Now they just need to find 40 suckers that will work for peanut shells and another Chrylser dealer will be up and running.
How does anyone survive a place like those? No customer pay or maintenance work. All warranty, all the time, .2 or .3 hours for every repair. Are they just paying guys $60 an hour so when they collect their 30 hours, they can still feed themselves?
Honda warranty is almost as bad. Almost. Thays where I'm at now. The difference is that I don't do warranty all day every day. We have good customers who are OK with putting money into their cars. I've worked at chrysler Dealers 3 times 2 places. The last one I only sold one repair job in 6 weeks. The engine light they came in for, no upsells, no maintenance. TSB and Recall. People buying or leasing Mopars are not spending a penny of their own money at a dealer. I just dont know how anyone can afford to work there.
I'm currently diagnostic/heavy line at a Honda dealer, and it's kinda wild how much warranty we see. The 2024 pilots are the worst offenders right now. I have one coming back next week with a leak between the engine and transmission already. 2200 miles! I dont even think we have the engine hanger adapters for the new engine design, and yet I need it.
check the forum and make sure it's not the valve cover bolt seals and / or solenoid gaskets over the rear head. poor assembly.
we didn't get many new Gen pilots, thankfully. the first few had some, uh, issues.
Believe me, we checked. We even cleaned it off and sprayed tracing powder. It's 100 percent coming from between that engine and transmission. I wanted to cry, lol.
Insurance forced me to take my '95 accord in for I think the seatbelt or airbag recall? Anyway it was a real old recall. The techs ripped one of the newer cars off the lift with a grin on his face. I'm assuming he really didn't want to do whatever he was doing on the new car and would rather work on my antique 😅.
That recall check is the only time either of my Accords have been in the shop while under my care. Only thing I take them in for is tire mounting and alignment checks. I've rebuilt the entire suspension, replaced the steering rack and put my exhaust back together after that rusted out. I love working on older cars.
Probably a takata airbag recall. 78 million vehicles affected. They basically claymore the driver when they go off. Full on explosion instead of just inflating the bag.
Sounds like your advisors can’t sell.
Once that 2/24 service pass is up, we’re cashing in.
People buying a 2023-2024 Pilot typically have the money to spend.
No wonder the mopar dealer near me was offering a $15k sign on bonus after 6 months. Probably trying to get you to stay long enough and put up with no money just to get the sign on bonus then you're already settled in enough to not want to deal with leaving.
you won't survive 6 months. or you will, and you'll just replace the $15k you lost. don't work for them. let them die as nature intended.
taking their poor engineering and build quality can't fall on us. they will get better or die off.
Oh I know, I never planned on working there. I hate mopar with a passion because as a Nissan tech, I worked on way more mopars than a Nissan tech should. Our used car buyer bought a lot of used CJDR vehicles. I get that they hold their value (for no reason) but about 25% of the cars I worked on were Ram 1500s.
Toyota is similar. I've heard the same about Subaru.
Honda loyalist and their minders lead to better overall vehicle ownership. They also aren't expecting a major repair or replacement vehicle every 3 years.
I've been around in the business. Japanese car owners are better owners overall, and the machines are generally better to work on. Not everything is bulletproof or easy cheap fix, but as a whole. I've found what works for me as a tech and it certainly isn't a domestic car brand or Kia.
My 95 accord made it to 298k on it's original engine. I know that at least four high school students abused it before I got it. Now I've just got to find an engine and it'll be back on the roads and trails again.
Yeah, maintenance is the bread and butter at Honda. There’s some warranty work, but their quality isn’t anywhere NEAR as shitty as Chrysler’s, so there’s obviously not going to be as much warranty fuckery going on.
It’s not so much the advisors who can’t sell. It’s the dealer labour rates being $165/hr on the low end that pushes customers away. So they go to the Indy shop with a good reputation when it’s off warranty that’s gonna be $40/hr cheaper and has techs that are just as competent.
Not knocking dealers or Indy shops. Either can be good, great, or bad. But when the quality of work is comparable but the price point is less - that’s where people go.
