Working at Indy vs Dealer?

Who has done both? What are your thoughts? I'm at a dealership now and just got offered a job at an Indy shop that a friend owns. We are meeting tomorrow to discuss pay but I'm nervous about earning potential.

I was offered a job at another Indy shop about a month ago, as an hourly tech, but they had no benefits and the hourly amount wouldn't have made it worth it, so I had to turn it down.

I am flat rate right now and this potential job is as well, but has a gaurantee minimum each week.

I was hired into the dealer at the very high end of quick Lane work at $17/hr and I get a $500/month bonus based on customer surveys. I turn between 45 and 50 hours a week typically. I think my highest was 58 hours. I have been out of the quick Lane for a while now but my boss still hasn't hired my replacement, so I'm doing the same work, just in the main shop. The other guys carry on hours between 50 and 70/week, which sounds like a lot. My friend got 78 last week. We are unusally busy right now for some reason. What I don't like is the hurry up mentality, constant complaining from the workers, lack of teamwork, corporate feel.

I guess I'm just looking for some opinions from people who have done both.

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Interested to hear from others experiences. I've only ever worked at independent and chain shops.

I've always worked at shops that do everything - never at a dealership. Now my next statement is not an accusation towards anyone or a generalisation - just my personal experience which does not necessarily reflect on everyone working at dealerships.
Each of the three people I have worked with that only ever worked at dealerships all their lives previously were ..... parts changers, possibly because they always had the parts on the shelf right next to the vehicle they were working on - and it was always oh-so-easy to just fit new parts until the problem went away, rather than actually diagnosing the fault.
Maybe this depends on various factors that don't affect everyone everywhere but that's just how it happened with where I worked.
Working at a shop that has to order in special parts from dealers, at a substantial cost, forces a technician to be as sure as possible before ordering a part that can't simply be put back on the shelf. The last guy we had the boss was real excited about, he told me I would have someone to help with all the complicated jobs "You should see his CV, Audi, VW and other dealerships!" .... until a fault came up that could have been fixed by fitting a few new parts if they were available - but they weren't. He was totally lost - eventually left and got an easy job just making up wiring harnesses for camper-vans.
Nothing wrong with staying at a dealership and being really good at it - it's just that working on a large variety of vehicles can teach you so much more. I've worked on trucks, tractors, cranes, electric forklifts, automatic pallet shuttles - and chased a luxury train for 300km to spend 15 minutes a time at the stops chasing down a fault with the 220v air-conditioning system since the Diesel engine was serviced - good fun!

Tutti57 wrote: What I don't like is the hurry up mentality, constant complaining from the workers, lack of teamwork, corporate feel.

Jobs are like scan tools - there is no perfect one that does everything right all the time.
each workplace will have its own problems and imperfections of some sort.

I just got fired from an independent shop this afternoon. I was there 2 weeks. Guy said "You are too slow" and then something about my experience. I am dumbfounded. He told me on Monday I took too long mounting tires. He said 2 hours 20 minutes. When I worked at several dealerships in the past the labor rate per tire was 0.4. So 4 tires is 1.6. So he is saying Im taking 2.3-2.4 hours. He said you should be able to do it in an hour, 1.0. Dismount regular tires, clean the wheels, mount and balance snow tires. Snow tires are horrible tires to balance. I dont know anyone to have ever done it in 1.0 hour and not be burnt up at the end of the day.

I am not having luck with independent shops. I have not heard anyone ever say "we gotta let you go because you are messing up the cars." No one ever says that to me. Instead I get weirdo terminations. Guy doubts my experience because I have never changed a headlight bulb on a Subaru. I have never seen this car, but its not like I cant figure it out.

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That stinks. I'm sorry to hear that.

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Tutti, I asked for $15/hr at this shop because I wasnt planning on staying forever. So by asking for that I was giving myself constant motivation to work at starting my own shop and develop my own customer base. The guy said he is doing tire rotations for $80 and Im taking 2 hours to do them. I never found out his labor rate but I think it was $85/hr.
I may be slow which is another incentive to open my own shop. I only need enough work to get me thru the week since it is one guy working from 7am to 5pm.

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I hear that. I often wonder if I have enough customers on my own to support my own shop. I know of a guy who rents a bay/area from a chain shop and does his own work. Has his own sign and registered shop ID out front too. There was a shop for sale within walking distance of my house over the summer that someone snagged and is selling signs or something out of it now.

Health insurance is expensive. I think for me and my wife last time I looked would be about $800 a month, and we need it. My kids are on an amazing NY plan for barely anything but we need coverage. I just did some sway bar links this morning for a friend and he gave me $70. Got here at noon and left by 1:00. Cripes, it takes me nearly all day to make that at work...it's hard to ignore that!

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Yea Tutti, thats why the biz is in despair. A guy with a family cant work for $13/hr flatrate doing warranty claims at the dealer or backbreaking work at an independent. I read Valvoline Quick Lube was starting guys at $13.50. On top of that add $15,000 in hand tools IF you have a SnapOn, Mac, Matco, Bluepoint, Cornwall. Less if you have Sears Craftsman, Kobalt, Husky, other. But still, Tutti how can a guy make plans that way? It is very difficult.

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It's hard, man. I think there are a few things you can do to try to set yourself apart.

I'll post back later tonight with some ideas, but I'll probably start a new thread with the ideas that others can chime in on.

