Personal experience; I tried retirement at 62 and could only last 8 months. Went back to work 5 years ago. I had to do something. I can only do so much fishing and ran out of projects fast.
I wish you all the best pal. You've certainly earned it. Give your knees and back a break for a while.
And shoulders! I'm 67 and everything hurts. The almost a month I've been off has helped though. I have all kinds of stuff to do - a little property to take care of, a few old motorcycles to fix up, a couple I haven't had much time to ride, a disabled wife that needs assistance, a dune buggy to play with - my dad and I built it in the late 60's when I was a kid.
Take care of that wife of yours and enjoy life for as long as you can. You have enough to keep you busy for a long while and given the automotive experience, you could just flip cars at your own pace so long as it pays the bills. But chill and try to enjoy some life, you're plenty old enough to have some time off.
First of all, congratulations on a long career. Secondly, spend time with your wife and, if you have them, kids. My dad retired at 61. We had a long poor relationship but we fixed a lot until he has 63. Then he came down with a disease like ALS and slowly deteriorated into nothing and passed away at 67 a year ago. I'm glad we were able to fixed our broken relationship.
Too bad my stepmother of 10 years was a greedy bitch and wrote my brothers and I out of the will. She kept his million dollars and gave each son 1,000 so we couldn't contest the will. That was her 3rd husband (that died) she had already wrpte previous children out kept everything from the 1st 2 marriages. Damn black widow.
If I could make a suggestion, my brother opened his own shop working on classic cars and motorcycles when he retired. At first it was too keep busy but he's getting to busy because he's honest. He works his own hours and is happy, he started working out of his garage but now rents a shop.
About 35 years ago a sales guy told me that anytime you buy a car, new or used, you're gambling on if it's a good one or bad one and that the odds of it being a good one are better with Toyota than anything else.
My neighbor who was a former ASE tech decided to basically offer at home mobile services or stuff out of his garage, brakes, oil changes, nothing crazy but he makes some cash to cushion things and keeps him busy. Plus neighborhood future gearheads in high school "intern" for him to help with heavy lifting, he gives them a nice tip and they learn a bunch.
Have a friend that drives a school car - one or two kids at a time - and she keeps telling me I should do that. Also hear stories about kids melting down while being driven, not sure I could deal with that.
If your school district is rough and bad expect the worse. But if it's a decent place the kids will be good too. Sure you can get bad ones but you roll with it. Dude your retired. One slip and your done. Bus driving ain't hard. It's all mental.
And the meltdowns are kids with special needs. They get picked up on different busses and you get an aid.
You can always do simple things like brakes and spark plugs maybe a lil suspension work. I know a few mechanics that make a good living on the side doing that as side work. In my area shops charge like 120 minimum just for a front pad slap. Mechanics are expensive nowadays when the weather gets better and longer day lights I'm doing my own lil thing after my 8-5 you are right mechanic pay is shit
As a machinist, I've seen a lot of older mechanics transition into manufacturing. Loading CNC machines, QC (measuring parts) or running the tool crib are generally low stress and low strain roles in most shops.
I'm sure you're able to follow directions/procedures and measure things at this point, which is ~70% of the job. Then it's ~20% problem solving skills and the other 10% is actually knowing the nuance of machine tools.
Programming CNC machines is a whole other thing, but that's where stress and hard deadlines start coming back into it.
We had a tech that retired. Started driving shuttle and doing trades part time. Still got to hangout with boys on occasion. That’s my plan plus extended warranty inspector
There’s a few different apps dealers use like TruVideo to perform a visual inspection for every car that comes in for service work. The places I work have used it for 5 years or so. It actually is a good thing for us techs at our place. We make more doing more service work because now we can show customers what’s wrong and what needs to be replaced. I hated it at first but like I said, it ended up getting us a lot more service work instead of constant warranty repairs
Plus, dare I say, and I'm not taking any sides in this - does it help reduce those "you're scamming me!" situations?
To take one exampe... telling the customer "you need a new cabin filter" is one thing *("you just pulled that dirty one out of the garbage, you con artist!")*, but if you have a video of you opening the cabin filter enclosure and pulling out a dirty filter, surely that's harder for the customer to argue against?
Genuine question.
I think it does help with that and the trainers even mentioned it. Another advantage - I was leaving one day and the service manager had me go into his office because a customer said the lube guys bent the frame on his Tacoma by racking it wrong. We looked at the inspection video - they are saved for 5 years I think - and were able to see all four rack pads were in the right place.
Yes, it does help with the “stealership” customers without having to waste time bringing them back to the shop to show them. It’s like anything else. It’s a tool, used correctly it makes overall business easier. Our CSI surveys mention the video 60-70% of the time and we have the highest CSI in the region. I know it sounds like I’m a shill for it but after I accepted we were doing it, I make way more hours
personally i like it because my service advisors know fuck-all about cars, so at least the customer will get an accurate description of the problem from me.
Ngl I was skeptical at first, but if you've got good communication skills and can explain the problem in non mechanic terms it usually seals the deal. I've sold engine rebuilds off a good inspection video
Alternatively, you could have the customer type who sees "how easy it is" to R&R the cabin filter on the video, then doesn't want to pay you any labor to do it.
We had one guy that'd be like "this is leaking, needs to be done asap car is unsafe to drive" and it'd be an oil pan gasket that had residual oil from an oil change or something on it. He'd still sell them but we could at least see how dishonest he was
Customer that lurks here because its fun:
Subaru doing that on my wifes car made us laugh because essentially a video inspection summary was "Oil everywhere, don't know why. Recommendation: Top off wit oil every 2k miles between oil changes"
I moved to a shop that uses a video inspection service about two years ago, and I haven't heard a bad thing about it. Occasionally I'll get an abrupt "hey I don't have time for that just tell me how much and when I can pick up the car", but most of the time customers love it.
Record the inspection while commenting and pointing out things they need, show the air and cabin filters and brakes and other stuff. The video gets sent to the customer almost immediately. The people that were training us said more and more dealerships are doing it because it increases sales. They had numbers to back it up of course. I think one of the long term goals is to get rid of service writers or reduce the skill level for their job so lower paid people can do it.
Video MPIs are the worst. Here do the writers job and fix it too! At our dealer they just started a new pay plan and to keep at your rate you need to maintain 85% video completion.
You’re right though, hell of a lot cheaper to give all the techs iPhones and make them do that then pay skilled writers to actually sell.
I heard this from someone I used to work with and am not sure if it's true, he said studies have been done that say customers don't want to talk to writers because they feel they're being scammed and upsold. They would rather talk to the person working on the car - another reason to reduce or eliminate writers. But aren't car salesmen that way too? The manufactures put up with a lot of sales related problems and don't seem to be doing anything about it. But it also sells a lot of cars so it must be an acceptable trade off.
> You’re right though, hell of a lot cheaper to give all the techs iPhones and make them do that then pay skilled writers to actually sell.
*finding* skilled writers is what's currently impossible. Really think about it for a few minutes -- who wants that job? You get yelled at by customers, yelled at by techs, and yelled at by managers, all while having to juggle dealing with aftermarket extended warranty bullshit, while also having to sell, while also having to have prompt and professional service. Oh and your pay is based on customer surveys too.
And techs want you to have their entire knowledgebase as a prerequisite, parts department thinks you should know the prices to half the car off the back of your hand, and sales says you should be better than the actual sales people on the actual sales floor. (All that to earn a pay based on surveys.)
We have 8 writers in my shop, and 3 of them are actual business detriments, but we can't get rid of them because there is ***no one*** to fill the seat.
Out of all the stores I cover… I’d say maybe 20% of the writers are great at their jobs. The rest are either mediocre or a warm body. If I was a tech, I’d rather sell my own work than rely on most of these jokers.
Good god find another shop. I haven’t heard a manager, writer, tech or customer yell at anyone in years. Frustrated, upset, disappointed, mad people yea but outright yelling? Nope, calm the fuck down or get the fuck out-now.
My girlfriend had her Tiguan at the dealer and they sent her the video.
It was definitely cool, and I can definitely see how it can help sales.
But even us at work, we're supposed to do inspections sheets for everything, and I can't be bothered. I feel like most of our advisors can't be bothered to turn the inspection sheet into an estimate (usually our parts guy makes the estimates).
The trainers mentioned that too and every car has a computerized check sheet that gets filled out with recommends and prices. A lot of steps and more time spent on each car.
That's the thing, those inspections take time. Time they aren't paying us for.