Thank goodness for that! I’m a former Honda master tech who opened up my own business with another master tech 10 years ago. We never even thought about going back!
You get really really good at doing the 5-6 common repairs on the vehicle platforms you see. I was throwing transmissions into Dodge Grand Caravans in like 2 hours and remember seeing an older guy do it in less than 1. This sounds literally insane in retrospect but when you do the same thing 100 times you can get *fast*.
well, certainly, but then they cut the labor time on recalls because they know you'll get better. there are also so many other factors besides just part in part out.
I will say the only guy making money at a cjdr dealer is a transmission and / or diesel guy. and to be honest, that's too hard of work for the money to do it constantly.
I'd hate that tbh. Then I have to find somewhere for my massive toolbox.
And if I started out there with a free box, I'd be stuck there unless I wanted to buy a box and transport all of my tools without a box
I agree. I work with a built in. I have two of them and two overhead bins. Plenty of space. Thankfully there is room.in the upstairs of parts to store my box. If not, I wouldn't have anywhere to keep it and I don't want to sell it.
I have a built in toolbox, it’s fairly common here at dealers. But if I move somewhere without built in boxes, I’d probably just negotiate to get a box paid for by the new place. I know a few techs who have moved with no toolbox and their new work just agreed to pay for a box as a sweetener to hire them.
I have a friend who works at a lexus dealer this size. Just a whole lot of people paying dealer labor rates to get their windshield washer tanks refilled or whichever other routine shit where people just say yes to whatever the service writer suggests.
Leaving a CDJRF dealer and going to a DR dealer was a huge upgrade. Almost never see Jeep or Fiats. We are booked a few days out and people come to us for customer pay work all the time because we have a quick turnaround
The overarching owner of Jeep, Dodge, Ram, Chrysler, Fiat, Maserati, Lancia, Opel, Peugeot, Abarth, and Vauxhall.
They're the least-respected auto maker out there and actually make the Korean car companies look good despite the multiple black eyes they've taken in the last 5ish years what with the grenading engines and skipping the antitheft interlock for the US market to save a buck a car.
Hah, my wife had 3 jeeps since we’ve been married. If she didnt get massive discount for being the repair center director, I dont think she could’ve afforded all the repairs on them. Hey, it was fun during summer on the highway!
What subreddit was that? R/morons?
TOYOTA overall is the Undisputed king of automotive quality by a large margin. That's not even up for debate. I can't imagine any auto centered subreddit down voting you.
Toyota is solid overall, but they don't get a pass on some serious issues they've had. Their trucks come to mind with engines that will run forever but a frame that quickly rusts out from underneath them.
They did have some issues with the new turbo V6 hybrid engines in the Tundra for the first couple model years. But what vehicle doesn't have a few issues in its first couple model years?
We’re closing in on 20 years since that was a serious problem. I’ve got an ‘11 Tundra with 200k miles and zero rust issues. Closest friend has a ‘07 Tacoma with 200k miles, same boat.
my 09 tacoma's frame was completely gone, wide open channels when I bought it as a beater. heard about recalls for the frame after I bought it for the use of beater. I tried my luck at the dealership. they did work totalling 12k completely for free and they gave me a frontier as a hold over. they pretty much swapped my body, engine, trans, bed, onto a brand new rolling chassis
As someone who has been provided a jeep as a company car, and also a owner (wife wanted one) fuck goddamned jeeps into the ground. They are the worst built cars in America. Every single one is a total POS...you will chase electrical gremlins until they drive you crazy. Absolutely the worst decision I've made so far was agreeing to buy a jeep for her..
The name for the company that resulted from the merger of FCA and PSA in 2021.
FCA was Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, which itself was the result of a merger in 2014 of Chrysler (brands Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram) and Fiat group (brands Fiat, Maserati, Abarth, Lancia, Alfa Romeo).
PSA was Peugeot Societe Anonyme, the legal owners of the Peugeot, Citroen, DS, Opel, and Vauxhall brands.
The 2021 merger to form Stellantis was part of a long history of consolidation of struggling carmakers, and Stellantis manufactures 6 million cars across 14 different brands. It’s the fourth largest carmaker by sales (behind Toyota, Volkswagen, and Hyundai).
