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For as many shops as there are there are as many reasons why a tech believes working in one place is better than working at the other. We are having EXACTLY the same discussions about the trade as we had 40 years ago… with the added challenges of embedded technology treated as if our national security depended on keeping it secret and a crop of youngsters who view a car as an appliance and a forty hour workweek as if it’s a life sentence at a maximum security prison.
For you denizens here who are “more mature” you’ll remember that I’ve worked in both arenas as tech, working shop owner and manager and even at that there’s no guarantee that I have anything to offer other than one more opinion… but for what it’s worth, here’s what I think I know….
All makes and all models is nearly impossible to do anymore for a number of reasons. Tooling, software, training and proficiency all weigh heavily against it now. It CAN be done, but doing it profitably is virtually impossible unless you severely limit the number and type of services offered. Even at that, smoking an instrument cluster in a Porsche after a brake job because the software that homes the rear caliper pistons is hard to swallow at $1200 a copy… which two local indy’s discovered last month in our market area. Nothing nefarious or incompetent here, just outdated software and difficulty getting the information that could have prevented the problem.
From what I see “directed repair processes” are making us all dull. We are acclimated to having the car’s computer do lunch with our diagnostic computer and proceeding from there. I still baseline a car before I drive it… still check coolant, engine oil, brake fluid, feel the brake pedal and look at the tires, belts and hoses… and then do a short test hop followed by my road test. The flat rate guys all think I’m an idiot because “what’s it pay?” but then I’ve not had to walk back from a road test or call a customer explaining why I was behind the wheel when the rods sought their freedom from the block.
Dealer life can be very good IF you have good support people, a parts department that stocks parts and a good work mix. You get good training (too much at times I think) and the shop has to provide all the tricky tools, but every day will be a bitchfest because… well… because every tech is born with a bitchbone and it just comes out at times. You don’t HAVE to know HOW it works anymore… you have to be really good at reading the flow chart (the directed repair process), recording your results, complying with documentation and image requirements and cultivating a good relationship with your tech line guy who will tell you what part to hang if the flow chart lets you down. Just because you follow the recipe for cake doesn’t mean you always get cake… sometimes, for reasons we will never know… you get biscuits.
On the indy side you tend to be or become a much better mechanic (which is by definition a more highly skilled person than a technician.) You learn to think, work around problems and shortfalls in tools or equipment or information and figure out how it’s supposed to work and then make it work, whether it wants to or not. You’ll spend more on personal tools and in my opinion you have to be the kind of person who loves a challenge. Of the two paths, in my experience, you’ll generally earn more money at the dealer if you can master the dealer game plan, but at the expense of peace of mind at times because of the politics and bitchfests that get inside your head and destroy your sanity.
Let’s face it, it’s a dying trade anyway. ICE cars have 2500-5000 parts and the electrics have 15-30…. If they couple plug-in EV with autonomy, in a very few years there won’t be privately owned transportation at all… and with no parts to fail there’ll be nothing to fix. Even the body shops will get hammered as fewer cars are wrecked due to technology. People in fifty years will pick up their cell phone or whatever has taken its place by then, and a self driver will whisk into the drive, take them to where they have to go and bring them back… all for a fraction of what it costs to own, insure, maintain and operate a private means of transportation (you won’t have a driver to pay and the cost of operation for the autonomous plug-in EV makes it a natural business venture.) Even long distance trips will be possible with car exchanges strategically located every few hundred miles with fully charged cars waiting for you to swap into to continue your trip….
It would be interesting to see what the very, very few techs working the trade then will be complaining about then…. but I’m hoping I won’t be around to find out.
Best to all,
GregMc.