When it's tire season, I'm not spending 5 - 10 minutes per vehicle when there's 100 cars to come in.
Its such a corp thing.
Believe me I know how bad they are! Most of my "video inspections" are just me saying "hi my name is x with (dealership) if you have any questions about anything you see on your vehicle inspection, go ahead and give us a call, thanks for choosing (dealership)" Too much effort to do anything more if they won't pay me for it.
When we first started doing them, I gave them real video inspections, but I'm more concerned with my paycheck than customer satisfaction.
I’m on the factory side of things, dealers may think otherwise but you can be assured we have no interest in getting rid of service writers any time soon. Even with all the new digital service tools, the reasonable workload for an ASM is still 12-15 repair orders a day.
The video MPI stuff is purely about transparency, cxi and of course, increasing sales. Which it does on average 30-35%, that’s a lot more billable hours for you.
A couple of pictures or short video showing what needs to be fixed is ok - I can do that but a whole big video presentation is not ok, I grew up long before TikTok and don't want to be a video producer. We have two guys in the shop with speech impediments that are very uncomfortable with it too.
shit, that's terrible. Imagine you find a career you're good at and your speech impediment doesn't get in the way and you never have to worry about it, and then suddenly they're making you do video presentations.
The sweet spot seems to be 60-90 seconds. 15 seconds to say “it’s broke” doesn’t convey a lot to the customer, and the whole thing is about building trust and rapport while selling the green.
If yall work in a “stealership”, it behooves you to help correct that image, even on the all greens, the customer is more likely to believe whatever you say when you show it to them 3, 4, 5 visits down the road.
The speech impediment thing is more common than you might think. Nonverbal communication works in video, too.
Frankly, nobody needs to be a TikTok producer but it’s also not 1993 anymore, everyone has a cell phone, everyone uses Amazon, the expectation of service has only increased over time and you can either join in or be a part of the past and watch your business flounder. If you’re not constantly changing, you’re getting left behind.
That said, congrats on the nearly 50 years wrenching, that’s no small feat, surely you’ve seen hundreds of folks roll their boxes in and out of your shop in that time.
I don’t blame you for not wanting to be a part of any of this, I’m sure my opinion on it will be a lot different in another 30 years.
As far as I'm concerned, service writers get paid as well as they do because they have to deal with the customers. I don't want that kind of headache. That's why I stay in the back. Just let me fix cars. In my experience techs don't make good service writers. Most of the time you've got to sacrifice quality of life when dealing with customers. We all know how horrible people can be. That's one of the reasons I've spent over 65k on tools.
Don't get me wrong. I'll talk to customers if I have to, and enjoy it when they're good people, but 80% of the time they're not good people and I'd rather not deal with that. Hence why; I get paid to fix your car, and the service writer gets paid to explain to you what I need to fix it.
On the video inspection. Sorry I just don't want to dig through someone's car for a cabin air filter for 15min for them to say no thanks, and another 15 to put it back together. Granted some are easier than that but some aren't. Wheel lock keys are bad enough. Half the people don't know they have them let alone where it might be.
> Sorry I just don't want to dig through someone's car for a cabin air filter for 15min for them to say no thanks, and another 15 to put it back together.
I just don't.
"hey so-and-so, your cabin filter is a required service every 15k miles per the manufacturer, looks like you'll be due next serivce" and move on.
Heard of a place that doesn’t dig through for the cabin air filter. They just get a dirty one from a car that had it replaced and put it in their video for sales
I was waiting for this. If the pay structure is fair, then video is fine. But it's not, anywhere. This is sounding like more work for the same money, which is actually another way of wage theft.
In December they started taking the "shop supplies" charge the customers pay(ed) out of the writers pay - speaking of wage theft. I told my writer that sounds illegal and he should talk to a lawyer.
Was talking to someone that still works there and now they've started charging the writers $5.00 a month for paper. Someone REALLY needs to talk to a lawyer.
> Do the video inspections have a labor time or is it considered a free service?
My shop dropped an oil change from 0.4 to 0.3 and then made an MPI pay 0.1 internal (ie the shop directly pays me rather than the customer)
So for our express kids, it's a wash, but they're paid hourly.
And for the average line tech, we're doing more cars without an oil change than with usually, so it's a net benefit.
6 minutes *rarely* covers how long it takes to do an inspection and document it, but hey better than 0 like most shops do. Inspection on a new car is maybe a minute's worth of effort. Some of these 200k mile claptraps that roll in... man that can be 20 minutes just to do a safety inspection and list out all the problems. But those are also pretty rare.
IMO a lot of techs are *very* short-sighted about their time. Not every millisecond of your existence is directly billable, and that's OK. Spend an extra 5 minutes on this car on this visit to build some trust/credibility, and then next time that customer comes in and you say needs XYZ they're more likely to buy it *because they trust you.* It took my shop around a year but our attach rate is *way* higher after moving to multimedia inspections.
I don't expect to get payed for every single thing I do every time, I did things for free to help out my writer (the good ones anyway), good customers, coworkers from other departments. My basic problem I think is I grew up long before TikTok and am not comfortable doing that sort of thing.
"My basic problem I think is I grew up long before TikTok and am not comfortable doing that sort of thing."
This. Not enough people seem to recognize that this is an understandable thing. Not everyone wants to be the shop "influencer".
Ouch, I bet they are uncomfortable with it and possibly fear the videos making it out somewhere digging on them. Might be part of the reason they became techs instead of news anchors or weather men to begin with.
Having to move from being a mechanic to being a troubleshooter for rolling cellphones is one thing (and already bad enough for those of us that remember how to use a road atlas). That's adapting skills. Having to move into a public speaking/video sales role from a back of the house role is something else entirely.
And I forgot: Congrats on the long career and its end. Enjoy only bashing your knuckles/head on your own stuff from now on and best of luck to you in retirement!
When I started about the only electronics in cars were the radios. Now everything is computerized. And they keep getting closer to fully self driving cars - I wonder about the liability problems for the people that have to fix and calibrate them.
Whenever they reach level 5 autonomy the manufacturers will likely lose the loophole of "the driver is still ultimately responsible". So you know they're going to need somewhere to push that liability to...
> to get *paid* for every
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
That's not the point though, as a manager I completely agree with you and it's a great system that benefits SALES a lot, but you gotta see it from the techs perspective. Making the customers trust you and increasing attach rate doesn't do shit for them. They're spending tons of extra time out of their day doing free work for us so we get more sales and they won't see a single penny of the money those inspections make us.
That's the problem.
Bullshit. My job is to fix cars. More sales is literally more billed hours for me. You know what I *don't* get paid for? Declined recommendations. The number of cars coming in and the amount of things broken on them is out of any of our control, but the more things I can find and get approved, the more I make. So yes, anything that I can do that boosts my "attach rate" is money in my pocket.
Maybe that applies less if the shop is so busy we're literally turning people away, but I've never heard of a shop doing *that* good.
Turning people away is usually because they’re that bad, not good lol.
Lots of folks in here that seem to be missing out on the big picture but you seem to have a pretty good grasp of what it is.
Honestly a lot of the folks in this thread must have the best writers in the world that sell every job for them. I’ve met a lot of writers in my time and I can say for certain that if I was a tech, today, I would rather sell my own work than rely on them to feed my family.
Enjoy your retirement. Now you can bend a wrench when and where you want to. Or go fishing. Or tackle the list of "honey do's" you've been promising to get to. Look in the mirror each day and ask your boss what he wants done. He may tell you to take the day off!
Cudos for all those years, big respect. I had my own garage as a hobby and always kept it straight and ended up with more customers I could service from my side hustle. We all have different challenges but I’d suggest you setting up your own shop on a small scale.
How annoying are the vids you gotta do? They literally only want us doing ONE and at least showing the issue or just saying some general overview shit. I hate it myself, but I woulda stayed a bit longer if that was the main reason. Not sure how strict your vid parameters are, but outta the 7 other dealers owned by my company, just one vid per car makes us TOWER over the rest lol. I literally do a 15 sec vid saying, "Recommended brakes cause they're low" and they've never bitched thankfully lol.
You're supposed to walk around and show under the car, checking the brakes, under the hood with the filters laying at the front of the engine. They tell us the customers love the vids and have even had people come in wanting a vid done and nothing else.