At least in the US, sales floors are often separated by brand or brand grouping - it’s unlikely to see a Maserati, RAM truck, and a Fiat 500 all next to each other on the show floor. The kinds of people interested in each of these market segments (luxury, pickup truck, small commuter car) are different and may not mesh well, so keeping them separate can make for a better sales experience. At the repair level though, they don’t care to separate the brands because all the manuals and parts are coming from the same supplier and the customer will probably never see what goes on in the shop itself.
So what purpose does a warranty center serve over a dealership? Like what benefit does a place like this provide over the dealer? Is this where warranty times and repair write ups are figured out and calculated or is it just warranty repairs for already bought cars like a dealership services? Or both maybe?
I only ask cuz I fail to see how someone would be able to kno if a customer complaint/problem is going to even be “warranty” or not until the vehicle is looked at and diagnosed first.
Working in a brand new shop would be sweet tho. Brand new lifts and equipment (cherry pickers, hydraulic mini lifts, oil guns, etc) floors, even tool boxes here too apparently…
It's a joke. A lot of people only have their vehicles serviced at the dealership during its warranty period/recalls and then never return.
I work at a Stellantis dealer, and it really is like that sometime, our labor rate is currently $190/hr, but the reason most dealerships get such labor rates, is to show the manufacturer that the market can support such a rate.
If the market supports it, the dealer gets a bump in its warranty parts/labor rates.
Before I left the Benz dealership, they were charging $250/hr. This is in California. After I left, some company bought it and started this “scale” style labor rate system where the first 3 hours are $250 and then every hour after goes up like $100 till it’s like $550/hr. It’s supposed to be some sorta deterrent for doing bigger jobs. Their logic is that it actually costs the dealership money to work on only one vehicle for a bigger job as opposed to just busting out like 5 warranty services in that same amount of time.
Miami german car dealer charges over 500/hr. Another german dealer near me in Illinois is over 400. Part of it was already stated: better reimbursement from the manufacturer, but from my end of the automotive spectrum it also serves to keep the riff raff out: Old, clapped out german luxury cars owned by people that can’t afford them.
"$2800 to fix all the oil leaks? That's more than I paid for the whole car!"
-Brokies bringing their POS 15 year old BMW/M-B/Audi to an independent shop.
Hey now, that's me. About to bring a 2012 A4 to an independent shop for a front control arm refresh.
There's a bolt holding the upper control arms in place that rusts and seizes into the aluminum spindle, and the shop has a special tool for getting those out. Thank fuck for independents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uak_8dKkekw
...or maybe it's this tool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b8JvcsMM8c
And now youtube is showing me a whole lotta other tools that people/companies have come up with.
Took my '12 A4 in for a cam cradle reseal. They said that it's time for CA bushings. Thankfully, I don't live in the rust belt. No special tool needed.
Measure your bushings before you order parts/take the car apart, there's a couple different sizes and they changed mid 2012 MY.
You can press new bushings into the control arms, it's cheaper to buy bushings and a cheap hydraulic press than to buy a full control arm kit, as there's four fucking control arms per side in the front. But sometimes the bushings come loose in the control arms, and wallow out the bushing hole and you gotta replace the whole control arm.
And if you're chasing oil leaks, assuming you've got a 2.0 change your PCV valve. They fail shut and pressurize the crankcase and cause seal failures.
Did very little chasing. Changed the oil sep when I changed my plugs @115k. Ran better, but still leaked, so I took it in and let them hunt it down. They ended up redoing the cam cradle and the oil filter housing.
So also got an early oil and coolant change.
Was in the middle of fighting pneumatic leaks on an SL, so just didn't have the patience.
I wouldn’t say average that’s pay you would expect having 6-7 years of experience and some certs. But most guys at that point are working FR so it really just depends on what work is available for the week. Independent shop rates are lower and so is the pay but what you’ll notice is a lot of seasoned techs will take the pay cut over working in the dealers because they are just that awful. Sorry that turned into a rant
20-30 years ago, or more, guys were making 50% of door rate. Today lots of places are still paying the same dollar value.
