I’m 37 been in the trade for 7 years in dealerships of 3 different makes, Maserati/Alfa, CDJRF and Volvo. same dealership tech exploiting bullshit at all 3. Corporate chains, franchise chains and one salary position (no benefits) in commercial fleet maintenance shop. I hate it. Long hours, working days off, stress of flag, moving toolboxes between jobs, extraordinary tool costs. I like electronic controls and computerization diag and generally the technical aspects of the work itself but the environment and employers and never ending financial catch-up game are sucking the life out of me. Nor do I want to be a self-employed mobile mechanic as working on broke peoples shitboxes in their driveways sucks even more.
What are the other options?
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Find an independent repair shop with a good reputation and go to work there. I did the dealership thing for 20 years and was ready to jump industries, found a great independent shop. I am now happier than I have ever been, it’s an honest straight forward shop with a salaried position and great benefits. No weekends and no holidays all around made me happy to be a tech again. Good luck
Golf courses are always looking for good mechanics. You might check around at the higher end golf courses in your area.
I was a dealer tech for 25 years. I got into warehouse maintenance job. Repairing machinery. Conveyer belts and such. Pay is less of course. But I have better healthcare, Monday-Friday schedule. Work in climate control warehouse. All holidays off. No overtime. And best no need to buy tools. If your good at diagnosing vehicles then this will come easy.
Seems all auto mechanics hate their life / suicidal. Why is that? Is the industry that rough?
It’s because dealerships want you to upsell every single thing you can.
I was a 20 yr old tech coming home feeling like 56 yrs old every day. Bruises, burns, scratches, and a relentless back pain. Couldn’t leave the industry fast enough
I worked as a race car mechanic, pretty much… 3 working days in one day , 7 days a week. It never stops… living out of a travel bag. Laundry at the hotel. Air plane flights lay over in who knows where… gawd I miss it… LMFAO
employers take advantage and don’t give a shit and most customer think were dumb con artist. what’s not to love
I did that shit for 50 years calm down it’s only going to get worse
I left the field at the start of COVID. Look into a county or city mechanic job.
How about a city/county job?
I’m a county employee (911 dispatch) and lemme fucking tell you how incredible the benefits are. Top of the line health/dental/vision, $250k life insurance, 401k, and working on holidays is double and a half time.
Working for the government is actually pretty sweet
Your situation is not universal. Yea, Gov jobs aren’t bad but not all of them are great. I was a 9-1-1 Dispatcher. The pay was good, the benefits and union were terrible. I have another gov job now and it’s great with great bene’s but you never hear from our Local. Pay could be a smidge better.
Fair enough. It definitely depends on the job and the area
This may not be the answer you expect, but you can nearly do ANYTHING you want to do. The big question is - what do you WANT to do?
Do you want to stay in automotive? If not, figure out what you’d prefer to do and pursue it. If you do want to stay automotive, make a list of every single auto-related job you think would interest you. From parts guy to some sort of odd work from home tech support.
One thing you should definitely check is federal/military jobs. They pay well. Excellent benefits. And the work load would likely be much more manageable. USAJobs.com is the only way to apply for federal jobs.
I just went to USAJobs and typed “mechanic” in to the keywords box. There are 1,251 listings. Anywhere from $15 per hour to around $80k a year for specialist positions (such as electronics equipment specialist).
You may seem stuck with what you’ve got. You may have blinders on to the rest of the world. And/or you may feel like you’re drowning in 3 feet of water and only need to stand up.
Pick your head up. You’ve got this!
With the skills you’ve acquired being a mechanic, you can do pretty much anything, it doesn’t have to be on cars, and you can bet that it won’t be that book hour nonsense. I know that’s not specific, but that’s kind of the point.
I work in truck leasing. Good benefits, 40 hours a week, good steady pay with a yearly raise and the occasional promotion. Trucks are newer and there is not a lot of heavy work to do. Don’t need many expensive tools for the same reason.
There’s an emerging market for automotive InfoSec
Government fleet maintenance is where it’s at. I am a diesel tech for a city government and the work is gravy, pays decent with good benefits, and is relatively stress free.
I know it’s been mentioned a few times already, but have looked into fleet work? I make 70k a year, and the hardest thing I do is replace injectors on 15L deisel. Major work gets sent to the dealer. Im a lead tech in my shop, a tech 3, we tend to spend most of our time diagnosing CEL. Most of the time, it’s abs or aftertreatment problems. The company provides snap-on tools at our shop. They are supposed to be rolling it out to all shops. Without air brake certification, you would start out as a pm tech making about 43k. If you have a few years experience with air brakes, you could hire in as a repair tech making around 58k. I work for the retailer that everyone loves to hate, walmart, but it pays the bills. Vacation, 401k, stock, health, dental, vision. At this point, there is such a shortage of techs, most fleets don’t care if you have any experience with heavy duty or diesel. If you’re competent and know your way around a shop, they’ll hire you.
Mobile forklift repair.
I went back to school, got an engineering degree, and now I design cars instead of fixing them. You couldn’t pay me enough to go back to the flat rate meat grinder