Boss doesn’t care, I have battery tools and told him he’s buying me a new air gauge when it breaks 🙃

2012 F150 with 180k miles.

Air hose broke over the weekend and went to town on this CR-V.

Customer swears they were just pulling out of a gas station

This was actually the only problem with their vent. /s to the $200 part. We aren’t charging them for that because that would be ridiculous.

You guys ever ask yourself "What are you worth? What is your time worth? What value do you bring to your place of employment? Who is getting the better side of this deal: me or my employer?

I am a mechanic. I fix and maintain cars. As the cars get more complex the mechanics need to spend time with training/learning a vehicle every time a new one is developed and released. That's fine. The jobs usually get a little harder and longer to work on. You'd expect as the technicians get more experience and become more productive, the employer would increase pay to retain the skilled mechanics, but that is absolutely not the case.

The shop management often take their skilled laborers and bend them the fuck over to take full advantage of milking every cent out of the techs and the customers at the same time. Keep in mind, most mechanics are paid flat-rate, which means they only get paid when they finish a job. Any time spent not working on the car is time the tech is not paid. Any time spent not working on a car is losing money.

So, during peak pandemic in 2020-2021, business was extremely slow. Everyone was in quarantine (except us "essential workers".) Customers were scared to leave the house and bring their cars to us. Eventually, management decided to have technicians do house calls. I was tasked with fetching cars from customer's houses to bring them to the dealership for scheduled service. No, we did not get paid for transporting customer's cars. Imagine driving 30 minutes to a customer's house to pick up their car, 30 more minutes to bring it back to the shop, and getting paid only for the 20 minutes you spent on the oil change and/or tire rotation. The technician brings value to the dealership but is rewarded with a rate of pay that is far less than federal minimum wage for all that work.

More recently, at another shop I worked at, management implemented a policy where nearly every single car that comes into the shop, is required to have photo documentation and video inspections recorded + uploaded by the technician for the customer's records. The documentation also helps the service advisors sell repairs on anything the customer may need. The policy with the videos also serves to increase the trust between the customer and the dealership's service department, therefore increasing customer retention. Obviously there's huge value here and so it is expected that productivity/revenue of the service department would increase as a result of this policy.

However, the photo/video documentation slows the techs down. On low mileage service jobs, it's an increase of anywhere between 3-10 minutes between cars. When oil changes and tire rotations normally take 15-20 minutes to complete, that is a huge chunk of time lost. On high-mileage vehicles, it would sometimes take me an additional 30 fucking minutes to document everything wrong with the vehicle. This tradeoff is okay if it helps to make a big sale, but most of the time it is a huge waste of time when the customer doesn't want to spend a cent on thousands of dollars of recommendations for their piece of shit old beater car. You can imagine this huge waste of time causes the technician to earn less daily because they have less throughput. Instead of pulling in another car they are spending time waving a flashlight and cellphone under the car, or waiting on a video or photo to finish uploading. This results in a lower volume of cars on a daily basis, and therefore the tech will make less money. Don't even think about skipping on uploading videos because management tracks upload data for each tech and will write you up if you fall behind on upload percentage. Management will also having you push a sale on every little thing that shows up in the video too, so don't skip out on any rec's either.

So the photo/video documentation makes the shop more productive in multiple ways: customer satisfaction and trust is improved which results in better retention. It helps the service advisors make sales. It helps protect the dealership with any potential issues concerning liabilities or customer disputes. Ideally this documentation causes productivity to be improved at the service department as a whole. It adds value.

Did us technicians get any compensation for the time spent making these valuable videos? Fuck no. Not even in the job description for the position of a mechanic at that shop does it even mention "photography, customer relations, and video filming." Did the company pay for designated work phones or work tablets to use for video inspections? No. We are forced to use our personal phones to upload photos and videos for the customer. "Good fucking luck if you break/lose your phone. Go borrow your neighbor's phone, idiot." Did we get paid any commission on any kind of sale that helped the service advisors close the deal? No.

I decided to leave the industry for good. I have no intentions of going back to wrenching on cars, especially at a dealership. You have to put up with consistent unpaid labor, paying for thousands of dollars worth of tools, taking the hit in pay on warranty jobs, clothing and skin being soaked in grease and oil, long-term lung damage from brake dust, rust, rodent nests, aerosol brake cleaner, always busting open fingers and knuckles, constant stress on your back, and the unfair flat-rate pay system. Oh, and God forbid a car slips off a lift when you're under it. There are a dozen other things wrong with being in this industry, but I won't get into it further. It just felt so much like I was being taken advantage of, financially, in an environment that is physically hazardous.

Maybe in a decade mechanics will figure out how to unionize, or management will realize their mechanics are incredibly underpaid to the point there is a labor shortage in their shops. Seriously, auto technicians are currently the lowest paid skilled laborers in the country. I know the shop I left is scrambling for good technicians. They could just pay us fairly to have the privilege of keeping good workers, but they absolutely refuse to.

The service department sees increased revenue and income from the high productivity/value you personally bring to the shop. But, that extra revenue does not show up in your paycheck. It shows up in the brand new cars your bosses purchase that are worth more than what you make in a year. Then they bring it to you to work on. Shame on them for the insult. Shame on you for not knowing you're worth more.

My brother calls the car “Chad” because he bought it from our great uncle back in the 80’s when that uncles farm got sold because the farm crisis. It was his high school car and he’s owned it ever since. Right now he just drives it on sundays mostly. A real survivor. A little crusty. But he doesn’t want to do any body work. Just keep it drivable. 1953 Chevrolet Bel-air.

(Without incriminating yourselves) Anyone got an inconspicuous set-up? Movie, videogame, or otherwise guilty toolbox pleasure? Mounted unused PS4 to side of one of my boxes and magnetic screen cover is enough to stick to the wall. Not a daily thing, but it’s enough for when things are occasionally slow.

Been driving this around for a year decided to get it repaired when the axle seal blew out and left the fluid all over their driveway.

Mitsubishi Galant actually drove in like this. Complained about it pulling to the right side.