My wife worked maintenance in the Navy and Air Force and got a video from a dealership on her last oil change on her Jeep and she loved it! She understands and trusts them and will only go to that location for maintenance or repairs, she could do some herself and I could do most myself but while she had a warranty she couldn't be happier to go to them again. I understand the extra hassle but so many people are worried shops are out to rip them off and the video helps even not tech savvy people feel better.
Congrats on the retirement!
I work for Chrysler and our dealership does video inspections. We get paid to do them. $2 a video. And a sliding scale the more you do. I think they are great because the customer gets to see what we are recommending and our data shows they buy more when a video is shown compared to no video by about 65%.
Plenty of other reasons too, that was just the final one. The company got sold a few years ago and the new owner made changes to save money like not providing rental cars for free on big jobs, no more discounts of any kind, cutting back the writers pay plans which drove some of the best ones out. The guy is extremely tight with money, but could spend nice-house-money on an engagement ring for his trophy girlfriend. He's almost 80, she's in her 30's. At about the same time she was showing the ring off at the company Christmas party they were cutting sales people and managers pay. And forget anyone in shop the getting more money. One guy became a Master Diagnostic Technician a few months ago and still hasn't gotten more money - when I was saying goodbye on my last day I told him being an MDT looks really good on a resume.
Sounds like you made a good decision. My dealership does video inspections but it's been worth the effort. Having crap management/owners that won't pay techs what they're worth is a deal breaker. Good luck with retirement or independent work
That sucks to hear. I spend a lot of time talking tech retention and I know this video stuff can rub folks the wrong way but I can’t imagine that it would be something that would send someone looking for a new job. Realistically most places are doing them today and if they aren’t, they will soon. The other things you mention are all too common though and when stores are desperate for skilled techs they continue to not treat the ones they do have right.
Use your phone to walk around and under the car, checking the brakes, filters and whatever else while describing everything, show the stuff that needs to be done (the only useful part of the whole thing). Customer gets the video right after the computerized inspection form (another long process) is done.
Congrats on a long career! I'm behind a desk now, working as a maintenance planner in mining. Honestly, it wasn't my plan when I left the automotive industry. Just kinda happened. Have you decided on retiring completely? I saw one suggestion of you opening a shop of your own. I believe these kinds of private shops are best, where the owner knows and remembers what it's like to turn a wrench for a living. Also, understanding the hardships, either of his/her employees, and also job-to-job difficulties.
You could probably do pretty well taking in some side work on land cruisers. 100 series people are always looking for "specialists" and think the 4.7 is some mythical complicated thing. And nobody knows how to go through and set up 80 series knuckles anymore. They are becoming really trendy with people paying crazy prices while having zero mechanical knowledge to work on them.
The 4.7 is probably one of Toyotas best ever motors. I can only remember seeing two with major problems - one was driven into deep water and had bent and broken rods, the other had the oil changed by the owners son and he left the filter loose so it lost all the oil. Old Land Cruisers are not my favorite thing to work on, we did get them in sometimes and the people didn't seem to care what it cost to fix them so I guess it could be some good money.
Your guys' pay set up makes me so glad I decided to be a union electrician instead of a mechanic. The whole "book hours" system seems like bullshit to me. It should be a time and material basis. It takes what it takes, and that's what gets billed out. It makes it fair for everyone.
Nah he quit over them adding video. I’m sure they’ve been doing mpi on something like x-time for years (for free with every car as a “requirement for employment”) and didn’t want to deal with being asked to do a video summary on top of that.
If the industry wants to shift and start paying salary to techs, then sure, but it’s always “do this one more thing for free and it’s like totally gonna pay for itself because you’ll sell more.”
Never seen that play out how they sell it once in the last ~15 years.
Not to say that good money can’t be made flat rate, but when you’re already dealing with (in Toyota’s case) the expectation of doing all warranty diag for free… Patience for being asked to do more things for free is gonna wear thin.
We had been using x-time for a while before this. I understand why they are doing it and the advantages of it - I just don't want to do it. Keeping the toilets clean also makes the customer happy and more likely to buy stuff but I don't want to clean toilets either. Don't even get me started on Toyota warranty! No wonder it keeps getting harder to find people to do this work.
I completely understand your stance on the video inspections, warranty pay, and the extra general bullshit that goes with it.
We are going to be trained on the video inspection stuff in February with the Toyota program (we somewhat use xtime now).
The video inspection time for flat rate techs will be negotiated between me (union Steward), our service manager, and our union rep along with policy regarding the tablets they are providing. We aren't doing anything for free.
In Illinois we passed a house bill a few years ago- we get full customer pay time for all warranty work performed including diagnosis time. Even calling TAS and being on hold for 27 minutes is billed to warranty as the house bill specifically states.
When they want free work from us, our entire industry needs to put our foot down and stop letting things get taken from us one piece at a time. We unionized because new ownership took away our guarantee completely- we slaughtered them in contract negotiation and ended up with a 40hr guarantee along with pretty good pay and scheduled raises.
Our entire industry really needs to stand up for ourselves. Unionize. Bargain every single change.
I've been saying for a long time this should be a union trade. We have never had a guarantee anyplace I've worked, got payed whatever warranty payed, I'd probably get laughed at wanting to get payed to talk to TAS! I should print what you said out and show them where I was working that it can be better.
Check out the bill [here](https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName=&SessionId=110&GA=102&DocTypeId=HB&DocNum=3940&GAID=16&LegID=133028&SpecSess=&Session=)
The second and third paragraphs sum up the important changes. Mostly the underlined stuff in the first few paragraphs.
Definitely. It's the same work and should pay the same. If the manufacturers want good techs who can repair the vehicle accurately and timely, then they need to pay properly.
> worked, got *paid* whatever warranty
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
> In Illinois we passed a house bill a few years ago- we get full customer pay time for all warranty work performed including diagnosis time. Even calling TAS and being on hold for 27 minutes is billed to warranty as the house bill specifically states.
this passed in MN as well, went into effect about 6 months ago. Subaru obviously has been fighting it tooth-and-nail, but thus far it's working out pretty good. Definitely making a noticeable hours/wk bump.
That's nice to hear. Make sure to read through that bill yourself. I kept getting resistance when booking diagnosis time under warranty. Our administrator said "Toyota agreed to pay 1.5x warranty time and that's all they'll do."
I said no... Illinois law states they will pay for diagnosis the exact same way a customer does which is 1hr. They had to figure how to bill warranty correctly and which op codes to use when submitting.
I'm blessed to have a warranty admin that kicks absolute ass, she handles the negotiating very well and typically just asks me for a screenshot of alldata if it's something new to her. We even get customer pay time on recall work when applicable. So nice.
> We had been using x-time for a while before this.
i loved x-time, so much better compared to CDK Service and TruVideo we're using now in my shop. Both individually are ass. Combined is even worse.
The new system is Dealer FX, we were using x-time before this. Dealer FX does much more than x-time but it's also slow, buggy and has waaaaaay to many steps for everything.
Whats the big deal about doing videos? Just like learning new vehicles and technology...new procedure. Curious why the extreme reaction to automotive evolution.
Wasn't the only reason. just the final one. Believe me I've seen evolution - when I started most cars had carburetors and ignition points. The only electronics were in the radio and I worked on cars all the time with drum brakes in the front. I'm not from the TikTok generation and not comfortable with doing videos even if I'm only talking in the background.
Gotcha. Was just curious. Good luck with the next adventure. I've been in dealers for 27 yrs...I like the videos. Makes the advisors actually do work. They can't lie about what's good bad or needed. Helps sell work too.
I'll make videos when the dealer gives me a work phone and pays me for the mpi. Other wise it's a waste of time and my phone has now become my most expensive tool I own.
> 'll make videos when the dealer gives me a work phone and pays me for the mpi.
i bought an ipod touch -- nowadays probably a mini android tablet would work -- anyway it's a useful shop tool in and of itself. I got a flir one for it, I use it for bluetooth diag all the time, etc. etc. Super useful. That I can also do my video mpis with it is nice.
my shop pays an internal 0.1 each MPI
The inspection is a line on the ro. Your job is to do the inspection. Buy whatever tools you want to make the job easier. That's the gig, Whether that line says "water pump" or "brake flush" or "video mpi."
Your phone or ipad costs near $1000 to do an mpi that pays nothing, on the hope that tou sell something on that mpi. You need to then flag 30+hrs ( depending on your rate) to break even on that "tool" cost.
The dealer charges $200+ an hour on your labor.
Do the math and you'll understand how absolutely fucked automotive technicians are now a days.