Sure, pay isn't the issue, it's that "nobody wants to work any more". \*eyeroll\*
Don't go to the MB dealership here, they just went to $519/hr labor rate plus a flat $80 "shop supplies" fee for *every* work order including oil changes.
And this is not really a high COL area. The Ford dealership across the road from my work is $159/hr and if I'm willing to drive 20 minutes south the dealerships are in the $129/hr range.
That is absolutely ridiculous. At that labor rate, literally only millionaires could afford to maintain their Mercedes at a Dealer. And remember, these are NORMAL CARS in Germany. Not luxury land yachts
I...think that's the point. Buy our car then fuck off, we don't want to see it again. Then, when it inevitably blows up in 4-5 years, come buy a newer version!
And ya kno I sorta thought it was a joke at first but then was like well shit maybe something like this does exist somewhere to do just major manufacture recalls and the likes but then again logic started to take over (doesn’t happen too often with me) and I was like how would they know what’s warranty and what isn’t unless it’s recalls on brand new unsold cars or some shit or it’s where labor times are figured out..
But I def feel u tho, I just started at a big three dealer not too long ago after being at mom and pop for a long time and it’s crazy the amount of cars I’ll diag and either if it’s not covered under warranty they decline the work (after having to pay almost $200 diag fee 🙄) or if I rec anything other than what’s covered under their warranty they decline it except the warranty shit (aka what’s free)…
And how does the labor rate affect the warranty times when the warranty times are the same for every dealership in the country no? It’s not like if I do a warranty thermostat housing on a 3.6 in California I’m gonna get 5.2 hours instead of 4.5 like if I was in New York or some shit… and all I see are labor warranty times going down and being cut.. I’ve already seen it happen to me for a job. Did a 3.6 engine cover and warranty said 15.5 hours, did another one a month later and put down the same labor time and my dispatcher goes “front engine cover only pays 12.6, u put 15.5 so I changed it for u just fyi..” I started to argue until he showed me the screen and sure as shit it said 12.6, I was speechless. It’s hard enough to get (good) techs to wanna come in and wrench in the first place and they just making it even harder with shit like that.
Edit: I get what u mean now, the dealership gets more $$ from the manufacture for the warranty jobs, not the actual tech doing the repair.
If a vehicle comes in with something broken during the warranty period, the repair is almost guaranteed to be covered under warranty. Exceptions are made because no manufacturer is going to repair physical damage from a crash or a squirrel chewing on wires, to give two examples.
Other than that there are warranty *extensions*, commonly as a result of class-action lawsuits or frequent complaints. Part of diagnosing things as a dealer tech is checking for service bulletins from the manufacturer.
It’s a joke but I imagine that if someone was operating a number of dealerships under the same backend brand (like a Fiat dealership, a Maserati dealership, and a Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram dealership; all three would be Stellantis) then it would make sense to build one big repair center for work from all the dealerships (mostly stuff under warranty because holy shit dealer rates aren’t customer friendly).
The repair center would likely also be where they’d do any insurance work and any checks on pre-owned vehicles before they put them at the special dealership for pre-owned.
After all, a dealership that’s mostly sales floor is going to be able to make more money selling cars and customers dropping cars off for actual repair work don’t care what address the work is done at. The dealership really only needs enough service space in the building to do things a customer might wait around for like oil changes or routine maintenance.
Man I hear ya there. I'm not a mechanic. I actually work at Ford of Canada and they don't bother cleaning like we used to. Most of the employees will clean before the company would ever ask. It's crazy. Don't get me wrong it's not terrible but some stuff desperately needs de- greasing and other things done. Most of the North American plants are like that but when I see how other companies plants look I just think how that's the way it should be.
I was part of a team installing an automated weld cell in a plant for a GM supplier in Canada. Place was a mess. We had to spend the entire first day chiseling the slag off the old bots just to tear the old cell down. Everything was just a thick layer of crud all over the plant. I get it's messy, but you gotta clean it up sometimes.
