Do auto mechanics REALLY make $70K-$100K a year?
Thread Starter
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 4,766
Likes: 8
From: Queens, NY
Do auto mechanics REALLY make $70K-$100K a year?
I read this on Yahoo, was about making a life long career at a car dealership, but the part further down in bold is the one that surprised me. Is this true? Can anyone here verify these figures? Here's the article:
Auto dealers overflow with job openings
By CONNIE MABIN, AP Business Writer
Tue Jul 4, 3:57 PM ET
PARMA, Ohio - Sitting front and center in her college marketing class, Kim Smith took copious notes as a woman lectured about the importance of customer satisfaction and the lure of lucrative sales.
The guest at Cuyahoga Community College's western campus, local Porsche dealership owner Michelle Primm, wasn't teaching. And she wasn't selling cars, she was selling car careers.
"What you may have thought of as your local neighborhood car dealership is actually a huge industry," Primm told the class at the college also known as Tri-C. "There are a ton of jobs: accounting, management, technical. It can be a lifelong, very rewarding career."
Primm is a member of the Greater Cleveland Automobile Dealers Association, which has launched an internship program as part of a nationwide recruiting effort for an industry overflowing with job openings.
The National Automobile Dealers Association estimates there are more than 100,000 jobs available at 20,000 dealerships across the nation, chairman William Bradshaw said.
That figure was supported by a January survey of 657 new-car dealers commissioned by McLean, Va.-based Automotive Retailing Today, a coalition of major auto manufacturers and dealers. It found that there are an estimated 105,000 openings in various positions, including sales, management, administration and service, mostly in the South and Midwest.
Bradshaw said dealerships have job openings for several reasons: sales have increased; mechanic work now requires more computer skills; financing auto loans has become an expected service; and larger dealerships open long hours seven days a week need more administrative and management employees.
Some positions, such as accounting or marketing, may require a college degree, but most, including sales and management, don't. A high school diploma, some technical training and a desire to work from the bottom up are all that are required, dealers say.
Sales jobs can bring in six figures depending on commission (the industry average for sales is $43,000 a year, according to the Dealers Association), and technicians or painters can earn between $70,000 and $100,000 a year at a busy location. Financing, accounting, marketing and other office jobs typically pay around $50,000 a year, Bradshaw said.
His 19,000-member group is expanding a program this fall in which high-school students and guidance counselors visit dealerships to learn about careers. The Cleveland association is focusing marketing and other business students at community colleges. Dealers in Texas and Florida are spending this summer scouring shopping malls in search of women to bring into the business.
Tri-C marketing sophomore Jennifer Rosado, 20, spent eight weeks working at Bob Gillingham Ford in the Cleveland suburb of Parma and said she's considering a career in the industry. The Lakewood native said she worked in every area at the bustling dealership where customers eye cherry-red Mustangs parked between American flags.
One day involved helping a buyer fill out paperwork, another day was spent writing a script for a radio commercial. The biggest challenge: complicated sales forecasting.
"You learn a lot of real-world skills instead of just sitting in the classroom," she said.
Primm's pitch also won over the 19-year-old Smith, who did an internship with Primm at her Cuyahoga Falls dealership near Akron and was hired to work this summer as a cashier.
"I never thought that I would work in this field but I have recently realized that there is so much more to selling cars than the stogie-smoking, cheap-plaid-suit-wearing old man trying to force you to buy a car," Smith said. "This has definitely opened up new opportunities for me."
Breaking stereotypes is a major part of the industry's effort, said Bradshaw, who owns several dealerships in South Carolina after starting as an office manager at a lot 35 years ago with no money and no experience.
"There's a stigma that we've got to break through, that mechanic stigma that it's greasy or that it's not a great career path," he said.
At the same time, high-school guidance counselors and parents focused on college have shied away from pushing students into auto careers because they wrongly think it's a career that doesn't pay well, Bradshaw said.
The earning power available at dealerships is especially noteworthy in areas like Cleveland, where high-paying factory jobs with benefits have declined over the last couple of decades, said Christopher Scott, associated dean of business, math and technology at Tri-C.
Bradshaw said that's a main selling point for the industry.
"The manufacturers are downsizing; they're laying off people, but just about every dealership in the country has job openings," he said. "These are jobs that have good benefits, good working environments and good career paths."
___
On the Net:
National Automobile Dealers Association: http://www.nada.org
Greater Cleveland Automobile Dealers Association: http://www.gcada.org
Automotive Retailing Today: http://www.autoretailing.org
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Link here
Warren
Auto dealers overflow with job openings
By CONNIE MABIN, AP Business Writer
Tue Jul 4, 3:57 PM ET
PARMA, Ohio - Sitting front and center in her college marketing class, Kim Smith took copious notes as a woman lectured about the importance of customer satisfaction and the lure of lucrative sales.
