Ford CEO warns America is ‘in trouble.’ Car giant has 5,000 open mechanic jobs

I did mechanic work at a Toyota dealer which I consider to be one of the best and probably easiest to work on. Those mechanics all work on straight commission doing jobs that take 3 hours but only pay 2. Warranty work pays even less. If I got in 32 paid hours a week I was doing fairly well. It’s just not worth it.

 

Kind of like all of the non revenue stuff truck drivers don't get paid for.

 

Poor pay structure

Bad management

Poor training

And the list goes on……Until there’s a major restructuring of automotive service repair at a dealership level, good mechanics will continue to avoid them like the plague. Life is too short to hate going to work, even if you are paid a decent wage.

 

Simple solution..make vehicles so the average car guy can work on them.

Thinking back on all the vehicles I’ve owned..had a 1976 Toyota sr-5 pickup.. I can’t think of one thing that you’d actually need a dealership mechanic for.

My last Benz didn’t even have an oil dipstick.

 

If he likes that he would really LOVE the 3 cylinder EcoBoost engine found in late model Ford Focus and Fiesta models that use a WET TIMING BELT!!
(I s*** you not,I’m not making this up!!!)

 

Ford likely wants to fill the positions with subsidized foreign workers who will work for buttons.
Auto makers could go the same route once they rid themselves of unions. Nobody installing sun visors is worth $40 a hour

 

It seems to me that "back in the day", book work was well padded. IE a job that would take a rookie 1.5 hours and an experienced mechanic 30 minutes was priced at 1.25 hours. It's why outside shops were so much cheaper than a dealership - they'd charge on actual time. Is this accurate or rose colored glasses?

 

Actual time these days is more than book time in a lot of cases. One of the reasons dealers tend to lose a bit on warranty work.

 

Did it used to be reversed?

 

Besides getting hosed on book time there is the buying your own tools part.
I know I spent at least 15K to 20K through the years on tools while I was wrenching.