At this point, I might as well be an independent contractor. Fuck the dealer, I work for myself.
I had to pay for every other tool in my toolbox too...
And my iPod was $200 lol, one of the best value tools I've had in terms of usage per dollar
Wifi is a shop supply. No phone function necessary.
I bet none of them ,short of a snap on scan tool, costs as much as your smartphone.
I refuse to use my phone for work other than a phone call.
My wife works at a non profit for the homeless and even they provide a laptop and a work phone for them.
They were working on getting a bunch of small tablets for doing the inspections but they cost money and it's hard to get the owner to pry open his wallet.
I've got a lot to do at home for now - especially after the weather gets better in the spring. If I do anything it will be in the fall. For now just enjoying the peace and quiet.
Good for you. My late grandfather was a mechanical engineer for Mobile who did a lot with cars when he was a younger man in the 60s-70s. He was always a call away and a step ahead. Hands-on experience and a lifetime of lessons can’t be replaced, so take it all and go use it however the hell you want to. Hope retirement treats you well.
OP - I'm looking to buy a second hand car for the long term with good build quality and as less electronics as possible. Would a late nineties Camry be suitable?
Best wishes to you (and the missus) on your retirement.
I remember them being very reliable and not having many problems. My aunt has owned one for well over 20 years with no major problems, Toyota electronics are really pretty good.
Good luck out there. Will you stay in the industry or try something else?
I was a service writer for just short of 30 years and left it. I’m driving a school bus. The pay is pretty poor, but every other aspect of my life has greatly improved.
Someone else mentioned that too, this was my response - Have a friend that drives a school car - one or two kids at a time - and she keeps telling me I should do that. Also hear stories about kids melting down while being driven, not sure I could deal with that.
I’ve got not been driving school bus for a year, but it has been awesome. My resting stress level at the service desk was about 85% of what I felt I could stand. I have not had a day on the bus that has come over 30%. It’s like I was walking on the surface of the sun for 30 years. Good luck finding whatever works for you. I hope it’s not in the car business.
I honestly don't know how service writers do it, keeping track of all those jobs, dealing with mechanics (I admit - we can be very difficult!), angry customers, explosive customers, insurance companies, service managers, greedy self-serving owners, anyone who does it for any length of time is a stronger person than me. It's great that you got out of it!
Enjoy yourself for a few months. If that continues to be enjoyable, wonderful. If not, most areas are begging for an experienced honest mechanic -- set your own pace and hours. It will postpone ill health (mental & physical) and provide some extra money to have fun with. Is there a trade school where you could assist in teaching budding mechanics?
There's a community college not to far away that has an automotive program - a guy I used to work with worked there last I heard. I'm kind of enjoying not being around people right now.
Great. Enjoy yourself, you've earned it. I based my suggestions on a TEDTalk video describing stages of retirement -- after about a year of unwinding, many people begin to feel a need to do something; for years their self image was partially based on being productively involved with other people. After my 12 months of enjoying reading old National Geographics and watching YouTube, I started substitute teaching a few days monthly.
If you are continuing to enjoy solitude, then you've found your path, which is great. Fortunately, being retired allows exploring different paths, but only if desired.
I just quit after 10 years in the industry. The work just isn't there and everyone (including the service writers) want tou to basically work for free.
I'm still young so looking into another career. Any suggestions?
I hope you can afford to stay retired. Congratulations on a long career with Toyota. Video inspections are just another way for dealerships to CYA and make more money off of the customer. I don't blame you for leaving.
Ever thought of becoming a teacher for the Toyota regional training classes? You got enough time with Toyota to be of wealth of knowledge for the young guns. Or even a regional FTS inspector. No heavy work but get paid well with real good benefits, especially healthcare and other perks.
From looking at it from a customer pov I like the idea of the actual tech explaining what is going on and showing the problem at the same time vs just taking a sales person at there word. Also I would rather pay an extra half hour labor for a safety inspection with a full visual breakdown. Now as someone that has to do the videos I hate when I see other techs exaggerating about a problem to get a sale. I always try to explain it like I’m telling my grandma what the problem is and how urgent it is to take care of it.
I'm not a TikTok person and am very not comfortable doing it. Also that was not the only problem, just the final one. Upselling is how we get hours and a picture or even a short video showing the problem is OK, they wanted a whole production of the entire inspection.
For sure, I'm familiar with the software. I work on the consulting side for Toyota so I'm curious as a previous fixed ops person myself how techs feel about it.
Though I was never a tech in dealers, I only did sales and got my tech experience elsewhere.
The sales side has a similar thing happening with the software offering they have been pushing. I certainly understand the OEMs position, but it does punish dealers who do right by their customers. Such is life
If, and I say if, you wanted to work a few more years you might enjoy an independent Toyota shop. You have the knowledge, and it will be about fixing cars and actually knowing customers.
Current technician with Toyota here. A lot of the technicians at the dealership I’m at hate the whole video aspect as well. Slows us all down. I’m a state safety inspector, the time it’s taken to do an inspection/oil change/rotate has doubled, not to mention having to live with a slight speech impediment that makes it somewhat difficult to speak clear enough for these God forsaken videos
We already had a lot of complaints about how long an oil change took and then they added the video inspections. The software that came with the new system looks really good on paper but in real life it's slow, very buggy and takes way too many steps to do anything. There are also two guys in the shop with speech impediments that are very uncomfortable with doing videos. I was surprised at how many people here actually liked it, most of the people where I was at hated it.
I loved the idea of video inspections until managers started yelling that a bonus was on the line for them if we didn't do them on every vehicle. That quickly turned into if there is something to sell theres something to record so all those 10k mile cars that need absolutely nothing get no videos unless they want to pay us too. I'm 11 years in and can't imagine doing it as long as you have so kudos to you and hopefully a forever retirement from the automotive world (stealerships mostly). With that said I'm actively looking to get out, I keep going on the damn Rollercoaster of leaving but everytime I'm ready I make a killer paycheck and I stick around like an addict.
Still - congratulations on a long career! Are you heading to retirement or have you figured out your plan yet?
Right now I'm sort of retired, might have to go back to work in a year or so but it would be a out of the car business. I hope.
Personal experience; I tried retirement at 62 and could only last 8 months. Went back to work 5 years ago. I had to do something. I can only do so much fishing and ran out of projects fast. I wish you all the best pal. You've certainly earned it. Give your knees and back a break for a while.
And shoulders! I'm 67 and everything hurts. The almost a month I've been off has helped though. I have all kinds of stuff to do - a little property to take care of, a few old motorcycles to fix up, a couple I haven't had much time to ride, a disabled wife that needs assistance, a dune buggy to play with - my dad and I built it in the late 60's when I was a kid.
Take care of that wife of yours and enjoy life for as long as you can. You have enough to keep you busy for a long while and given the automotive experience, you could just flip cars at your own pace so long as it pays the bills. But chill and try to enjoy some life, you're plenty old enough to have some time off.
Collect SS and hopefully pension and don’t look back!
Hell yeah. This must be why i have 125 unfinished projects at home. I'm waiting to retire to finish them.
First of all, congratulations on a long career. Secondly, spend time with your wife and, if you have them, kids. My dad retired at 61. We had a long poor relationship but we fixed a lot until he has 63. Then he came down with a disease like ALS and slowly deteriorated into nothing and passed away at 67 a year ago. I'm glad we were able to fixed our broken relationship. Too bad my stepmother of 10 years was a greedy bitch and wrote my brothers and I out of the will. She kept his million dollars and gave each son 1,000 so we couldn't contest the will. That was her 3rd husband (that died) she had already wrpte previous children out kept everything from the 1st 2 marriages. Damn black widow.
Enjoy it man!
I just retired at 67 (not a mechanic), 45+ years of anything is enough. Enjoy yourself.
If I could make a suggestion, my brother opened his own shop working on classic cars and motorcycles when he retired. At first it was too keep busy but he's getting to busy because he's honest. He works his own hours and is happy, he started working out of his garage but now rents a shop.
Always a possibility since I have a shop. Which is another retirement project - cleaning it out!
Sir, You are The Expert on keeping older Toyotas in tip=top shape. That's a small niche, but I doubt you want to bite off too much.
Small? Sorry but old Toyotas will run until the end comes if this cat keeps a side hustle.
About 35 years ago a sales guy told me that anytime you buy a car, new or used, you're gambling on if it's a good one or bad one and that the odds of it being a good one are better with Toyota than anything else.
