What do we do about Flat-Rate?

[Chevypower]

I graduated Tech school and after 45 days on the job, I was told “Go Flat-Rate, or go somewhere else.” It was worse than you could possibly imagine.

I say we organize a massive, Nation-wide walk out during the busiest time of the year. All Flat-Rate shops will have every twisting wrench come in for work, put on our uniforms, and stand in the streets with picket signs saying things like: “Nation Wide Automotive Service strike! Shops hog all the profits while Technicians starve!” “Warranty service doesn’t pay!” “Your free inspection is money out of my pocket!”

Get TV news coverage going, Blitzkreig the Nation. All of a sudden, shops would realize they’re screwed. How many thousands of dollars per day per shop will be lost due to zero service work being performed?

I know it’s an insanely radical idea, maybe even to the point of extremist, but I guarantee you it would work quick, fast, and in a hurry. You can’t fire your entire service department and expect to survive.

What about the still out of work technicians, sitting at home waiting for a job to call them back? I bet those guys would be either watching the news, or joining us in the fight.

Bitching about it all over the internet isn’t going to solve anything. Laying down and allowing paychecks to dwindle is going to force us all into poverty.

When we make this work, we can shift our attention to the tool trucks too!

Topic

[Bruce]

fitters, I like that. I have worked with very few good mechanics. I will not throw parts at something if I dont know what is wrong with it. Lots of people will and alot of shop owners allow it to happen. So I can understand why mechanics have a bad rep.

I work with 3 other guys. 2 of them are not very good. One is pretty good at diag/electrical, but complains because he doesn’t get any brake/suspension work. He got a brake job on a Ford van, hang pads and rotors and repack bearings. Took him almost 3 hours. The other one isn’t good at anything that I have seen so far, honestly dont know why he is still here. Neither of them can inspect a car. They will say it needs a tierod or something, but come to find out the shocks are woreout and it needs balljoints to. So the boss wont sell there recommendations, because he knows chances are it needs more. So myself, or the other guy that knows how to check a car out, will get it to do an inspection on it. I am not saying I am the best there is, I just treat every car I look at like it is my own. Maybe thats the problem, maybe these guys treat their own cars like crap and dont care about them.

[stingray66]

The Big Question is what to do about flat rate
I was at a friends shop yesterday with a group of techs and we talked about this very same thing
Whats happing here in philly is most of the dealerships have burned out a lot of good techs. A lot of good techs ether quit or got out of the car repairs all to gather, What we see happing is this There is right now a major shortage of good techs working
for dealerships What WILL happen sooner or later is this The industry will have to make changes and get rid of the flat rate system just to get good techs in the door They are NOW finding that putting a job in the paper will NOT get a good tech to go for a job that is paying flat rate
Also todays cars are so much harder to work on and just is NOT worth working flat rate .After seeing what you had to do to replace the head gaskets and water pump in a 03 Mazda with a ford 3.0 v6 it not to long before you see throw away cars We found it would be better just to replace the engine than go though all the labor that went to replace the water pump and head gaskets
In the end the owner said he should have just trading the car in
We all said the fun is all but gone and most of us will NOT be doing this for long
So as the flat rate system I think the industry shot them self in the foot and will be forced to make changes
I see this happen in the next two to there years

[steven jacobsen]

I am a shop owner and I live and die by flat rate, regardless what a tech makes. I fully agree the flat rate system needs changed, I am in Ontario and I defy anyone to do half the stuff in the book at that time. If you can do every job in that time here then I will hire you and pay you double what you get now.

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