Featured Repair Industry Failing to Attract New Talent

Thinking about it, I would think dealers have way more overhead than a repair shop, hence higher prices.

 

Service writers are the ones that sell power steering flushes on cars that have electric steering.

 

Those electrons get gummy after 40,000 miles or so.

 

The last dealership service department experience I had with our 06 Civic Hybrid was refreshing. The service writer had the mechanic talk to me, and he took me right in, was showing me with a flashlight what the issues were.

The same place did have a good Service Manager for a while, really conscientious, would come out, explain the options, when there was a tricky repair. I think he was too good though, didn't last long.

 

In my observation, the one department in a dealership that seems the most stable when it comes to personnel is the parts department. The rest of the dealerships seem to have more turnovers than a bakery.

 

We have shops by us whining they can't find mechanics or machinists.
Let's see, they are trying to recruit people at $16 - $19 per hr. and they must have there own tools.
Tools are worth $3 per hr. leaving $13 - $16 per.
Their argument is thats the rate because of out sourcing of mfg jobs.
Hell we have fast food joints that pay better that that.
A machinist and mechanics was paid very well in the '70's and '80's, now they are shit jobs. I retired early as SS was about the same after work expenses.

 

I think a reason I'm admittedly not a big DIY car maintenance person today is because when I was growing up my Dad wasn't.
Growing up, we definitely just most often found mechanics/shops and paid for repairs.

But in those day's I remember my parents usually talking to the mechanic that was going to do the work, directly. Sometimes, maybe often that mechanic was the owner of the shop itself.

Sometime between those days, and my adulthood, it all changed.
Dealership Repair Shops are so designed to separate you and insulate you from the actual repair/evaluation process. Most service bays, are out of the sight of the customers, and you're pretty much put in a waiting room and expected to eat a donut.

I suppose every Service Writer is different. But I have often questioned the actual automotive knowledge of many of them. I think in most cases their function is simply to be a insulating intermediary, whose main goal really has little connection to the nuts and bolts of your car repair but more to just getting your signature on the estimate and a swipe of your credit card.

 

Subscription only and the free diagnostic codes are a far cry from their mandating that the dealer rape you for every repair.

 

There's so much there though. Toyota's subscription site has all the manuals, wiring diagrams, TSBs, service campaigns, quick technical guides, course materials for Toyota technician training, all right there for browsing.

I didn't get a hundredth of that stuff with the paper factory manuals I bought for previous vehicles.

And the old prices seemed to be all over the map depending on the manufacturer anyway. I think I spent maybe a couple hundred for my old Mazda's shop manual and wiring diagram. Also about the same for a Ford set (a volume for the truck, a volume for the engine/emissions, and a wiring diagram).

A friend bought an old Volvo. Want their manuals? They printed everything that would be a Toyota manual "section" as a separate, skinny "volume" and sold them for like $20 to $30 each. Complete set would add up to around $1200 IIRC.

 

My last set of car manuals went for 6 loosleaf volumes and well north of $600 in 1998 dollars. It contained all the Error codes and function descriptions and diagnostic trees a person could need. Updates/corrections had to be manually inserted. Just like navigation maps used by sailors of the era.

After that it was a series of electronic tools, the last only available for rental at $40k per year.

I got my start when a teenage friend bought a '37 Packard for $20, then a Model A and a 40 Ford with a 54 Dodge Hemi. He did all the work but I got to appreciate that it wasn't rocket science and I figured I could do many things. Know your limits. I can't recall ever screwing anything serious up.

But cars were simpler then and a little mechanical insight and theory was all you needed. How many sensors did a Model A have? A gas tank mechanical float is all I recall. Right in front of the dashboard.

 

My parents '58 V-Dub Beetle Owner's Manual, under 100 pages, includes engine/transmission fluid changes, steering gear and suspension lube, fan belt adjustment, carburetor cleaning/adjustment, valve adjustment, spark plugs and timing, battery inspection, headlight aiming, brake adjustment and bleeding, parts diagrams for the engine and transmission.

Then pages of info regarding maintenance schedule,

'58 Volkwagen Beetle Owner's Manual | PriusChat

 

Society has been pushing that the way to get a well paying job and get ahead was to go to college, not a trade school.

For the repairs I've done on my cars, going back to a 2000 Ranger, I found the trouble shooting and how to info for free on the internet. The OBD2 codes vital to keeping the car actually running are also open source, and up on the web, with a basic code reading being cheap if there isn't a parts store near you that will pull them for free.

With John Deere, everything is proprietary to the point that going to an independent shop isn't possible, let alone DIY. Many farmers are choosing to void their warranties by pulling out the JD computers to install aftermarket ones that will let them do their own maintenance without having to go to a licensed dealer for work.

The same has happened to the pay for truck drivers.

 

Others decide to buy a cheap Kubota tractor and throw it away when they cannot get parts & but another one. Many times that is still cheaper than going down the John Deere path.