Sometimes, but I’m intimately familiar with a business that pays people like $20/hr while they’re training them (9mos) - then the pay goes to like $30/hr, and after a few years most of them are making like $90k+/year. No one wants the job because they don’t want to put in the time, and it takes a 2-5 years to for someone to be good at it. My point being is that there are a ton of people that have super short term thinking when it comes to this stuff (like next month not next five year)
Mechanics are one of the few professions in the US where corporate wage suppression is allowed by law. So it actually is a case of having a shortage because they can just move to another industry.
Very highly paid executive complains because the peasants aren't willing to work for nearly nothing. Where have I heard that before.
But Ivanovko brings up a great point: manufacturers are making their products difficult to repair, for a variety of reasons. In this case saving manufacturing costs increases profits, but at the cost to the owner of greater repair costs. Even for simple repairs. (And collision repair costs, ugh!) And that in turn drives up insurance costs. I'm amazed that people can afford today's vehicles.
Auto mechanics do things to "flat rate" where each task is listed as taking a given amount of time. There seems to be a lot of variation between what the book says, and how long the tasks actually take. How are these flat rates assessed? I wonder if it's assuming a new car with no complications or wear and tear to components, or rust etc.
The "design for unmaintainability" problem has been around for a while. I remember helping a friend change his plugs on this Ford Ranger in the early 90s. The closest two plugs to the firewall required you to climb into the engine bay and basically hug the engine to get your arm into position to blindly get to the plugs. If you look around on YouTube you'll see some crazy mechanic videos where they show things like bolts located in impossible to loosen locations.
Cars used to be simpler to work on because a) they inherently were simpler and b) the engine bay used to have a lot of room to work in. Both of these things are not coming back.
The other day I listened to The Verge's Decoder episode with the Ford CEO [0] and unlike most other CEOs, he almost felt genuine. There was a noticeable lack of BS. Have I been played?
The lack of mechanics was mentioned and I recall him saying that they're building up apprenticeship programs and the US should take more pride in blue collar work.
Emperor has no clothes. Instagram is full of videos by mechanics explaining this or that brand/model is stupidly engineered. Known problem. And mechanics do not have a seat at the table where these matters are discussed and decided upon. Unless he plans to change that…
Car companies don't want you to be able to work on these cars. They would much rather you either buy a new car or use their 3x the cost parts and services.
Electric cars need a lot fewer mechanical repairs. Sounds like yet more reasons to avoid buying one of these overpriced over complicated petro vehicles.
So basically they refuse to pay a reasonable hourly rate. They pay flat fee perfect world rates that cause mechanics to lose money when they encounter real world problems.
As always the worker shortage is a “there’s a shortage of skilled workers who refuse to get screwed on pay”
The data for long term maintenance can be found but for example the government could mandate it be published for car models to give consumers more insight and be a lever to incentivize designing cars to be more easily maintainable (e.g. not have to remove a truck's cab to replace an oil filter gasket!) https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-maintenance/the-cos...
You have to remove the cab to change the oil pan gasket==YOU'LL have to pay ME to buy your stupidly-designed truck. But I realize, driving my 25-year-old car, that someday at this rate I won't have a choice. Maybe someone sells simple, underpowered kit cars and I can put that together.
How do dealerships get away with essentially passing on the downside and risk of warranties to mechanics?
Shouldn't it be the business that's shouldering the variability in income due to warranties, since they're the ones that sold the cars with them?
It seems similar to a hypothetical restaurant selling memberships with food, then paying workers less when customers buy food with the membership discount.
Does every fucking title need to be rewritten? The clickbait witch hunt legacy of Buzzfeed is more annoying today than it ever actually was when it existed.
I started out my automotive software career with Ford, and as part of the new college hire training program, I actually got to see the process of how "book rate" is determined. They take a brand new car, straight off the assembly line and give a master mechanic a process sheet (head gasket remove and replace, for instance). He has a tool cart with a computer next to it, about 6 feet away from the vehicle. For each step he starts a timer on the computer for that step, picks up the necessary ratchet and socket or whatever, loosens the next bolt, walks the ratchet and socket back to the tool box, puts it away and then finally stops the timer. He probably practices the procedure a few times before the timed run, but basically this prevents the company from setting the time to do a job super crazy low.
He's also not allowed to take any shortcuts from the book procedure, which there frequently are a few available (use a long wobble extension bar and a universal joint and you can get in without taking off all of the stuff above that bolt, whatever). On the other hand, this is the warranty rate (meaning new cars, largely less rust, etc). Independent/non-dealer mechanics will typically charge more time than the warranty time estimate from the manufacturer to account for things like rusty vehicles with harder to remove bolts and such, though this is usually in the rate book they subscribe to from whatever information source they pay for (warranty + 20% or so).
The issue is that the estimated time for a job is probably a high estimate for a brand new car and probably a low estimate for a several year old car, and the risk of that is on the dealership. The dealership then pays mechanics an hourly wage ($20+, fairly high for well certified master mechanics) and assumes that the hours listed on the job from the manufacturer are accurate, leaving the mechanic to take the risk if it goes over. Generally, the dealership loses on this proposition too, since they lose out on business/bay/electric/heat/etc for the lost time, so they don't like warranty work. They can upcharge/charge for more time/etc on a job for a customer, not for warranty repair due to contractual obligations to the OEM. This is particularly bad for Ford, since they currently lead the industry in recalls and warranty spend, meaning that their dealership networks are getting a lot more of that kind of work with limited profit and no ability to turn it down.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 54.0 ms ] threadCars used to be simpler to work on because a) they inherently were simpler and b) the engine bay used to have a lot of room to work in. Both of these things are not coming back.
https://youtu.be/9cfbhxsqW84
The lack of mechanics was mentioned and I recall him saying that they're building up apprenticeship programs and the US should take more pride in blue collar work.
0- https://www.theverge.com/podcast/784875/ford-ceo-jim-farley-...
As always the worker shortage is a “there’s a shortage of skilled workers who refuse to get screwed on pay”
Nothing there has changed for decades except the world around it.
Shouldn't it be the business that's shouldering the variability in income due to warranties, since they're the ones that sold the cars with them?
It seems similar to a hypothetical restaurant selling memberships with food, then paying workers less when customers buy food with the membership discount.
This has been going on for 500+ years since the very dawn of capitalism.
He's also not allowed to take any shortcuts from the book procedure, which there frequently are a few available (use a long wobble extension bar and a universal joint and you can get in without taking off all of the stuff above that bolt, whatever). On the other hand, this is the warranty rate (meaning new cars, largely less rust, etc). Independent/non-dealer mechanics will typically charge more time than the warranty time estimate from the manufacturer to account for things like rusty vehicles with harder to remove bolts and such, though this is usually in the rate book they subscribe to from whatever information source they pay for (warranty + 20% or so).
The issue is that the estimated time for a job is probably a high estimate for a brand new car and probably a low estimate for a several year old car, and the risk of that is on the dealership. The dealership then pays mechanics an hourly wage ($20+, fairly high for well certified master mechanics) and assumes that the hours listed on the job from the manufacturer are accurate, leaving the mechanic to take the risk if it goes over. Generally, the dealership loses on this proposition too, since they lose out on business/bay/electric/heat/etc for the lost time, so they don't like warranty work. They can upcharge/charge for more time/etc on a job for a customer, not for warranty repair due to contractual obligations to the OEM. This is particularly bad for Ford, since they currently lead the industry in recalls and warranty spend, meaning that their dealership networks are getting a lot more of that kind of work with limited profit and no ability to turn it down.