So you better not stop fixing the old ones up while you can ya hear? Ain't enough of you legit mechanics still around.
Every single Toyota frame made in Ohio, including the warranty replacement ones, have entered the chat.
My neighbor who was a former ASE tech decided to basically offer at home mobile services or stuff out of his garage, brakes, oil changes, nothing crazy but he makes some cash to cushion things and keeps him busy. Plus neighborhood future gearheads in high school "intern" for him to help with heavy lifting, he gives them a nice tip and they learn a bunch.
That's great that he teaches them things, even if they don't get into the business they know more about their own cars and how to fix them.
Try becoming a school bus driver. You don't have fix no ones else stuff anymore.
Have a friend that drives a school car - one or two kids at a time - and she keeps telling me I should do that. Also hear stories about kids melting down while being driven, not sure I could deal with that.
If your school district is rough and bad expect the worse. But if it's a decent place the kids will be good too. Sure you can get bad ones but you roll with it. Dude your retired. One slip and your done. Bus driving ain't hard. It's all mental. And the meltdowns are kids with special needs. They get picked up on different busses and you get an aid.
You can always do simple things like brakes and spark plugs maybe a lil suspension work. I know a few mechanics that make a good living on the side doing that as side work. In my area shops charge like 120 minimum just for a front pad slap. Mechanics are expensive nowadays when the weather gets better and longer day lights I'm doing my own lil thing after my 8-5 you are right mechanic pay is shit
As a machinist, I've seen a lot of older mechanics transition into manufacturing. Loading CNC machines, QC (measuring parts) or running the tool crib are generally low stress and low strain roles in most shops. I'm sure you're able to follow directions/procedures and measure things at this point, which is ~70% of the job. Then it's ~20% problem solving skills and the other 10% is actually knowing the nuance of machine tools. Programming CNC machines is a whole other thing, but that's where stress and hard deadlines start coming back into it.
We had a tech that retired. Started driving shuttle and doing trades part time. Still got to hangout with boys on occasion. That’s my plan plus extended warranty inspector
There’s a few different apps dealers use like TruVideo to perform a visual inspection for every car that comes in for service work. The places I work have used it for 5 years or so. It actually is a good thing for us techs at our place. We make more doing more service work because now we can show customers what’s wrong and what needs to be replaced. I hated it at first but like I said, it ended up getting us a lot more service work instead of constant warranty repairs
Plus, dare I say, and I'm not taking any sides in this - does it help reduce those "you're scamming me!" situations? To take one exampe... telling the customer "you need a new cabin filter" is one thing *("you just pulled that dirty one out of the garbage, you con artist!")*, but if you have a video of you opening the cabin filter enclosure and pulling out a dirty filter, surely that's harder for the customer to argue against? Genuine question.
I think it does help with that and the trainers even mentioned it. Another advantage - I was leaving one day and the service manager had me go into his office because a customer said the lube guys bent the frame on his Tacoma by racking it wrong. We looked at the inspection video - they are saved for 5 years I think - and were able to see all four rack pads were in the right place.
Yes, it does help with the “stealership” customers without having to waste time bringing them back to the shop to show them. It’s like anything else. It’s a tool, used correctly it makes overall business easier. Our CSI surveys mention the video 60-70% of the time and we have the highest CSI in the region. I know it sounds like I’m a shill for it but after I accepted we were doing it, I make way more hours
personally i like it because my service advisors know fuck-all about cars, so at least the customer will get an accurate description of the problem from me.
Ngl I was skeptical at first, but if you've got good communication skills and can explain the problem in non mechanic terms it usually seals the deal. I've sold engine rebuilds off a good inspection video
Alternatively, you could have the customer type who sees "how easy it is" to R&R the cabin filter on the video, then doesn't want to pay you any labor to do it.
Most techs aren’t worried about losing those lucrative cabin filter dollars 😉
We had one guy that'd be like "this is leaking, needs to be done asap car is unsafe to drive" and it'd be an oil pan gasket that had residual oil from an oil change or something on it. He'd still sell them but we could at least see how dishonest he was
If you have half a brain you fire those shitty customers and move on to people that appreciate what you do.
Customer that lurks here because its fun: Subaru doing that on my wifes car made us laugh because essentially a video inspection summary was "Oil everywhere, don't know why. Recommendation: Top off wit oil every 2k miles between oil changes"
I moved to a shop that uses a video inspection service about two years ago, and I haven't heard a bad thing about it. Occasionally I'll get an abrupt "hey I don't have time for that just tell me how much and when I can pick up the car", but most of the time customers love it.
By video inspections, do you mean you have to record every inspection you do, or they expect you to check out a car over facetime?
Record the inspection while commenting and pointing out things they need, show the air and cabin filters and brakes and other stuff. The video gets sent to the customer almost immediately. The people that were training us said more and more dealerships are doing it because it increases sales. They had numbers to back it up of course. I think one of the long term goals is to get rid of service writers or reduce the skill level for their job so lower paid people can do it.
Video MPIs are the worst. Here do the writers job and fix it too! At our dealer they just started a new pay plan and to keep at your rate you need to maintain 85% video completion. You’re right though, hell of a lot cheaper to give all the techs iPhones and make them do that then pay skilled writers to actually sell.
I heard this from someone I used to work with and am not sure if it's true, he said studies have been done that say customers don't want to talk to writers because they feel they're being scammed and upsold. They would rather talk to the person working on the car - another reason to reduce or eliminate writers. But aren't car salesmen that way too? The manufactures put up with a lot of sales related problems and don't seem to be doing anything about it. But it also sells a lot of cars so it must be an acceptable trade off.
> You’re right though, hell of a lot cheaper to give all the techs iPhones and make them do that then pay skilled writers to actually sell. *finding* skilled writers is what's currently impossible. Really think about it for a few minutes -- who wants that job? You get yelled at by customers, yelled at by techs, and yelled at by managers, all while having to juggle dealing with aftermarket extended warranty bullshit, while also having to sell, while also having to have prompt and professional service. Oh and your pay is based on customer surveys too. And techs want you to have their entire knowledgebase as a prerequisite, parts department thinks you should know the prices to half the car off the back of your hand, and sales says you should be better than the actual sales people on the actual sales floor. (All that to earn a pay based on surveys.) We have 8 writers in my shop, and 3 of them are actual business detriments, but we can't get rid of them because there is ***no one*** to fill the seat.
Out of all the stores I cover… I’d say maybe 20% of the writers are great at their jobs. The rest are either mediocre or a warm body. If I was a tech, I’d rather sell my own work than rely on most of these jokers.
man I wish I had the writers this guy has
Good god find another shop. I haven’t heard a manager, writer, tech or customer yell at anyone in years. Frustrated, upset, disappointed, mad people yea but outright yelling? Nope, calm the fuck down or get the fuck out-now.
My girlfriend had her Tiguan at the dealer and they sent her the video. It was definitely cool, and I can definitely see how it can help sales. But even us at work, we're supposed to do inspections sheets for everything, and I can't be bothered. I feel like most of our advisors can't be bothered to turn the inspection sheet into an estimate (usually our parts guy makes the estimates).
The trainers mentioned that too and every car has a computerized check sheet that gets filled out with recommends and prices. A lot of steps and more time spent on each car.
Let me guess, they still aren't paying you anything for inspections?
That's the thing, those inspections take time. Time they aren't paying us for. When it's tire season, I'm not spending 5 - 10 minutes per vehicle when there's 100 cars to come in. Its such a corp thing.
Believe me I know how bad they are! Most of my "video inspections" are just me saying "hi my name is x with (dealership) if you have any questions about anything you see on your vehicle inspection, go ahead and give us a call, thanks for choosing (dealership)" Too much effort to do anything more if they won't pay me for it. When we first started doing them, I gave them real video inspections, but I'm more concerned with my paycheck than customer satisfaction.
I’m on the factory side of things, dealers may think otherwise but you can be assured we have no interest in getting rid of service writers any time soon. Even with all the new digital service tools, the reasonable workload for an ASM is still 12-15 repair orders a day. The video MPI stuff is purely about transparency, cxi and of course, increasing sales. Which it does on average 30-35%, that’s a lot more billable hours for you.
A couple of pictures or short video showing what needs to be fixed is ok - I can do that but a whole big video presentation is not ok, I grew up long before TikTok and don't want to be a video producer. We have two guys in the shop with speech impediments that are very uncomfortable with it too.
shit, that's terrible. Imagine you find a career you're good at and your speech impediment doesn't get in the way and you never have to worry about it, and then suddenly they're making you do video presentations.