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I've done both and have sworn never to go back to a dealership nor flat rate. BUT, that's me. You have to find the best fit for you. The largest part of it is the people, not exactly what and where. I was at a dealer and it was the best job I ever had. We had "team pay". The hours were divided among a crew of six and then each guy had his own pay scale plus a yearly bonus for every hour he personally turned. And then one guy left and we never could quite fill that gap. The best service advisor I ever met got hired away. Then our sixth guy came in from another failed shop and they made him team leader over another guy who had seniority and (IMHO) deserved the position. So he got annoyed and went elsewhere. Leader hired a semi-competent buddy and started feeding him the gravy work versus how we used to share that around. I got annoyed enough to leave about then.
Then I found I didn't like the scuffling for hours in other dealers. Almost complete lack of teamwork and fiddly pay.

Took a while to find it but I found a shop owner that I can get along with and he with me. I make a weekly check that's sort of salary, sort of hourly and works for both of us. My wife works where she can carry our needed benefits. My commute is VERY short. Downsides are no benefits and mostly I could surely make more money elsewhere. I actually did just a couple of blocks down the street but I came home wanting to murder everyone I saw every day. It wasn't worth it.

Nowadays I have a say on who is hired. Our guys are hourly and tend to keep up OK. The best thing may be that everyone in the shop helps everybody. On occasion and need everybody including the owner will pile onto a vehicle when the customer just has to have it back. If someone's not busy they ask the next guy if he could use a hand. THAT's how I like to work.
I'm not getting rich but I come home in about as good a mood as I left in and don't mind Monday mornings these days. That counts a LOT towards making that smaller paycheck look better.

In the back of my mind there's a small dread of change. Things change. At some point it's likely that I will have to go somewhere else and do some other job. I can't picture anywhere else that will give me the piece of mind I have now. It took me about 30 years of my life to find this place.

I wish you the best of luck finding a good fit for you. Unfortunately the only real way to find it is to go out and try.
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Very well put

It's kind of like anything else. There's good shops and bad shops, good bosses and bad ones.
I found a place where I'm respected and not tied down by all kinds of red tape and rules, but it wasn't always like that...

Well I have decided to make the move to an Indy. Old managers and her husband bought a place about 7 years ago and have been trying to get me there for a bit now. I accepted the offer this morning and told my current boss that I'm leaving the dealership.

He is trying like hell to retain me but there isn't really anything he can do. I really want to try this out.

It will be myself and a lead tech, with the occasional help from the owner as needed. Super nice people in every position there.

I love the pay structure too. Base PAY with a 40 hour guarantee, then the hourly rate goes up when I hit 30 hours, then again at 35, then 40, with a range of $8/hr depending on the hours turned.

My current boss says it's a huge mistake and that I won't learn anything there, it's a step backwards, you'll be working on turds all day, "I'll pay you more, give you a tool allowance, off on Saturdays, whatever it takes."

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Congratulations! :woohoo: Moving shops is always exciting. Let us know your thoughts once you make the transition.

My current boss says it's a huge mistake and that I won't learn anything there, it's a step backwards, you'll be working on turds all day, "I'll pay you more, give you a tool allowance, off on Saturdays, whatever it takes."

Sounds a lot like what my manager said when I left my first chain store job. :silly: But at least he's working to keep you.

Side note - why is it that this industry only offers more money/benefits/hours to techs when they threaten to quit? If I'm gonna go looking for another job so I can haggle for more money, there's a good chance I'll find a better job while I'm at it. Why play that game?

Congratulations Tutti57. Make sure they send you to training

Thanks guys. I post back after a few weeks of work. Honestly, I hope the dealership cuts me loose so I don't have to be there for two weeks, with it being all awkward. I can start at the new shop tomorrow if I need to.

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Tutti57, I sent you a PM

Things have been going well. It was slow when I started but just started to pick up.

I get along great with the other tech and it's been fun seeing new issues every day.

One issue I've run into is the other tech and the owner not seeming to understand some of the tests I've used and maybe not trusting them?

First it was a misunderstanding of fuel trims and today was a voltage drop test. They didn't think the circuit needed to be loaded when I mentioned that part of the test.

I'm new and have a lot to learn still but I'm confident with what I was doing. How do you handle these situations. I'm the new guy and don't want to sound like a know it all. Both of them have many years of experience and are good techs.



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So they don't know how to properly conduct a voltage drop test? Interesting. Downplay it. "Oh it's just something the old smart guy at my old shop showed me one time." Continue to use such tests that they don't seem to be up on when appropriate and at some point it's going to dawn on somebody that you are stamping out bugs that they can't even find. If you're working at the right kind of shop then you should start seeing more diagnostic work steered towards you and hopefully a little pay bump. Just be casual about it, don't brag when you fix a stinker, just make sure they are aware that you did.
This exact formula has worked really well for me. The only screwy part is that guys who are really competent in other ways can be so uninterested in learning new diagnostic techniques. I don't get it. I tried turning them on to how easy relative compression tests are. After a couple of hole-in-one shots with that, more of such work gets steered my way and the other guys still have no interest. Worked to my benefit for sure, but I was wanting raise everybody up. Getting to the point where ALL the diagnostic stuff is going to me and the others just turn wrenches. But that seems to be all they want anyway. I just don't get it.