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Old 01-13-2008, 10:53 PM   #1
XDCX
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Default How difficult is it to find new technicians?

The Auto Industry is in the midst of some major changes. Some franchises are experiencing over a decade of vehicle sales growth while others are experiencing record low market share.

The purpose of this post will be to survey the Service Managers to determine how difficult it is for them to find new technicians?

The survey will be posted in each franchise group in an effort to determine whether it's easier to find technicians for some franchises than for others. As an example, is it harder to find a Toyota Technician because the brand has experienced so much growth? Or, is it easier to find a Toyota Technician because of the popularity of the brand?

So, here's the question for the Service Managers: How difficult is it for you to find new technicians?

Please take a moment and post your thoughts. It will be interesting to determine if there are any trends based on franchise or location.
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Old 01-20-2016, 06:40 AM   #2
Darink
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I think a lot of it has to do with what the dealers are offering as far as compensation. Some want you to bend over backwards, get top CSI scores, work 90 hours a week and pay you $10 per hour. When the tech gets tired of it and complains, the dealership looks to replace them with someone inexperienced and pay them low as well. If the dealerships were to take care of their employees and act like they care, people would be more willing to go above and beyond.
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Old 01-20-2016, 09:35 AM   #3
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It's tough. GM keeps reducing warranty labor time allowed, and the techs HATE doing any warranty work, and you cannot make up for it on CP work anymore.
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Old 01-20-2016, 01:20 PM   #4
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Originally Posted by Darink View Post
I think a lot of it has to do with what the dealers are offering as far as compensation. Some want you to bend over backwards, get top CSI scores, work 90 hours a week and pay you $10 per hour. When the tech gets tired of it and complains, the dealership looks to replace them with someone inexperienced and pay them low as well. If the dealerships were to take care of their employees and act like they care, people would be more willing to go above and beyond.
Darink - First post, welcome to DealershipForum.com

I think you make an excellent point. Becoming a good tech requires a lot of training and investment in tools and you want to make sure you're well paid and respected for your efforts.

I think the car business has changed a lot over the past 20 years and since new and used car gross profits have been dropping Dealers and GMs are looking to the "back end" to cover some of the shortage. Is that the reason you're seeing more work for less money? Maybe, I'm not sure.

I still think the new car service department will evolve to a business model where there are two tiers of techs - a select few who have the training/knowledge to diagnose vehicles and another group of lesser paid employees who are mostly "parts replacers."
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Old 01-20-2016, 01:24 PM   #5
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Originally Posted by tnpartsguy View Post
It's tough. GM keeps reducing warranty labor time allowed, and the techs HATE doing any warranty work, and you cannot make up for it on CP work anymore.
Fantastic point.

I remember in the old days the good shops had a dispatcher who knew how to spread the "gravy work" so all of the techs were happy and the store was achieving high CSI numbers and low comeback ratios.

That's a lot harder to do when there's not too much "gravy work" anymore and the schedule is full of warranty work and recalls.
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Old 01-29-2016, 06:40 PM   #6
mryan55
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Originally Posted by XDCX View Post
Darink - First post, welcome to DealershipForum.com

I think you make an excellent point. Becoming a good tech requires a lot of training and investment in tools and you want to make sure you're well paid and respected for your efforts.

I think the car business has changed a lot over the past 20 years and since new and used car gross profits have been dropping Dealers and GMs are looking to the "back end" to cover some of the shortage. Is that the reason you're seeing more work for less money? Maybe, I'm not sure.

I still think the new car service department will evolve to a business model where there are two tiers of techs - a select few who have the training/knowledge to diagnose vehicles and another group of lesser paid employees who are mostly "parts replacers."
This is pretty much truth, at least in the way that our store has evolved over the last five years or so. Part of this is related to our growth and the other part related to trends in the industry, I'd say.

We started with 3 techs. Being a newly awarded point there wasn't much in the way of PDIs or customer pay jobs yet, so reconditioning our used cars was job number one. As we grew these same 3 core techs have been supplemented by another general line tech, putting us at 4.

In the meantime we starting hiring hourly "parts replacers" rather than flat-rate techs about two years ago. They now number three and do the vast majority of LOF and recall jobs.

Between bigger recalls like that Takata inflators, warranty work, PDIs and used car inspections our 4 flat-rate techs have plenty of work to do themselves.

The only issue I see is with advancement from the hourly 'lube guy' position. We have been lucky to have no turnover in that role, but I can imagine that in many stores the 'Express Service Tech' is a high turnover position.
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Old 02-01-2016, 08:08 AM   #7
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We can't find ANY. If we do find a decent candidate, they have a criminal record or a driving record issue.

The ones that we CAN hire want more than what a Master makes for doing engine work...lol. The tech schools are lying to them about what they expect to make. School is a big business right now.

Then when we do hire one, he turns out to be an idiot. You know, breaks things, does dumb **** instead of asking questions first.

It's a revolving door. I feel sorry for the ones starting out now in this business. It's 100% electrical some days and most guys just can't handle it.

Last edited by TNtech; 02-01-2016 at 08:11 AM.
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Old 02-03-2016, 10:22 AM   #8
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In the meantime we starting hiring hourly "parts replacers" rather than flat-rate techs about two years ago. They now number three and do the vast majority of LOF and recall jobs.

Between bigger recalls like that Takata inflators, warranty work, PDIs and used car inspections our 4 flat-rate techs have plenty of work to do themselves.
I bet there are a lot of stores that are doing exactly what your store is doing - shifting the low paying/less technical work to employees who are lower on the pay scale and saving the bigger/more technical jobs for their best techs.

One of the best stores I remember working with had a system in place where a master tech could select an apprentice tech and would get paid 50% of whatever the apprentice was able to produce in flat rate labor. It worked great - the master tech had an incentive to help the apprentice and the apprentice was learning with on-the-job training. Some of the master techs had more than one apprentice they were working with.
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Old 02-03-2016, 10:28 AM   #9
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The tech schools are lying to them about what they expect to make. School is a big business right now.
Interesting comment.

I record most of the Sunday morning "Power Block" shows on SPIKE TV and it seems they almost always have ads for tech schools or include a segment in their show about tech schools. I just watched a show last night that was mostly a commercial for Wyotech and how the school is a perfect match for people exiting the military.

It would be interesting to know what percentage of tech school graduates end up making it in the industry and whether certain schools have better odds than others.
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