Originally Posted By: yaris0128
My toyota dealer's mechanics work on a flat rate pay scale. So they try to get every job done fast as [censored] if they have to cut corners or not. If they go over the time they are given to do the project they work for free, get it done before, money in the pocket. So I dont know how I feel about them yet. But they do know the toyota cars very well. My brother has worked in their shop for years and he wouldnt recommend going to them.
Every dealer I've ever seen has all the tech on Book Time. And yes, the quicker the better and the more money you can make. However, working at a dealer as a tech is getting tougher and tougher these days. I worked at a dealer for a while but it was horrible. I'll never do that again.
Do the dealers know your car best, MAYBE, but that's a big MAYBE.
I have one friend that worked for a dealer for 18 years up until 2 years ago. His pay per year had dropped almost 40% over the last 3 years he was there. He's a great tech, knows his stuff, did quality work, and still did it under time and made good money. BUT, year after year they reduce the book times for jobs so you end up doing the same work for less money. Warranty book times drop like stones year after year.
Another thing that I've been told by people I know that are still at dealers is that all the dealer cares about is the bottom line and customer service. They'll have enough steady work to have a certian number of techs get everything out like needed and still make good money. However, everyone wants instant gratification. Soooo, the dealers are hiring a ton of younger people that'll take less per fl/hr and the dealer now has plenty of people to get on a car right when it comes in. The result of this ( from what I've seen, and from my buddy experience ) is that now there are twice as many techs but nowhere near twice as much work to be done. So now the good techs are getting starved as well as all the others. More of the experienced techs are moving to private shops or opening their own.
The first shop I ever worked at as a tech paid by the hour instead of book time. This allowed us to take the time to make sure everything was right, AND we were even encouraged to do little things if need be. It allowed me to not be in a hurry (within reason). I would take the time to vacuum out the cars and make sure there were no grease spots or anything before I put the car back outside.
As a result of the above we had very loyal customers. More than I can remember I would come back from a test drive and find a car in my stall. We had older customers that would drive into the shop, park in an open stall, then go inside, let them know what was wrong and leave a signed check for us to fill out for the total cost. I was amazed at that but that's the type of trust that these people had and we never took advantage of it. We usually had a 2 to 3 week wait to get your car in. [censored], we spent 2 months working 12 hour days 6 days a week because we had so many cars we needed to get in. After it was back to normal the shop gave us all a very nice bonus on top of all the overtime pay for working so hard. That was in 1993-1995 and that shop still has about a 2 week wait to get a car in unless it's a major problem. Then they'll squeeze it in somewhere. The owner could be a major jerkoff most of the time but he ran the place like a shop should be run. To this day I still send people over there. Not many shops around like that anymore.
WOW, I'll shut up now.
