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Hello people,
I just started working on a dealer cause I wanted to see what is like, my last shop was a 8-5 m-f, sat 9-2 and a nice salary. My old boss told me try it out for a week if you don’t like it come back. So am at the dealer now on flat rate this dealer is pretty busy all the time. My question is is there any benefits for a tech to get certified on a brand? Did a made a mistake on leaving a nice salary nice schedule? if you can please some advise is truly appreciated
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Is it a team pay system? If so its not as good. Flat rate could be fun but when it’s dead, it’s dead. i worked in a little shop before Toyota as well, from what I’ve experienced it’s much more demanding, they expect more out of you. As for the brand certification it’s worth it, at Toyota at least. Toyota pays more for the tests you have done, and send you to a sort of school to be properly trained as well. Doesn’t hurt I get $10 for every test I pass also! Lucky for you your old boss seems like a nice guy and said you can fall back if it’s not your thing.
thanks for replying, its an independent flat rate but no guarantees if u flagged 10 thats what you get. Today was my first day everybody seem pretty nice and helpful but there are always those odd balls. I also have another offered from a lexus dealership but did not pick lexus because the manager was not so clear he was more into you get this bonus and that and after a year we give u a lease. IMO tell me what am going to make show flagged hours not the rest of the crap. yeah my old boss is a nice guy. My concerns are is it worth it as a tech to be in a dealer? does it give an extra edge to be brand certified or does it not matter?
I can’t speak for your dealer, but it’s also quite common for dealers to promise you the moon and feed you some gravy work; at first. Eventually things may go sour and especially during spells when work slows up.
Warranty labor rates suck.I’ve worked for foreign car dealers and am certified by many of them in many areas. Again, while I can’t speak for your dealer I will say that every dealer that i worked for over the years (5 of them) have promised me things. They all lied.
One of them promised me 50% commission if I became a Certified Master Tech which involved going through every school and passing every test related to the area taught. Over 2 years later I passed the final two tests and a month or so later received my uniform patches, tie pin, cuff links, and framed diploma.
Off I go to the boss about that 50%…..
Well….uh…..uh…..uh….. we can’t really do that…….uh….A month later I had another job lined up and gave them my 2 minutes notice.
Maybe your situation will be better; hopefully. After the last dealer pulled some crap I sat at home stewing for 2 weeks before deciding that I would never, ever work for another one so I just self employed me…..
Sounds like your old boss is a great guy though.
right now am at a chrysler family owned and operated and I decided this one because at least the guy was honest and told me you are not going to make that money here every week. The Lexus guy forget it, always been around the bush. I do like it its not a bad dealer or so I think but my fear of not been able to flagged enough hours to support my fam has me a little worried. am the only bread maker my wive is in school
To address the brand specialization, There are some advantages. I’m a foreign car guy (more power to you to be willing to deal with Chrysler by choice) and once I got credentials from the first brand I worked for (Kia), it put me at an obvious advantage vs. the competition when interviewing for other Asian brands. I’m sure that works for domestics too. Like if you wanted to get into a Ford or GM dealer, Chrysler experience would be way more preferable than say, Honda experience. In my situation where I didn’t go to school, I used to have to talk a huge game to be hired into dealers. Once I had a few years experience and my Kia Certification, nobody cared If I went to school or not because I had been established a successful professional.
The other advantage is factory training. I only have factory training from Kia, Suzuki, and Mitsubishi, but I can say that all three had incredibly intelligent and useful training programs. I may have found them particularly useful having not been to tech school, but the quality of education was always incredibly high. You’d think Suzuki training would be a joke, but they had a genius with a lifetime of experience in there blowing my mind, just like with Mitsu now. Kia was strong on engine management, Suzuki taught me electrical, and Mitsubishi taught me how to diagnose and rebuild transmissions, which was last area I was really lacking experience in. The imperative part is that in dealers, I’ve had the opportunity to master those skills. Now I’m really growing into a boss. When it’s under warranty, you HAVE to figure out how to fix it. There’s nobody to pass the buck to.