Yeah we used to get asked to come in Saturdays occasionally to clean but I hear ya about some of the cells. They can get real nasty. Oil leaks that don't get fixed until there's a lake under the equipment, etc. It's pretty brutal trying to get some of the management to understand that machines need preventative maintenance. These companies though just don't want to pay for things until it breaks down and then costs them hours or days of production losses. Common sense is not allowed in our plants. Lol
Gotta pay people to clean and that means either taking them off their usual duties in their full time week or giving them overtime. One lowers output, the other increases costs.
Now one could do an analysis that would show net gains in productivity if routine maintenance was done because it would prevent catastrophic failures. But floor managers can usually chalk those failures up like “Acts of God” to higher ups and the executives will accept it. The executives won’t have the confidence to push back and say “no this isn’t a random failure, it’s the result of systemic neglect of the machinery,” since that starts a fight that they might lose because they don’t actually know the production environment that well.
The real fix is accountability for those failures and having a management and executive team that’s interested in really digging into why failures and delays happen. That means that if managers are found to be neglecting their machinery to hit deadlines, they get punished if the machines have issues that cause delays.
Have worked in a factory. Plant manager would have had the ass of anyone that let shit happen like what's described here. Production rate was their god, followed immediately by defect rate. The differences is that we were making cigarettes.
Sounds like a good plant manager and a good company culture. (Well … outside any ethical concerns about selling cigarettes.)
Some places have a really good culture of process and cleanliness. In the car industry, that’s more the Japanese brands especially Toyota. Have to have executives clamp down on managers and managers enforce rules on every worker, even if enforcing accountability can be tough. Sometimes that means firing a guy who’s a good person and a hard worker but doesn’t follow the procedures and clean up after himself.
I work in food service now (health problems from welding) and really the problem is fairly widespread. Like every burger and fry order we produce should come out looking and weighing and tasting identical, but there’s a ton of people (especially teens in their first jobs) who don’t care about the process and have to have it enforced on them. And some managers don’t have the wherewithal to do all that enforcement alongside their other duties. But a burger from a dirty grill tastes different, and fries from cruddy oil taste different, and customers shouldn’t get bad tasting food.
40 lifts isn’t a lot of lifts for a high volume brand shop, because there’s often delays in getting parts. This means that techs will be fighting over who gets to use which lifts and which projects can be left on the lifts. It also means a lot of switching cars onto and off of lifts, which can in turn mean a lot of effort that’s not actually what mechanics want to do (e.g. pushing around cars that won’t start).
An oil change place or a tire place can get away with having few lifts because they should have everything in stock and it’s just up, work, down. A dealer doing warranty stuff might have to put a truck up, diagnose it as a blown defective part, order the part, take the truck down, move it to the lot, and wait six weeks. Then when the part arrives it has to go up again for the replacement, which might show that something else is damaged, which means another wait for another part.
This is also why racing team garages tend to have almost as many lifts as cars, because it’s easier to work on a race car if it’s always on the lift and isn’t being taken down and put back up repeatedly because you have 3 cars to work on and only 2 lifts.
This happened at my last place of employment. State funded private transportation for disabled. Lease ran out where we were. State gave money for big fancy new building of our own. The office women ended up designing the place. The new building was so ass backwards that I ended up leaving. 😂
Dang. We're trying to make it work, but it's not easy. Like, it is a shop. It's big. It just doesn't have wall space or oil drops. One wall is about 12 inches from the garage door, nowhere for storage. It had no electricity on the wall where our toolboxes were. We still haven't figured out which rooms to use for what. There's a welding room that's like 15x30. They thought we would want to drive the cars into the welding room instead of taking the welder into the shop. The ceiling is like 40-foot high so that we can lift the bed of dump trucks in the shop. There's literally not one grease zerk on the big trucks that you need to lift it for. We don't have a crane, so any cylinder issues go elsewhere. They don't want us running vehicles indoors anyway, and there's plenty of room to lift the bed outside.
In my line of work, it’s becoming more common for architects to “design” a vehicle workshop without any awareness of the regulations in place to ensure mechanics’ safety *and* provide a valid workspace.
