USA domestic technicians.

Rob Golden

I work at a Ford dealer here in Indiana. I was curious what technician pay is there for a senior master? Is there much call for a technician who is fluent in American produced cars/trucks? I work Flat Rate now which is paid by the job at $30US an hour. Just wondering if techs make any money there or get raped like the rest of us on warranty claims.

SmartinMartin

there is zero call here for a technician who is fluent in American produced cars/trucks.

biko

There are some US cars on the roads but German and Jap cars are way more common.
Fords are quite common in smaller models, no F150s and such here.

For salary you can find it on sites like
https://www.payscale.com/research/IE/Job=Automotive_Service_Technician_%2F_Mechanic/Salary
https://ie.indeed.com/salaries/Mechanic-Salaries

mullingar

Garages pay their mechanics by the hour or an agreed weekly wage, it doesn't matter if it's a warranty or billable, it's still a flat rate. Some may pay overtime.

The average rate for a mechanic here is €30-35k/year. Based on a 40hr week, that's only €15ish per hour (includes paid holidays)

Toyotafanboi

Most mechanics in main dealers at least are target/ bonus driven and are more likely to lose out on warranty work, depending on the bonus structure of course. There'd be plenty earning 30-35k but up to 25% of that could be unguarenteed bonus.

Rob Golden

I guess that's not bad pay then. I work on Fords GM and Honda here. Honda only because my wife drives a 97 wagon. I was just looking to chat with others that work in our field. Not looking to relocate anywhere but us techs in the US actually move where the money is. State to state or dealer to dealer. I chat on facebook with a tech from Vietnam he gets $3us an hour working for Ford Service which is owned by the government there. Canadians do pretty well on salary but have to deal with rust from the road salts used in the winter.

rebel.ranter

Just remember to factor in the cost of living with any comparisons that you do, the $3 an hour guy might be able to get a meal in a restaurant with a glass of wine for that same $3. Also the cost of housing, taxes, etc. will have an influencing factor.

Rob Golden

As vehicles get more complex we are loosing technicians here. Warranty really rips you a new one on recalls. Labor times are way too low. Dealers here not only compete on sales volume but are starting to pay for relocation and recruiting technicians. Young people are not interested anymore in turning wrenches.

dieselbug

Here's a recent sample of a loose discussion on the subject.



https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057843343

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

enumbers

My understanding is that there a lot of techs get paid per chargeable hour rather than hours worked so if a warranty job takes 2 hours but manufacturer says its 1 hours work they get paid 1 hours pay. This would be fine if system was fair but it seems like the times are very unrealistic on a lot of occasions.

Toyotafanboi

The way it works is with a retail repair, you will be charged from when the mechanic clocks onto the car until he clocks back off (within reason).

With warranty claims the manufacturer only allows for time taken to complete the repair. They do not pay for diagnostic time or may only pay limited diagnostic time and they do not allow for real world events in their time like the time taken to get the car from the car park to work station or time taken to complete the paperwork after the job.

Mechanics wages are often a low basic with a competitive bonus based on meeting and efficiency threshold based on their skill level.

If a car comes in for a misfire and it takes the mechanic 15 minutes to diagnose that it is the spark plug on cylinder 4 and it takes him a further 15 minutes to replace the plug he's half an hour on the job but the manufacturer will only pay for 15 minutes work so he's only 50% efficient in that instance. If his bonus threshold is 75-80% which would be considered low, he's still a long way off making any real money.

zilog_jones

biko wrote: »

There are some US cars on the roads but German and Jap cars are way more common.
Fords are quite common in smaller models, no F150s and such here.

There's a handful of F-150's and Rams in the country, I used to see an F-150 regularly in Cork city. But they are very much a niche thing in Ireland, and all private imports.

I guess the only US-built cars officially sold here are Jeep and the Ford Mustang (mainly 4-cylinder)? There were previously some Chrysler and Dodge models, but were largely unpopular (except for the Voyager).