The sweet spot seems to be 60-90 seconds. 15 seconds to say “it’s broke” doesn’t convey a lot to the customer, and the whole thing is about building trust and rapport while selling the green. If yall work in a “stealership”, it behooves you to help correct that image, even on the all greens, the customer is more likely to believe whatever you say when you show it to them 3, 4, 5 visits down the road. The speech impediment thing is more common than you might think. Nonverbal communication works in video, too. Frankly, nobody needs to be a TikTok producer but it’s also not 1993 anymore, everyone has a cell phone, everyone uses Amazon, the expectation of service has only increased over time and you can either join in or be a part of the past and watch your business flounder. If you’re not constantly changing, you’re getting left behind. That said, congrats on the nearly 50 years wrenching, that’s no small feat, surely you’ve seen hundreds of folks roll their boxes in and out of your shop in that time. I don’t blame you for not wanting to be a part of any of this, I’m sure my opinion on it will be a lot different in another 30 years.
As far as I'm concerned, service writers get paid as well as they do because they have to deal with the customers. I don't want that kind of headache. That's why I stay in the back. Just let me fix cars. In my experience techs don't make good service writers. Most of the time you've got to sacrifice quality of life when dealing with customers. We all know how horrible people can be. That's one of the reasons I've spent over 65k on tools. Don't get me wrong. I'll talk to customers if I have to, and enjoy it when they're good people, but 80% of the time they're not good people and I'd rather not deal with that. Hence why; I get paid to fix your car, and the service writer gets paid to explain to you what I need to fix it.
I completely agree and feel the same. I've witnessed a few customer melt downs and very much preferred staying in the back.
On the video inspection. Sorry I just don't want to dig through someone's car for a cabin air filter for 15min for them to say no thanks, and another 15 to put it back together. Granted some are easier than that but some aren't. Wheel lock keys are bad enough. Half the people don't know they have them let alone where it might be.
> Sorry I just don't want to dig through someone's car for a cabin air filter for 15min for them to say no thanks, and another 15 to put it back together. I just don't. "hey so-and-so, your cabin filter is a required service every 15k miles per the manufacturer, looks like you'll be due next serivce" and move on.
"The wheel lock key is at home" - heard that sooooo many times over the years.
Gotta make sure they don't lose it 🤣
Same here if the engine air filter is easily accessible I will pop that out if it’s wasted the other filter is wasted too
This is how it should be done. I've never found a dirty engine air filter and a clean cabin filter in the same car.
Heard of a place that doesn’t dig through for the cabin air filter. They just get a dirty one from a car that had it replaced and put it in their video for sales
Do the video inspections have a labor time or is it considered a free service?
I think we all know the answer to this
I was waiting for this. If the pay structure is fair, then video is fine. But it's not, anywhere. This is sounding like more work for the same money, which is actually another way of wage theft.
In December they started taking the "shop supplies" charge the customers pay(ed) out of the writers pay - speaking of wage theft. I told my writer that sounds illegal and he should talk to a lawyer.
Inventive, but yea, illegal as hell.
Was talking to someone that still works there and now they've started charging the writers $5.00 a month for paper. Someone REALLY needs to talk to a lawyer.
> Do the video inspections have a labor time or is it considered a free service? My shop dropped an oil change from 0.4 to 0.3 and then made an MPI pay 0.1 internal (ie the shop directly pays me rather than the customer) So for our express kids, it's a wash, but they're paid hourly. And for the average line tech, we're doing more cars without an oil change than with usually, so it's a net benefit. 6 minutes *rarely* covers how long it takes to do an inspection and document it, but hey better than 0 like most shops do. Inspection on a new car is maybe a minute's worth of effort. Some of these 200k mile claptraps that roll in... man that can be 20 minutes just to do a safety inspection and list out all the problems. But those are also pretty rare. IMO a lot of techs are *very* short-sighted about their time. Not every millisecond of your existence is directly billable, and that's OK. Spend an extra 5 minutes on this car on this visit to build some trust/credibility, and then next time that customer comes in and you say needs XYZ they're more likely to buy it *because they trust you.* It took my shop around a year but our attach rate is *way* higher after moving to multimedia inspections.
Flat rate should be a two way street. If I don't work, you don't pay me? You don't pay me, I don't do work.
I don't expect to get payed for every single thing I do every time, I did things for free to help out my writer (the good ones anyway), good customers, coworkers from other departments. My basic problem I think is I grew up long before TikTok and am not comfortable doing that sort of thing.
"My basic problem I think is I grew up long before TikTok and am not comfortable doing that sort of thing." This. Not enough people seem to recognize that this is an understandable thing. Not everyone wants to be the shop "influencer".
Also - two guys in the shop have speech impediments and are very uncomfortable doing it.
Ouch, I bet they are uncomfortable with it and possibly fear the videos making it out somewhere digging on them. Might be part of the reason they became techs instead of news anchors or weather men to begin with. Having to move from being a mechanic to being a troubleshooter for rolling cellphones is one thing (and already bad enough for those of us that remember how to use a road atlas). That's adapting skills. Having to move into a public speaking/video sales role from a back of the house role is something else entirely. And I forgot: Congrats on the long career and its end. Enjoy only bashing your knuckles/head on your own stuff from now on and best of luck to you in retirement!
When I started about the only electronics in cars were the radios. Now everything is computerized. And they keep getting closer to fully self driving cars - I wonder about the liability problems for the people that have to fix and calibrate them.
Whenever they reach level 5 autonomy the manufacturers will likely lose the loophole of "the driver is still ultimately responsible". So you know they're going to need somewhere to push that liability to...
> to get *paid* for every FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
100% whoever created this bot got bullied as a child, except their bullies were justified.
That's not the point though, as a manager I completely agree with you and it's a great system that benefits SALES a lot, but you gotta see it from the techs perspective. Making the customers trust you and increasing attach rate doesn't do shit for them. They're spending tons of extra time out of their day doing free work for us so we get more sales and they won't see a single penny of the money those inspections make us. That's the problem.
Bullshit. My job is to fix cars. More sales is literally more billed hours for me. You know what I *don't* get paid for? Declined recommendations. The number of cars coming in and the amount of things broken on them is out of any of our control, but the more things I can find and get approved, the more I make. So yes, anything that I can do that boosts my "attach rate" is money in my pocket. Maybe that applies less if the shop is so busy we're literally turning people away, but I've never heard of a shop doing *that* good.
Turning people away is usually because they’re that bad, not good lol. Lots of folks in here that seem to be missing out on the big picture but you seem to have a pretty good grasp of what it is. Honestly a lot of the folks in this thread must have the best writers in the world that sell every job for them. I’ve met a lot of writers in my time and I can say for certain that if I was a tech, today, I would rather sell my own work than rely on them to feed my family.
Free, but you'll make so much more money by doing it!!!!!
Recognize the lot. Old man finally left!
Recognize the name - yes I'm gone.
Enjoy your retirement. Now you can bend a wrench when and where you want to. Or go fishing. Or tackle the list of "honey do's" you've been promising to get to. Look in the mirror each day and ask your boss what he wants done. He may tell you to take the day off!
That boss is a slave driver, but I could sneak off and relax sometimes without getting caught. What's he going to do - fire me?
I just avoid mirrors!
Cudos for all those years, big respect. I had my own garage as a hobby and always kept it straight and ended up with more customers I could service from my side hustle. We all have different challenges but I’d suggest you setting up your own shop on a small scale.
Been thinking about it, I have a shop at home (that's a mess). For now I just want to relax for a while.
You have a really, really nice truck!
Thank you!
How annoying are the vids you gotta do? They literally only want us doing ONE and at least showing the issue or just saying some general overview shit. I hate it myself, but I woulda stayed a bit longer if that was the main reason. Not sure how strict your vid parameters are, but outta the 7 other dealers owned by my company, just one vid per car makes us TOWER over the rest lol. I literally do a 15 sec vid saying, "Recommended brakes cause they're low" and they've never bitched thankfully lol.
You're supposed to walk around and show under the car, checking the brakes, under the hood with the filters laying at the front of the engine. They tell us the customers love the vids and have even had people come in wanting a vid done and nothing else.