The guest at Cuyahoga Community College's western campus, local Porsche dealership owner Michelle Primm, wasn't teaching. And she wasn't selling cars, she was selling car careers.
"What you may have thought of as your local neighborhood car dealership is actually a huge industry," Primm told the class at the college also known as Tri-C. "There are a ton of jobs: accounting, management, technical. It can be a lifelong, very rewarding career."
Primm is a member of the Greater Cleveland Automobile Dealers Association, which has launched an internship program as part of a nationwide recruiting effort for an industry overflowing with job openings.
The National Automobile Dealers Association estimates there are more than 100,000 jobs available at 20,000 dealerships across the nation, chairman William Bradshaw said.
That figure was supported by a January survey of 657 new-car dealers commissioned by McLean, Va.-based Automotive Retailing Today, a coalition of major auto manufacturers and dealers. It found that there are an estimated 105,000 openings in various positions, including sales, management, administration and service, mostly in the South and Midwest.
Bradshaw said dealerships have job openings for several reasons: sales have increased; mechanic work now requires more computer skills; financing auto loans has become an expected service; and larger dealerships open long hours seven days a week need more administrative and management employees.
Some positions, such as accounting or marketing, may require a college degree, but most, including sales and management, don't. A high school diploma, some technical training and a desire to work from the bottom up are all that are required, dealers say.
Sales jobs can bring in six figures depending on commission (the industry average for sales is $43,000 a year, according to the Dealers Association), and technicians or painters can earn between $70,000 and $100,000 a year at a busy location. Financing, accounting, marketing and other office jobs typically pay around $50,000 a year, Bradshaw said.
His 19,000-member group is expanding a program this fall in which high-school students and guidance counselors visit dealerships to learn about careers. The Cleveland association is focusing marketing and other business students at community colleges. Dealers in Texas and Florida are spending this summer scouring shopping malls in search of women to bring into the business.
Tri-C marketing sophomore Jennifer Rosado, 20, spent eight weeks working at Bob Gillingham Ford in the Cleveland suburb of Parma and said she's considering a career in the industry. The Lakewood native said she worked in every area at the bustling dealership where customers eye cherry-red Mustangs parked between American flags.
One day involved helping a buyer fill out paperwork, another day was spent writing a script for a radio commercial. The biggest challenge: complicated sales forecasting.
"You learn a lot of real-world skills instead of just sitting in the classroom," she said.
Primm's pitch also won over the 19-year-old Smith, who did an internship with Primm at her Cuyahoga Falls dealership near Akron and was hired to work this summer as a cashier.
"I never thought that I would work in this field but I have recently realized that there is so much more to selling cars than the stogie-smoking, cheap-plaid-suit-wearing old man trying to force you to buy a car," Smith said. "This has definitely opened up new opportunities for me."
Breaking stereotypes is a major part of the industry's effort, said Bradshaw, who owns several dealerships in South Carolina after starting as an office manager at a lot 35 years ago with no money and no experience.
"There's a stigma that we've got to break through, that mechanic stigma that it's greasy or that it's not a great career path," he said.
At the same time, high-school guidance counselors and parents focused on college have shied away from pushing students into auto careers because they wrongly think it's a career that doesn't pay well, Bradshaw said.
The earning power available at dealerships is especially noteworthy in areas like Cleveland, where high-paying factory jobs with benefits have declined over the last couple of decades, said Christopher Scott, associated dean of business, math and technology at Tri-C.
Bradshaw said that's a main selling point for the industry.
"The manufacturers are downsizing; they're laying off people, but just about every dealership in the country has job openings," he said. "These are jobs that have good benefits, good working environments and good career paths."
___
On the Net:
National Automobile Dealers Association: http://www.nada.org
Greater Cleveland Automobile Dealers Association: http://www.gcada.org
Automotive Retailing Today: http://www.autoretailing.org
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Link here
Warren
Registered User
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 25
Likes: 0
From: North Providence
this is great news as I am starting new england institute of tech in RI for automotive tech in a couple of weeks, cant wait! really wanna get into a honda dealership so even if I cant afford an S2k, I can still drive them on inspections 
. My dad is an auto body tech of 25 years, and makes 65k at a lower end shop. He was making more earlier in his career but the shop he worked at was really sleazy. Im not expecting to make much at first, but cars are my passion, and the potential is there to make craploads of money, own my own shop, tuning, ect. hopefully s2ki is still around in a coupla years so I can start putting back into it all the information I have gotton out of it!