I actually rather work on imports, I have mostly worked on imports in my career I chose chrysler only because the management was more honest than hotel lexus. thanks for your response one of the things that always intrigued me was that is the training going to give me an advantage and obviously can it at least provide enough money for me to support my fam
“Hotel Lexus”….. LMAO… 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆
Funniest thing I have heard in too long a time… made me almost spit up my drink! 🙂
-Karl
they got a salon, nail place, restaurant and chairs for massages lolol the guy offered a $400 lease lexus after a year if I picked a higher amount I pay the difference. its all nice but I did not found him to be honest. He never showed the real numbers unlike chrysler
I would be scared to be flat rate especially with warranty work. It is almost impossible to beat warranty book times unless you cheat. Even then half the time you wind up just breaking even at least that is my experience working on big rigs. Also everyone seems to slow down for 2-3 months before middle of February or beginning of march. So if you plan to do that for a while pack away rainy day money approx 3 months worth.
When it’s under warranty, you HAVE to figure out how to fix it. There’s nobody to pass the buck to.
This is very important to note. Most dealerships have to ship off most warranty parts to get inspected. If any one part of a repair order checks out as good they will deny the entire claim and basically stick the dealership with the bill. On top of that it counts as a strike against them. Enough strikes and you wind up with them calling everything back and firing techs that are bad and calling your dealership out for warranty fraud which puts you on extremely thin ice if not revoking your ability to sell that brand.
On top of all that you need to try and preserve 95% of those parts so even if it is easier to just cut something out you cannot do so without documenting it in your story. If you do it too many times and the oversight people think it is not because of what you said once again see paragraph above. It gets extremely frustrating at times. (Notes: the hole in the garage door at his old shop where he put a Lady Slipper into it.) Also you might have “repair advocates” who will constantly want you to follow the predetermined diag tree even if you have done it 5x to no avail.
Then there is them wanting you to “band aid” the problem and that is the warranty procedure. Fun stuff like that gets old quick.
Depending on the brand, you’ll basically turn into a car repair robot. Doing the same thing over and over. Which sucks because it’s boring. But nice because you can really hammer it out. For when you’re really stuck you also have some sort of tech support. You also don’t have to deal with much crap, the premium labour rate keeps the 15 year old cars out of the shop. They are 2 totally different worlds.
It’s not a safe bet to assume this new dealership is always busy, I’m not sure how things are elsewhere but around here January and February are pretty much write offs. So it’s a good idea to save some money for the lean times as one of the best things about flat rate is, if it’s dead you can just go home. On the other hand you also don’t have to have every tool for every friggin type of car out there. If I had started where I am now I would seriously have a couple of thousand less in tools. Keep in mind I’m only a bit over $10k right now, but I seriously have at least $1k worth of stuff I might never use again.
I appreciate your response, this is all new to me. First day I was there for 3 hours I flagged 4, yesterday I was there 9 only flagged 3.5 I got stuck with an electrical issue after I do the estimate the client don’t have the money to perform the repair which I knew it was going to happen since the car was way below the E mark on gas lolol. Today I don’t even know what I did. At this rate I’ll be living under the bridge in a month. Am going to talk to management tomorrow.
Thanks for your response, I know its not a for sure thing that is busy thats what they said and the few times I passed by it was busy bu most likely it has it slow seasons like every shop. The managers just keep on telling me don’t get discourage this is new to you and bla bla but dude am not making money and I need to support my fam now not in a few weeks.
so I talked to the managers and they told me that they understand the situation and they are willing to compensate the difference for a month. What do you guys think? My old boss only gave me a week so I need to decide if I stay at the dealer or go back to my old job. My week is up on Monday
I guess I was in a similar situation a few years back..I came from a rental car company into this Nissan dealership with the same exact thoughts about the nice schedule the guaranteed pay..but now I’m going on my 3rd year with Nissan and I love it..probably the best decision I’ve ever made for my career..its just so much easier and less of a headache since you focus on one car line..plus the tech support is amazing..plus being certified for a particular brand makes you very marketable since you have factory training..when I went through a buy/sell in July of last year I put in a few apps just in case I didn’t get rehired..I got offers left and right from honda,acura,infinity,Chevy,Subaru..well that’s just been my experience with it though it may be different for others
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