How Much Do Mechanics Make?
 

Ok I am abotu to make my choice of auto tech schools and probally leaning toward UTI.

Anyway from what i gather usually you have a 1 year try out period wher you may make around $15 hourly.

Then You Genrally get bumped up maybe a buck or 2 next year but then you get a flat rate

By Flat Rate Bacially i mean you get lets say $15 an hour for every est hour fo work completed.

Such as lets say the ol book says 2 hours to cahnge a water pump well if you bust it out in 30 minutes in thery you woudl have made $30 in 30 minuntes right?

Is this s apretty standard way of paying?

HOw are benifits and what not?

I really would liek ot egt into a more performance field but thought i should at least have a really good background.

Where do you actualyl get trained to do poritn gna dpolishing and all the more preformance oriented things?

UTI does have a nascar institute but how similar coudl that be to actual real street driven cars?

Also nashville auto-diesel has a hgihperformance program including some porting and flowing and a little bit of this and that.

How much are you guys making that say worked for 5 years or so?

The rep said he knows of a good bit of peopel makgin 60 k a yaer in 4-5 years which is pretty damn good money fi you ask me for 1 year of schooling.

Kinda want to eventually open my own little shop beign able to do damn near everythign to do wiht cars perfromance, detailing, auto body, just about everything.

Re: How Much Do Mechanics Make?
 

Step number one... Get smaller fingers are slow down when you type! LOL ;) :p

Can't help you, I'am salary, all I know is that if they say it's an 8 hour job that's what I pay for.

sow hat ar ya sayen?

How much do we make? Not enough.

Expect to make no more than $25 p/h after 5 years, if you're good.

I usually charge $45 p/h for repair work and $65 p/h for diagnostic, but my rates will be going up next spring.

If you get work in a busy shop, try to get paid book time, rather than hourly, because you'll get quicker, and will be able to beat the book time before you know it.

Take care,
ÅChris

That almost makes it worth the drive up to your shop, based on rates alone. That's about $30 below the going rate down here.

geez i need to move, im a leadman- foreman , diesel mech, i only make 15.00 buck's an hour, but it's not flat rate. im getting f---d. :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :rolleyes: , im quitting monday- lol.:rolleyes:

Two words Marty, "Cost of Living"

All that land back there might get you a two bedroom Condo where I am, its really sad. I work for 'the man' a LOT and I've got me 680 square feet of paradise to come home to. Sweet, eh?

My $.02 When working in a shop down here i have never gotten less than 25 per flag hour nor would i accept anything less then that. Now that i am on my own i chagre 65 per flag hour but that get spread pretty thin once i pay for all the overhead.

flag rate?

Flag rate AKA Book hours

Hey Chris, your telling me if i go from hourly rate to book time, i'll make more money? I am currently working at a pretty busy shop here in North Carolina. I make 15.80 an hour. For this location, its good pay. But, i suppose if i get my ASE certs, i could be making more. Tell me more about book rates. I know they give times for labor, but if i, lets say do 3 alternator replacements in 1 hour and book time is say .8 for one, that i just made more then 45 in the hour? What am i missing out on?

I don't know about the branch nearest you, but the one in Houston has "Hot Rod U". It deals with erformance issues of hotrods and such. I am thinking about attending if I can come up with the money. Check into it.
Caymon

well 3 0.8 hour jobs would only be 2.4 times your pay of 15.80 which isnt $45 in that hour but more like $38.50 or so.

But yeah thats the idea I thought this was pretty standard payment method but i guess im wrong.

Ive been told usually they keep you hourly for you first year then put you on flat (flag) hours.

Big Red from what i understand HOT ROD U courses are more on the performance side but are included in your auto training automatically.

However i talked to a rep and he basically said they are not training people to go into stuff such as porting and air flow and what not as their trainign is more for the mass market.

Which is actually pretty reasonable.

They do have a NASCAR college though from UTI as well however.

As far as porting and other things along those lines Nashville auto-diesel college does offer this in their high performance course which is an add on to their auto-diesel training.

But I thought UTI would be a great starting point and maybe learn the rest later.

Basically they are using forced induction and tweak a little bit.

You have the right idea. The faster you are, the more you can make. BUT, you don't make squat when it's slow.If you can do 3 .8 hour jobs in an hour, but then have nothing else for the rest of the day, then yes, you made $45 an hour, for one hour, and zero for the rest.

The faster you are, the more business your boss can push through. He will always charge the customer book time, so if he gets the car back after 4 hours, but charges for 8, he just made decent money. Check and see how your place does it, because there is often a reduction in your hourly wage if you go book time.

Take care,
~Chris

I see the uti nascar and all the hot rod based schools cominh up if i was going to build race cars then i would attend this school http://www.samracing.com/ if you can cut the mustard there you typicaly will go straight to professional level motorsports.

I got it kinda good where I'm at we have a split payment method.

I get a regular hourly rate $10.50hr. plus a flag rate of $9.42hr.

It works out pretty good flagging 70-80hrs a week.

Plus I'm guaranteed $10.50hr just to sit and wait if there is no work to do, there are only 2 techs including me and I have seniority so its slow the other guy gets sent home.

I'm sure it would be better if I was on straight flag time but where I'm at work load is up and down, were contracted by GM to run their company vehicle fleet (about 5500 veh. or so).

Out Of Curiosity How much training do you guys that are makign low 10's and high 9's have and how long have you worked?

Not tryign to be disrespectful as im sure you know more hten me but i know how emplyers are they think a piece of paper means they should fork over some extra bucks.

Also People making more what kind of trainign and years?

Thanks

As for SAM I checked it out and personally wasnt very impressed with their site. Not that that means much but are they really known and anyone actually know much about this school Im highly considering UTI auto then nascar program as they even delve into metal working and body fabrication.

Anyone have any other suggestions?

I live in houston and know both SAM and UTI Yes SAM is really known in the racing circles UTI on the other hand is commonoly refered to as Un-Trained Idiots.UTI has never impressed me i have seen a few good guys come out of UTI vs. most of the people i have seen come out of SAM really know there ***** both in paper and in real life working conditions.

As far as the first question i have been doing this for over ten years and have several certificates I don't know of any respectable shops down here that will even work you as a feull fledged tech without at least some ASE certs.The only guys I know make 7-15 an hour are GS's (oil changes,tires and inspections type stuff). That is down here though. I do have my ASE's but i don't give them much weight because i have also seen other guys that have theirs and i wouldn't trust to work on my lawnmower but i have found that if you want to work in this field they are a necissary evil.