kinda went off topic but im excited lol
. My dad is an auto body tech of 25 years, and makes 65k at a lower end shop. He was making more earlier in his career but the shop he worked at was really sleazy. Im not expecting to make much at first, but cars are my passion, and the potential is there to make craploads of money, own my own shop, tuning, ect. hopefully s2ki is still around in a coupla years so I can start putting back into it all the information I have gotton out of it!kinda went off topic but im excited lol
Registered User
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,108
Likes: 0
From: So Cal
yes they can make that much. but they must work hard to do it. techs that make that much money get paid for how much work they do. the main reason they can make that much money is because of the flag rate system. for example, a dealer will charge the customer 4hours to do a job and it only takes the tech an hour to do it. he will get paid all four hours and can move on to the next job. a good tech can easily flag 15hours a day. with ase certs and a master tech status their actual hourly pay reaches 30bux and above.
in other words if you work fast and know what you are doing you will rack up hours and get paid the big bucks.
in other words if you work fast and know what you are doing you will rack up hours and get paid the big bucks.
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 6,281
Likes: 119
it really depends. all of thedealeship mechanics that i know make shit. i know a few that make 15.00 per hour but that pretty mcuh sucks too.
my best friend works at an independent shop and he makes 25 bucks an hour, but that is still nowhere close to making 100k per year. the best paid mechanic that i personally know gets paid 32 per hour, and thats like 70 ish per year.
now you have to consider that these are flag hours and you can potentially work forty hours and flag considerably more.but theres a lot to that. it takes a good team of service people. the service advisor needs to sell a shit ton of hours in order for you to get the work.
i know a ton of mechanics who dont make shit around the holidays because beusiness is slow.
the really crappy part is that you basically get commission but you arnt the one doing the selling. when i worked at the honda dealership some of the service advisors really kicked ass and thier technicians always flagged a ton of hours, but some service advisors totally sucks and thier techs were starving. both teams of technicians were totally qualified to do the same job, but they can only do what is put in front of them.
im not sure where they get these numbers from but it seems really fishy. the one good thing about being a dealership technician is that one day you may be able to work your way up to the position of service manger. the service manger in a dealership can easily make six figures. i personally know a couple of service managers ( i mean the guy that oversees the whole operation) who make 250k plus. i know a service advisor who makes more than 300k per year (at a ford dealership, just for the record, and no fanboiis it has nothing to do with ford quality it has everything to do with the fact that he is a great salesman)
i dont know of a single tech that makes anywhere close to that.
the way i se it if you really want to be a mechanic and make a ton of money you need to learn to work on comercial equipment ( i have a friend who is the mechanic for the post office and he has a sweet ****ing job) or learn to work on aircraft.
my best friend works at an independent shop and he makes 25 bucks an hour, but that is still nowhere close to making 100k per year. the best paid mechanic that i personally know gets paid 32 per hour, and thats like 70 ish per year.
now you have to consider that these are flag hours and you can potentially work forty hours and flag considerably more.but theres a lot to that. it takes a good team of service people. the service advisor needs to sell a shit ton of hours in order for you to get the work.
i know a ton of mechanics who dont make shit around the holidays because beusiness is slow.
the really crappy part is that you basically get commission but you arnt the one doing the selling. when i worked at the honda dealership some of the service advisors really kicked ass and thier technicians always flagged a ton of hours, but some service advisors totally sucks and thier techs were starving. both teams of technicians were totally qualified to do the same job, but they can only do what is put in front of them.
im not sure where they get these numbers from but it seems really fishy. the one good thing about being a dealership technician is that one day you may be able to work your way up to the position of service manger. the service manger in a dealership can easily make six figures. i personally know a couple of service managers ( i mean the guy that oversees the whole operation) who make 250k plus. i know a service advisor who makes more than 300k per year (at a ford dealership, just for the record, and no fanboiis it has nothing to do with ford quality it has everything to do with the fact that he is a great salesman)
i dont know of a single tech that makes anywhere close to that.
the way i se it if you really want to be a mechanic and make a ton of money you need to learn to work on comercial equipment ( i have a friend who is the mechanic for the post office and he has a sweet ****ing job) or learn to work on aircraft.
Trending Topics
Registered User
Joined: Feb 2005
Posts: 1,223
Likes: 0
You will make a lot more seating in the office surfing the Internet during business hours.
Really.... go to college and get Business/Engineering Degrees. In the long run, you will make way more money than most Mechanics.
Really.... go to college and get Business/Engineering Degrees. In the long run, you will make way more money than most Mechanics.
Banned
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 3,319
Likes: 0
From: City
Don't ever believe what people tell you about pay - you'll only ever hear how much you "could make," never what most people earn starting out. Sure, the top guys with most seniority at the largest shops might make that, but just like anything else, the highest paid earn much more than everyone else. Choosing a career based on the top earners is like predicting local weather based on the record highs.