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Upon removing the aftermarket remote start, the code transferred to body elec issue. We cleared it and it stayed gone. If TAS hadn’t told us anything you would’ve solved that issue for us. I greatly appreciate it.
Thanks Collegeman. We pulled the negative terminal for an hour to do a hard restart. Now Techstream is telling us it’s a body elect issue. We are going to figure it out in the morning.
I think I posted this, labor rate in Ohio is roughly $104.95 that’s mid Ohio and we have top 10 economy in the country. Not sure if that helps.
[quote=”Tech 1″ post=167816]Really hard to put a dollar amount down here. My feeling is that for the first few years you could be taking home less that if you were working for someone else. I live in a very rural part of Southern CA (right on the LA/Kern County border). 65 seems to be way low in what you will have to be charging per hour. The rate by me is sitting at 100.00 per hour right now.[/quote]
Back in 99 I responded to a Kern county fire. Almost died. A buddy of mine pulled me out of the fire dozer I was operating, I passed out from smoke while we were running direct. He got some nasty burns and we both ended up in the ER for smoke inhalation. We lost the dozer of course. 900 deg fire walked right through it.
I bring this up because just last week I was explaining what the difference between camaraderie and baby sitting is. I used that exact fire to explain it.
My advice to you would be to keep running your side shop, while working your regular job. When the demand for the side shop out grows your ability to manage it on the side and consistently provides a measurable source of income then I would look at leaving your job.
With the town mechanic looking to retire maybe you can get with him and he can give you pointers on labor rates and what to charge. Possibly even work something out where he teaches you about auto repair to a point you are more comfortable with auto stuff.
Giving advice on labor rates is like telling someone what to wear for the weather in a place you’ve never been.
I hope it works out, please keep us posted on how it goes.
[quote=”KeithLG” post=166730]Long story short, I’m thinking of looking for another shop to go to. I’ve worked for a VW dealer for about a year as a quick lube guy, things started off great, but over the past few months, things around here and general employee morale have tanked because of management. My main reason for considering the move is the fact that I feel like I’m gonna be quick lube forever here. One of the guys I work with has been here 4 years, and they’ve been saying that he was going to move up for months, and it never happened. This guy is a damn good tech and could outwork at least a couple guys on the line.
I like most of my coworkers, and I enjoy the brand, but something’s gotta give. I hope I’m being somewhat reasonable here[/quote]
Hmn, I can relate 100% to where you are. The management where I work right now is frankly horrible. They make promises to people and never honor them. I pissed off quite a few people because I came in as an express tech and went to a flat rate team within months. Many of the techs I work with were promised the position I currently hold and they have been at our dealership for twice the time I have been.
They don’t hold a grudge with me because I show them as much stuff as I can so they learn new things and keep fresh on the stuff they know. It also breaks up the boredom of oil/rot all day for them.
I know your co-worker is impressive. There might be reasons why he isn’t moving up. I know where I work there is no upward movement because all our teams are full. Each tech turns between 40-60 flag hours a week and adding another tech would only lower the flag hours they get.
I would move on to another dealership. Ask around your area. I live in a pretty high market for dealerships, independent shops, good ol boy shops.
Sometimes you have to work somewhere, move up, develop skills. Master them and then move on again.
I do swaps with the car running also, I find an hourly guy to hold the terminals since they shadow us a lot. When we are slow or a battery looks like utter crap I recommend a battery service. I also do those with the vehicle running.
MBDiagman and Jasonw1178 thanks for the input. What you said makes perfect sense. The terminals are off for literally 15 seconds as you guys well know. Thinking about grounding and the possibility of a wrench touching really comes into play.
I’m thinking forward like electrical diag work. I am starting to dip my toes into it. Your input makes a lot of sense thinking about future work.
I really appreciate it.
Seems like it’s one of those things where it’s half dozen one way, six the other. The shop was split in two over this and all of us ended up in a debate. It was actually pretty cool. We even let the hourly guys chime in.
