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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maybe look into airlines as they need techs for the ground equipment. No customers, generally union, generally flight benefits, generally shift work.
I left the field at the start of COVID. Look into a county or city mechanic job.
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 did that shit for 50 years calm down it’s only going to get worse
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
There’s an emerging market for automotive InfoSec
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!
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.
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.
Warranty admin 30-35k? What where? Thats awful. Dealerships just suck. My warranty admins made double that.
Only way i would go back to dealer is as management
Mobile forklift repair.
Whataburger managers make like 60k. Correctional officers too.
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
Gotta find the right shop , dealers are all garbage . Once you find the right shop it all comes together
Heavy equipment. Come it’s the most fun I’ve had in 20 years in the industry. Sometimes it’s cold, sometimes it’s hot, and sometimes you spend 3 days chasing a internally shorted Main Power Relay that’s causing multiple codes for Short to ground on sensors