diagnostic tech pay plan

Hey Guys, I was wondering if there are any diagnostic techs that work in a dealer, only doing diagnostic work. Just curios how your dealership is paying you.. guarantee, flat rate, salary mix... and how well its working.

Thanks

I doubt there are many diag only techs at dealers. There are, relatively, very few diag only techs in the independent world. Most shops don't have enough diag work to support someone to do only diag

Agree with Bruce. No shop I've ever been to or worked at had enough engine performance/electrical/programming work to keep even one tech busy.

If there were to be such a position, I think a guarantee or salary makes the most sense.

For it to work you would have to do more than diag. You would have to do all of the inspections and the other guys in the shop do all the work or most of the work from your diag and inspections. And maybe even draw diag work from other local shops. I know one guy that did only diag where he works. They drew in more diag from other shops. And another guy I know does diag and all of the inspections. In both cases, all they work they find gets fed to other techs in the shop.

That is personally what I am working toward. To do diag and all the inspections and let everyone else do the work. I already do that to some degree, no more heavy line for me. I am 39, and if I don't move significantly more toward that in the next few years I will make more serious plans to get out of the shop entirely before I turn 50.

bruce.oliver wrote: That is personally what I am working toward. To do diag and all the inspections and let everyone else do the work. I already do that to some degree, no more heavy line for me. I am 39, and if I don't move significantly more toward that in the next few years I will make more serious plans to get out of the shop entirely before I turn 50.

I like it.

Is your current shop game for this kind of format? I ask because I know to a certainty that it'd never work where I'm at now. :lol: No way the veteran techs would let me do their inspections and diags for them.

Tyler wrote:
I like it.

Is your current shop game for this kind of format? I ask because I know to a certainty that it'd never work where I'm at now. :lol: No way the veteran techs would let me do their inspections and diags for them.

To a certain degree, they are. We already do it some. If I diag a vehicle and it needs an engine, trans, dash pull, etc; I hand it off to 1 of the other 3 technicians.
The oldest guy in the shop, we try to not let him do inspections and diag at all. He does great work, but he is very slow. He is exceptionally slow at diag and inspections. He is 48 and has never been flatrate, until now. Even though we have 30 hour garauntee, he stresses about his flag time way to much. We have moved him to hourly to see if that will take some stress off of him.
The other 2 are younger than me. 1 is a young, inexperienced, technician that I am training. I try not to feed him to much because he needs to get the experience doing inspections and diag. I don't want to handicap him like what happened to me when I was his age. I got into a shop where I did exactly 0 diag work. Stayed there way to long and fell way behind and I'm still playing catch up. He is hungry to learn. He watches scannerdanner and others at home, on his lunch break, and if his down time lasts more than a few minutes he gets on a tablet or computer to learn some more.
The last 1 is a few years younger than me and I don't think he cares as long as he is flagging time. He wants to diag, but I don't think he has the drive to use his personal time to learn. I have given him suggestions on who to watch and where to learn, but he hasn't done any of it.

True. The thing is all the places want you to have top notch diag skills so they can book the work but altogether the pay is still the same as it ever was.
At the dealer usually the shop.foreman or team.leader.is left to do diag or scroll through the tech data notes. At an independent they usually have to contract to a diag. guy or hope they have enough skills.

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Thing is Tyler, most shops I have seen have a or would like a buttload.of diag work but the guys either dont have enough skill or interest to do solely that. Chasing EVAP or electrical gremlins is tedious to alot of guys

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BroncoMcbane wrote: At an independent they usually have to contract to a diag. guy or hope they have enough skills.

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I would have to disagree with that statement.

Thanks for the responses-
I work at a mercedes dealer and have been working on them since 95 at a couple of different dealers.
Mercedes has been pushing a Diagnostic program to their dealers for the last couple of years. It's incredibly hard with a passing rate of 40%. My dealer has asked me if I would like to try and become a certified Diagnostic tech, it would be nothing but diag work, no "inspections" and no repairs. It's just the pay plan that has me worried. 5 day work week - 16 hours guaranteed, if I flag 12 hours for the week I would get a 30 hour guarantee. I know if I work on the line i would hit my 40 no problem. It would be a dream job if It was hourly or salary but there plan does not make sense. Bottom line - being good at diag is nothing compared to being fast at nuts and bolt repairs.

Lars wrote: Thanks for the responses-
I work at a mercedes dealer and have been working on them since 95 at a couple of different dealers.
Mercedes has been pushing a Diagnostic program to their dealers for the last couple of years. It's incredibly hard with a passing rate of 40%. My dealer has asked me if I would like to try and become a certified Diagnostic tech, it would be nothing but diag work, no "inspections" and no repairs. It's just the pay plan that has me worried. 5 day work week - 16 hours guaranteed, if I flag 12 hours for the week I would get a 30 hour guarantee. I know if I work on the line i would hit my 40 no problem. It would be a dream job if It was hourly or salary but there plan does not make sense. Bottom line - being good at diag is nothing compared to being fast at nuts and bolt repairs.