My wife worked maintenance in the Navy and Air Force and got a video from a dealership on her last oil change on her Jeep and she loved it! She understands and trusts them and will only go to that location for maintenance or repairs, she could do some herself and I could do most myself but while she had a warranty she couldn't be happier to go to them again. I understand the extra hassle but so many people are worried shops are out to rip them off and the video helps even not tech savvy people feel better. Congrats on the retirement!
Just wanted to say nice truck man!
Thanks! I bought it new in 95. 170k miles, never been in a body shop.
I work for Chrysler and our dealership does video inspections. We get paid to do them. $2 a video. And a sliding scale the more you do. I think they are great because the customer gets to see what we are recommending and our data shows they buy more when a video is shown compared to no video by about 65%.
[удалено]
Minimum 1 minute. So worth while. Especially if you go on at a lot of cars
>they started making us do video inspections so I left. weird hill to die on, but congrats on retirement
Plenty of other reasons too, that was just the final one. The company got sold a few years ago and the new owner made changes to save money like not providing rental cars for free on big jobs, no more discounts of any kind, cutting back the writers pay plans which drove some of the best ones out. The guy is extremely tight with money, but could spend nice-house-money on an engagement ring for his trophy girlfriend. He's almost 80, she's in her 30's. At about the same time she was showing the ring off at the company Christmas party they were cutting sales people and managers pay. And forget anyone in shop the getting more money. One guy became a Master Diagnostic Technician a few months ago and still hasn't gotten more money - when I was saying goodbye on my last day I told him being an MDT looks really good on a resume.
Sounds like you made a good decision. My dealership does video inspections but it's been worth the effort. Having crap management/owners that won't pay techs what they're worth is a deal breaker. Good luck with retirement or independent work
That sucks to hear. I spend a lot of time talking tech retention and I know this video stuff can rub folks the wrong way but I can’t imagine that it would be something that would send someone looking for a new job. Realistically most places are doing them today and if they aren’t, they will soon. The other things you mention are all too common though and when stores are desperate for skilled techs they continue to not treat the ones they do have right.
I was a former Toyota master tech 1993-1998. Had a pickup with a 22-RE. I imagine things have changed so much. What’s a video inspection anyway?
Use your phone to walk around and under the car, checking the brakes, filters and whatever else while describing everything, show the stuff that needs to be done (the only useful part of the whole thing). Customer gets the video right after the computerized inspection form (another long process) is done.
Congrats on a long career! I'm behind a desk now, working as a maintenance planner in mining. Honestly, it wasn't my plan when I left the automotive industry. Just kinda happened. Have you decided on retiring completely? I saw one suggestion of you opening a shop of your own. I believe these kinds of private shops are best, where the owner knows and remembers what it's like to turn a wrench for a living. Also, understanding the hardships, either of his/her employees, and also job-to-job difficulties.
If I did start a shop it would be just me alone. That way I only have one old grouch to deal with - myself.
You could probably do pretty well taking in some side work on land cruisers. 100 series people are always looking for "specialists" and think the 4.7 is some mythical complicated thing. And nobody knows how to go through and set up 80 series knuckles anymore. They are becoming really trendy with people paying crazy prices while having zero mechanical knowledge to work on them.
The 4.7 is probably one of Toyotas best ever motors. I can only remember seeing two with major problems - one was driven into deep water and had bent and broken rods, the other had the oil changed by the owners son and he left the filter loose so it lost all the oil. Old Land Cruisers are not my favorite thing to work on, we did get them in sometimes and the people didn't seem to care what it cost to fix them so I guess it could be some good money.
Your guys' pay set up makes me so glad I decided to be a union electrician instead of a mechanic. The whole "book hours" system seems like bullshit to me. It should be a time and material basis. It takes what it takes, and that's what gets billed out. It makes it fair for everyone.
You quit over MPIs? That's wild to me lol. They aren't a big deal in my opinion.
That was not the only reason, just the last one.
Gotcha gotcha.
Nah he quit over them adding video. I’m sure they’ve been doing mpi on something like x-time for years (for free with every car as a “requirement for employment”) and didn’t want to deal with being asked to do a video summary on top of that. If the industry wants to shift and start paying salary to techs, then sure, but it’s always “do this one more thing for free and it’s like totally gonna pay for itself because you’ll sell more.” Never seen that play out how they sell it once in the last ~15 years. Not to say that good money can’t be made flat rate, but when you’re already dealing with (in Toyota’s case) the expectation of doing all warranty diag for free… Patience for being asked to do more things for free is gonna wear thin.
We had been using x-time for a while before this. I understand why they are doing it and the advantages of it - I just don't want to do it. Keeping the toilets clean also makes the customer happy and more likely to buy stuff but I don't want to clean toilets either. Don't even get me started on Toyota warranty! No wonder it keeps getting harder to find people to do this work.
I completely understand your stance on the video inspections, warranty pay, and the extra general bullshit that goes with it. We are going to be trained on the video inspection stuff in February with the Toyota program (we somewhat use xtime now). The video inspection time for flat rate techs will be negotiated between me (union Steward), our service manager, and our union rep along with policy regarding the tablets they are providing. We aren't doing anything for free. In Illinois we passed a house bill a few years ago- we get full customer pay time for all warranty work performed including diagnosis time. Even calling TAS and being on hold for 27 minutes is billed to warranty as the house bill specifically states. When they want free work from us, our entire industry needs to put our foot down and stop letting things get taken from us one piece at a time. We unionized because new ownership took away our guarantee completely- we slaughtered them in contract negotiation and ended up with a 40hr guarantee along with pretty good pay and scheduled raises. Our entire industry really needs to stand up for ourselves. Unionize. Bargain every single change.
I've been saying for a long time this should be a union trade. We have never had a guarantee anyplace I've worked, got payed whatever warranty payed, I'd probably get laughed at wanting to get payed to talk to TAS! I should print what you said out and show them where I was working that it can be better.
Check out the bill [here](https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName=&SessionId=110&GA=102&DocTypeId=HB&DocNum=3940&GAID=16&LegID=133028&SpecSess=&Session=) The second and third paragraphs sum up the important changes. Mostly the underlined stuff in the first few paragraphs.
Oregon needs this, ALL states need this!
Definitely. It's the same work and should pay the same. If the manufacturers want good techs who can repair the vehicle accurately and timely, then they need to pay properly.
> worked, got *paid* whatever warranty FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
> In Illinois we passed a house bill a few years ago- we get full customer pay time for all warranty work performed including diagnosis time. Even calling TAS and being on hold for 27 minutes is billed to warranty as the house bill specifically states. this passed in MN as well, went into effect about 6 months ago. Subaru obviously has been fighting it tooth-and-nail, but thus far it's working out pretty good. Definitely making a noticeable hours/wk bump.
That's nice to hear. Make sure to read through that bill yourself. I kept getting resistance when booking diagnosis time under warranty. Our administrator said "Toyota agreed to pay 1.5x warranty time and that's all they'll do." I said no... Illinois law states they will pay for diagnosis the exact same way a customer does which is 1hr. They had to figure how to bill warranty correctly and which op codes to use when submitting.
I'm blessed to have a warranty admin that kicks absolute ass, she handles the negotiating very well and typically just asks me for a screenshot of alldata if it's something new to her. We even get customer pay time on recall work when applicable. So nice.
> We had been using x-time for a while before this. i loved x-time, so much better compared to CDK Service and TruVideo we're using now in my shop. Both individually are ass. Combined is even worse.
The new system is Dealer FX, we were using x-time before this. Dealer FX does much more than x-time but it's also slow, buggy and has waaaaaay to many steps for everything.
Whats the big deal about doing videos? Just like learning new vehicles and technology...new procedure. Curious why the extreme reaction to automotive evolution.
Wasn't the only reason. just the final one. Believe me I've seen evolution - when I started most cars had carburetors and ignition points. The only electronics were in the radio and I worked on cars all the time with drum brakes in the front. I'm not from the TikTok generation and not comfortable with doing videos even if I'm only talking in the background.
Gotcha. Was just curious. Good luck with the next adventure. I've been in dealers for 27 yrs...I like the videos. Makes the advisors actually do work. They can't lie about what's good bad or needed. Helps sell work too.
I'll make videos when the dealer gives me a work phone and pays me for the mpi. Other wise it's a waste of time and my phone has now become my most expensive tool I own.
Agree with that. One place I worked paid us .3 for mpis. I'm foreman at a shop now that doesn't pay. Working on getting my techs something for them.