For some reason I always have a habit on grounding things before I do anything electrical. I try to keep the same processes for everything, even when I don’t need to. Almost a muscle memory in a way. Perfect practice makes almost perfect kind of thing.
Cigarolla I love it it.
When I was over seas we had a Humvee that stank to high heaven. We took it down to motor pool because we thought for sure it was a dead animal stuck somewhere in the fan shroud.
Nope.
Someone wrapped a half eaten chicken wing up in a napkin, and shoved it into the AC system. It made it safely through the rainy winter season, then fermented over the summer. We nicknamed that thing the ‘sum of a beach’.
I hate you.
I’m kidding. Congrats man, sounds like a sweet gig. Keep up the hard work and keep up posted.
MDK22 you will be like a jedi with his light saber after a few times with the torch. You are very humble, I know you have amazing skills. Just with the conversations I’ve had with you on here I know without a doubt you will not have any troubles adapting to the ‘rust belt’ :D. Welcome to our special hell lol.
[quote=”Bsosborne1″ post=154601]Really I don’t know how you can avoid the torch. I work on big stuff and I use it all the time. Mostly for cutting bolts or bushings out, but also for interference fit press parts. With rusty trucks your going to have to use it. If you have to heat up suspension parts that are in static load then you should replace them. But often you will have heat them to get them loose. With heavy equipment the torch is your best friend.
Pitt, its funny you mention using the torch to do alignments. I have not seen many northern trucks with IFS front ends not require a torch to either move or cut out the upper control arm camber bolts. Typically because those bolts are flat cut they seize up easily. Don’t know how you can get them out without lots of heat[/quote]
I don’t get paid for the time it takes to heat the shit up. In Fop’s case the juice is worth the squeeze so to speak. He heats up a rear wheel hub and a job that pays 5 hours is done in 2. But I get paid 9/10 for an alignment and if I’m heating up something for 20 minutes to start the work then I’ll find something else to do.
If it’s a slow, slow day and I like the adviser I’ll grab the oxy and heat up the bolts. If the adviser is a tool and I can knock out 4 brakes jobs waiting on me then Pitt doesn’t give a shit lol. We did a frame swap just last week and we had to cut some bolts. 3 hours of work to get a bed off a truck that we didn’t get the extra time for.
Sometimes you’re the hammer, sometimes you’re the nail.
My thoughts-
1.) I really don’t understand why you and Fopeano aren’t moderators. Maybe it’s politics.
2.) I’m printing this off and taking it to work, putting it in my box and sharing it with the techs that actually care about their job. It will sit next to your advice on being a tech, and what tools to buy. I give them to all the new lubey’s we hire that ask those questions.
3.) Thank you for sharing these because you’d be amazed how many times we walk around and ask each other for advice on adhesives, lubricants, loctites, RTB’s.
4.) And most of all thank you for taking the time to write this up, share it with all of us and contribute so much to the forum.
One of the popular things in my old shop was to heat up bolts, tie rods ect if they didn’t break lose. I would make sure they broke loose before I sold the alignment.
And I’ve lost a few alignments to techs that were willing to heat up suspension components to do an alignment. Because I refuse to.
One time I got into a pretty heated argument with a service adviser that told me heating up suspension components for an alignment doesn’t change anything. I asked what his credentials were. He was an ASE master tech with 3 years of wrench time. Then he asked for mine.
I told him “3 1/2 years of mechanical engineering school, my associates in auto repair, and my best friend has his Phd in Physics. And both of us are telling you that you’re a fucking idiot. Heating up metal components changes their elasticity property and weakens their tensile strength.”
If I had left it at that I would’ve been fine. But I told him if he still had a problem we could meet at the gas station down the street and knuckle the fuck up like men and settle our problem.
And that was write up number 12 for that Dealership. LOL I’m glad I’ve calmed down over the years.