And your rate will be $50-60/hr?It is sad that shops do not realize how important and specialized diagnostics is. How does diag work at your shop? Do you get more time when needed or is everything a flat 1 hour diag time? You have to get paid and flatrate is not the way to pay a diag only technician, especially if you're not going to get paid more time for the difficult problems.

And thats my point. Guys can make 6 hours doing 4 wheel brakes and rotors and struts. Who wants to waste 6 hours on diag to get to flag 0.5 on a warranty car? 1.0 on customer pay car?
My experience, with my last comment was small shops want the guy to know it all but be content doing it. Some of us prefer the mechanical part of the job, as it is the most lucrative.

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bruce.oliver wrote: 1 is a young, inexperienced, technician that I am training. I try not to feed him to much because he needs to get the experience doing inspections and diag. I don't want to handicap him like what happened to me when I was his age. I got into a shop where I did exactly 0 diag work. Stayed there way to long and fell way behind and I'm still playing catch up. He is hungry to learn. He watches scannerdanner and others at home, on his lunch break, and if his down time lasts more than a few minutes he gets on a tablet or computer to learn some more.

Interesting. It happens that I'm getting paired with a lube guy at work for training purposes - any advice you can offer would be appreciated.

Thing is Tyler, most shops I have seen have a or would like a buttload.of diag work

Really? :huh: I'm not doubting, just genuinely surprised!

Tyler wrote:
Interesting. It happens that I'm getting paired with a lube guy at work for training purposes - any advice you can offer would be appreciated.

Does the lube tech want to train to be a technician? If so he has to be open to learning and realize he likely doesn't know anything.lol Our lube tech wants to be a tech but he is in his 30's and thinks he knows what he's doing already, so he is untrainable. And he doesn't do what he is told. I gave up on him.

The young tech we hired a couple months ago has some experience. He was rebuilding transmissions at the GM dealer, so he is not completely green. And he is very hungry to learn. I have him on the premium content here. So that is helping me a lot. As far as on the job training, the hardest part is not taking for granted the things I know. I think some of the stuff we, as experienced techs, do on cars we are kind of on auto pilot. So I have to really think about what I am doing and teaching him so that I don't leave things out. So I guess it depends on your lube tech and how much he knows. Is he going to be by your side all day? Or can he work on his own a little?

Thing is Tyler, most shops I have seen have a or would like a buttload.of diag work

Really? :huh: I'm not doubting, just genuinely surprised![/quote]

I think the only shops that want more diag have 1 or more techs that are atleast pretty good at diag. Most techs out there aren't good at diag, even though they think they are. And a lot of shops that have a lot of diag work don't have techs that are good at diag so it looks like they have a lot, but they really don't. Diag work is the most expensive work we can do in the repair industry. Constant training and learning. Expensive testing equipment, scantools, scopes, subscriptions, etc. And no parts involved with diag like there is with repair or maintenance work.

BroncoMcbane wrote: And thats my point. Guys can make 6 hours doing 4 wheel brakes and rotors and struts. Who wants to waste 6 hours on diag to get to flag 0.5 on a warranty car? 1.0 on customer pay car?
My experience, with my last comment was small shops want the guy to know it all but be content doing it. Some of us prefer the mechanical part of the job, as it is the most lucrative.

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Diag can be lucrative. The shop just has to charge appropriately. Very rarely do I spend more time on diag than I get paid for. Car comes in and needs more diag to confirm the issue or all of the issues, like further/advanced testing or unrelated codes, I get more time or it gets parked out front. Now if it's something I'm not familiar with I might spend a little more than the hour so that I can be sure of the issue or to be sure what my next tests need to be. But I will get that back by adding time on the additional testing or repair. And always add time to confirm the repair. Like on an evap leak, always retest for leaks after the repair and get paid for it

Rate will be less than $40 per hour - that's normal NJ A tech.
Right now everyone does diagnosis and the team leaders help out, foreman handles comebacks - lots of comebacks...

bruce.oliver wrote: Does the lube tech want to train to be a technician? If so he has to be open to learning and realize he likely doesn't know anything... As far as on the job training, the hardest part is not taking for granted the things I know. I think some of the stuff we, as experienced techs, do on cars we are kind of on auto pilot. So I have to really think about what I am doing and teaching him so that I don't leave things out. So I guess it depends on your lube tech and how much he knows. Is he going to be by your side all day? Or can he work on his own a little?

Thanks for pointing this out. It's too easy to figure that some parts of the job are universally known.

He's fairly competent, from what I've seen/heard. The overall goal is to get the lube guys producing better inspections, and I've become known as one of the more thorough techs at our shop. He'll be side by side, with some flexibility to work on his own as needed/when the opportunity presents itself.

I mostly don't want to make things worse? :silly: I never had a 'mentor' in the typical sense when I was coming up.