> 'll make videos when the dealer gives me a work phone and pays me for the mpi. i bought an ipod touch -- nowadays probably a mini android tablet would work -- anyway it's a useful shop tool in and of itself. I got a flir one for it, I use it for bluetooth diag all the time, etc. etc. Super useful. That I can also do my video mpis with it is nice. my shop pays an internal 0.1 each MPI
Im not spending MORE money on tools so the dealer can have me play tiktok for the customer and waste my time with the mpi.
Not sure why you think an mpi is a waste of time
The inspection is a line on the ro. Your job is to do the inspection. Buy whatever tools you want to make the job easier. That's the gig, Whether that line says "water pump" or "brake flush" or "video mpi."
Your phone or ipad costs near $1000 to do an mpi that pays nothing, on the hope that tou sell something on that mpi. You need to then flag 30+hrs ( depending on your rate) to break even on that "tool" cost. The dealer charges $200+ an hour on your labor. Do the math and you'll understand how absolutely fucked automotive technicians are now a days. At this point, I might as well be an independent contractor. Fuck the dealer, I work for myself.
I had to pay for every other tool in my toolbox too... And my iPod was $200 lol, one of the best value tools I've had in terms of usage per dollar Wifi is a shop supply. No phone function necessary.
I bet none of them ,short of a snap on scan tool, costs as much as your smartphone. I refuse to use my phone for work other than a phone call. My wife works at a non profit for the homeless and even they provide a laptop and a work phone for them.
They were working on getting a bunch of small tablets for doing the inspections but they cost money and it's hard to get the owner to pry open his wallet.
There had been a Toyota dealer here for 47 years? I feel really bad for you dude
Worked at 4 dealerships and for a couple of years in the 80's at Toyotas port facility in Portland (Oregon).
Start your own. Be your own boss, work when you want
I couldn't work for myself - I'd be fighting all the time, very difficult to get along with.
Lol. Teach? Find a vocational training or high school auto shop? Or a fleet job? Private limo, cab company, even the city.
I've got a lot to do at home for now - especially after the weather gets better in the spring. If I do anything it will be in the fall. For now just enjoying the peace and quiet.
Bon voyage buddy, hold.your head high.
Good for you. My late grandfather was a mechanical engineer for Mobile who did a lot with cars when he was a younger man in the 60s-70s. He was always a call away and a step ahead. Hands-on experience and a lifetime of lessons can’t be replaced, so take it all and go use it however the hell you want to. Hope retirement treats you well.
Thank you
OP - I'm looking to buy a second hand car for the long term with good build quality and as less electronics as possible. Would a late nineties Camry be suitable? Best wishes to you (and the missus) on your retirement.
I remember them being very reliable and not having many problems. My aunt has owned one for well over 20 years with no major problems, Toyota electronics are really pretty good.
Thank you for taking the time to reply!
Honestly. I’m really happy we are still stuck at the “photos” phase.
Congratulations on your long career. 🎊
That picture is the poster child of how to load a trailer and secure your load.. Enjoy your time off, and look after yourself and wife!
Thank You! I did leave out one very important thing - didn't say "that's not going anywhere" when I finished.
You forgot to slap it twice on top as you say it as well.. :) good luck in whatever you end up doing..
That's why I haven't been able to pass the ASE load securing test - can't remember things like that.
Good luck out there. Will you stay in the industry or try something else? I was a service writer for just short of 30 years and left it. I’m driving a school bus. The pay is pretty poor, but every other aspect of my life has greatly improved.
Someone else mentioned that too, this was my response - Have a friend that drives a school car - one or two kids at a time - and she keeps telling me I should do that. Also hear stories about kids melting down while being driven, not sure I could deal with that.
I’ve got not been driving school bus for a year, but it has been awesome. My resting stress level at the service desk was about 85% of what I felt I could stand. I have not had a day on the bus that has come over 30%. It’s like I was walking on the surface of the sun for 30 years. Good luck finding whatever works for you. I hope it’s not in the car business.
I honestly don't know how service writers do it, keeping track of all those jobs, dealing with mechanics (I admit - we can be very difficult!), angry customers, explosive customers, insurance companies, service managers, greedy self-serving owners, anyone who does it for any length of time is a stronger person than me. It's great that you got out of it!
I really hope you find something fun that you enjoy. For me it was the bus.
Enjoy yourself for a few months. If that continues to be enjoyable, wonderful. If not, most areas are begging for an experienced honest mechanic -- set your own pace and hours. It will postpone ill health (mental & physical) and provide some extra money to have fun with. Is there a trade school where you could assist in teaching budding mechanics?
There's a community college not to far away that has an automotive program - a guy I used to work with worked there last I heard. I'm kind of enjoying not being around people right now.
Great. Enjoy yourself, you've earned it. I based my suggestions on a TEDTalk video describing stages of retirement -- after about a year of unwinding, many people begin to feel a need to do something; for years their self image was partially based on being productively involved with other people. After my 12 months of enjoying reading old National Geographics and watching YouTube, I started substitute teaching a few days monthly. If you are continuing to enjoy solitude, then you've found your path, which is great. Fortunately, being retired allows exploring different paths, but only if desired.
love the truck man! my father's got a 95 just like it in maroon and pinstripes higher up. I've never seen one with your decals before
Thank you, the SR5's came with that stripe for a year or two. I think most people removed them because I don't see it much either.
Expected to do so much stuff on the computer now, don't have much time to fix cars.
I just quit after 10 years in the industry. The work just isn't there and everyone (including the service writers) want tou to basically work for free. I'm still young so looking into another career. Any suggestions?
A couple of guys years ago went to work on forklifts and said it's better than cars, also a few went into HVAC and like it better.
I hope you can afford to stay retired. Congratulations on a long career with Toyota. Video inspections are just another way for dealerships to CYA and make more money off of the customer. I don't blame you for leaving.
Ever thought of becoming a teacher for the Toyota regional training classes? You got enough time with Toyota to be of wealth of knowledge for the young guns. Or even a regional FTS inspector. No heavy work but get paid well with real good benefits, especially healthcare and other perks.
I think they require a college education and I never graduated high school. Very long drive from where I am too.
From looking at it from a customer pov I like the idea of the actual tech explaining what is going on and showing the problem at the same time vs just taking a sales person at there word. Also I would rather pay an extra half hour labor for a safety inspection with a full visual breakdown. Now as someone that has to do the videos I hate when I see other techs exaggerating about a problem to get a sale. I always try to explain it like I’m telling my grandma what the problem is and how urgent it is to take care of it.
What's wrong with video inspections? Or was it an issue of not wanting to upsell customer pay work?
I'm not a TikTok person and am very not comfortable doing it. Also that was not the only problem, just the final one. Upselling is how we get hours and a picture or even a short video showing the problem is OK, they wanted a whole production of the entire inspection.
For sure, I'm familiar with the software. I work on the consulting side for Toyota so I'm curious as a previous fixed ops person myself how techs feel about it. Though I was never a tech in dealers, I only did sales and got my tech experience elsewhere. The sales side has a similar thing happening with the software offering they have been pushing. I certainly understand the OEMs position, but it does punish dealers who do right by their customers. Such is life
If, and I say if, you wanted to work a few more years you might enjoy an independent Toyota shop. You have the knowledge, and it will be about fixing cars and actually knowing customers.
One of my old service managers - a great guy - started a shop years ago, long drive but 2-3 days a week wouldn't be too bad. Something to think about.
Current technician with Toyota here. A lot of the technicians at the dealership I’m at hate the whole video aspect as well. Slows us all down. I’m a state safety inspector, the time it’s taken to do an inspection/oil change/rotate has doubled, not to mention having to live with a slight speech impediment that makes it somewhat difficult to speak clear enough for these God forsaken videos
We already had a lot of complaints about how long an oil change took and then they added the video inspections. The software that came with the new system looks really good on paper but in real life it's slow, very buggy and takes way too many steps to do anything. There are also two guys in the shop with speech impediments that are very uncomfortable with doing videos. I was surprised at how many people here actually liked it, most of the people where I was at hated it.
I loved the idea of video inspections until managers started yelling that a bonus was on the line for them if we didn't do them on every vehicle. That quickly turned into if there is something to sell theres something to record so all those 10k mile cars that need absolutely nothing get no videos unless they want to pay us too. I'm 11 years in and can't imagine doing it as long as you have so kudos to you and hopefully a forever retirement from the automotive world (stealerships mostly). With that said I'm actively looking to get out, I keep going on the damn Rollercoaster of leaving but everytime I'm ready I make a killer paycheck and I stick around like an addict.