in a row off once a month, and worked one saturday a month. (every sunday off). You could work days off if you wanted and still flag hours. There was a guy that would practically live there flagging 80/100 hours a week. So much so, that HR came in to investigate that he truly was working that many hours. Myself, i was happy with 45-50 and it was also a heated/air conditioned shop.. no pressure or time constraints (as you were only hurting your own pocket if you weren’t working hard), and so many benefits. Only reason i left there was because I moved. It just goes to show that flat rate isnt inherently “evil” per say. Although i still agree it is a flawed system, but the atmosphere in which it plays its role has a direct connection to how happy and productive you can be with it.

[Joshua Thompson]

And another topic….I started with about half the training(or less considering I was not certified in anything with the ASE and most of the issues in the field is driveablility). But they are going to provide “student ASE testing” which I guess is basically the ASE test that you pass without the required shop time. And you get a student ASE certification…Im not sure how many peopel are familiar with that…

But the shops around here high at pretty high an hour. I was offered 10 hr or 17 book hour. Well he ended up just putting me on flat rate because its what the other guy was on, he didnt start on it, but he was on flat rate and it was “just fair” which I didnt really like seeing as he was new and got to start with hourly and I didnt.

But one independent shop back in my home town is hiring at 22-28 dollars book hour starting. Another location(which has heat and AC!!) is highering at 18 and hour, but the kicker is that they just renovated their shop and have a very high retention rate, the employee that has worked the shortest amount of time there was like 18 years. So maybe I will find a good shop. I want a family and its hard telling my fiance that she will probably have to work a job to help pay bills. I’d love to be able to work enough to allow her to stay home with future kids…or even just being able to find that perfect shop and work there until im too old to see the bolts without having to worry about where the next shop is that I can work at….seems like every tech moves from shop to shop every couple years or even ever few months…

[Joshua Thompson]

And another topic….I started with about half the training(or less considering I was not certified in anything with the ASE and most of the issues in the field is driveablility). But they are going to provide “student ASE testing” which I guess is basically the ASE test that you pass without the required shop time. And you get a student ASE certification…Im not sure how many peopel are familiar with that…

But the shops around here high at pretty high an hour. I was offered 10 hr or 17 book hour. Well he ended up just putting me on flat rate because its what the other guy was on, he didnt start on it, but he was on flat rate and it was “just fair” which I didnt really like seeing as he was new and got to start with hourly and I didnt.

But one independent shop back in my home town is hiring at 22-28 dollars book hour starting. Another location(which has heat and AC!!) is highering at 18 and hour, but the kicker is that they just renovated their shop and have a very high retention rate, the employee that has worked the shortest amount of time there was like 18 years. So maybe I will find a good shop. I want a family and its hard telling my fiance that she will probably have to work a job to help pay bills. I’d love to be able to work enough to allow her to stay home with future kids…or even just being able to find that perfect shop and work there until im too old to see the bolts without having to worry about where the next shop is that I can work at….seems like every tech moves from shop to shop every couple years or even ever few months…

[Matt]

If I am flat rate i’m doing nothing but suspension and steering repairs because to me thats the money maker, Hourly Im doing electrical and drivability in which I will not touch if im paid flat rate… I have one hour to chase down a wire and it takes me three…. na im good, give me that ball joint job.

[Matt]

If I am flat rate i’m doing nothing but suspension and steering repairs because to me thats the money maker, Hourly Im doing electrical and drivability in which I will not touch if im paid flat rate… I have one hour to chase down a wire and it takes me three…. na im good, give me that ball joint job.

[Kevin Criswell]

[quote=”wysetech” post=80193]
That’s a great story. Sounds like my career in a nutshell. That said, working on cars for a living does have it’s ups and downs. I believe it takes an extremely special person who loves cars and is just short of sadistic to work on them for a living. I finally shook the flat rate B.S. a few months ago and work hourly now and although the pay rate sucks, i have a job and i’m happier than I have been in years.

As i am getting closer to the end of my career (16 months and counting)I still have a love for cars but I don’t envy the newbies coming into the trade. Everything has become soo sophisticated and complicated (cars and the workplace) that I’m happy that the end is near. I really have had enough of the every day grind that has takin it’s toll on my body as well as my soul.[/quote]

I always told my techs it takes a special kind of crazy to love this job. I got lucky in a weird way, I have pretty severe Aspergers and understanding mechanical and electrical things has always been my “savant thing”.

[Kevin Criswell]

[quote=”wysetech” post=80193]
That’s a great story. Sounds like my career in a nutshell. That said, working on cars for a living does have it’s ups and downs. I believe it takes an extremely special person who loves cars and is just short of sadistic to work on them for a living. I finally shook the flat rate B.S. a few months ago and work hourly now and although the pay rate sucks, i have a job and i’m happier than I have been in years.

As i am getting closer to the end of my career (16 months and counting)I still have a love for cars but I don’t envy the newbies coming into the trade. Everything has become soo sophisticated and complicated (cars and the workplace) that I’m happy that the end is near. I really have had enough of the every day grind that has takin it’s toll on my body as well as my soul.[/quote]

I always told my techs it takes a special kind of crazy to love this job. I got lucky in a weird way, I have pretty severe Aspergers and understanding mechanical and electrical things has always been my “savant thing”.

[Chevypower]

That’s basically the whole idea right there. If you want to make money working Flat-Rape, you have to find your niche, and do nothing else. The transmission guy in my Chevy dealer makes good money with Duramax work, but he makes better money on Transmission work, so he gets pissed when the Duramaxes start rolling in.

[Chevypower]

That’s basically the whole idea right there. If you want to make money working Flat-Rape, you have to find your niche, and do nothing else. The transmission guy in my Chevy dealer makes good money with Duramax work, but he makes better money on Transmission work, so he gets pissed when the Duramaxes start rolling in.

[Author]

Replies