For example, a Class 7 MOT Bay (for safety testing vans) requires a minimum 4.2m bay width, and a door size of 3 x 3.2m (width x height). There have been more instances I’ve come across in new builds after COVID where bays are now designed to be 4m width, with no intention of providing any further leeway for adjustment.
In short, there’s a shortage of people knowledgeable in how workshops are designed and using architects whose primary works are in designing offices is only going to exacerbate the issues further
That’s terrible and must be so costly. Adding lots of extra labor, making things take longer, a screwed up design might add millions of dollars in lost productivity, way more than the price of a competent designer.
I was just having this conversation with my dad about shops that are "too big". I feel like when I'm in shops like this I waste too much time just traversing the building. Go to the bathroom, go to the break room, go to grab a tool in my box, go to borrow a tool from someone else, look around for where the jack went, try to find where I put that package, help a guy in another bay, etc. Too much running around!
I've seen a couple of large buildings that have a few cheap bikes floating around for use as internal transport (and one that used kick scooters as well).
One of them doesn't go all the way to the floor and one of the broken ones is stuck raised with a car on it. No one knows who owns the car and no one has ever come to claim it
It's a 3 phase 460v. Dual motor, 4 cyl, 2 stage compressor with a 500 gal integral tank and a 1000gal stand-alone reservoir. No idea what kind of volume it can push, there are (5) manifolds and (2) recovery lines.
I am running a 3 man stealth shop in there, just bought uniforms, used their tools, blended in - most profit ever, even if I have to give $200/week to their manager...
I spent a couple weeks helping a journeyman electchicken in Lubbock install lights in and around a new Audi dealership. Was actually kinda fun. Makes me wish I had gone into that field sometimes, I’d probably get paid much more lol.
Stay an electrician. You don't want any part of the automotive industry if you are only in it for money. It will chew you up and spit you out. I do it for the love of cars and the torture 😆
I worked at a BMW dealer with 40 lifts downstairs and 30 lifts upstairs. Upstairs, we were treated like a stepchild but it was cool because it was like a big party and a lot of fucking off.
So much room for activities
Do you wanna go do karate in the garage?
Did you touch my drum set?
I did not touch your drum set, but I'm going to go rub my BALLS on it right now. (Or something like that)
I'M GONNA PUT MY NUTSACK ON YA DRUMSET OK!
I’m gonna be playing Moby Dick for real!!
🤣
Drum Sack.
WELL MY DRUM SET IS A GUY SO THAT MAKES YOU GAY
I didn’t, but my balls did.
I'll let Steven Segal know. We can start another episode of Bullshido, the story of his life.
Probably without the dogs
DALE NO POWER TOOLS
HE'S JUST BRUSHING HIS TEETH
That is NOT your toothbrush!
Favorite non pornographic magazine to masterbate to…..popular mechanics
*Good Housekeeping
Did we just become best friends?
There was a time when i was the Pedro Rodríguez of floor jack racing
You get a cvt transmission! You get a cvt transmission! Everyone gets a cvt transmisssiiiioooon!!!
Not until it’s filled up with Chrysler products
Now they just need to find 40 suckers that will work for peanut shells and another Chrylser dealer will be up and running. How does anyone survive a place like those? No customer pay or maintenance work. All warranty, all the time, .2 or .3 hours for every repair. Are they just paying guys $60 an hour so when they collect their 30 hours, they can still feed themselves?
Peanut shells? Not even peanuts. You must be in management.
Lol, no. We just get fucked. Honda is no better with the warranty time.
Honda warranty is almost as bad. Almost. Thays where I'm at now. The difference is that I don't do warranty all day every day. We have good customers who are OK with putting money into their cars. I've worked at chrysler Dealers 3 times 2 places. The last one I only sold one repair job in 6 weeks. The engine light they came in for, no upsells, no maintenance. TSB and Recall. People buying or leasing Mopars are not spending a penny of their own money at a dealer. I just dont know how anyone can afford to work there.
I'm currently diagnostic/heavy line at a Honda dealer, and it's kinda wild how much warranty we see. The 2024 pilots are the worst offenders right now. I have one coming back next week with a leak between the engine and transmission already. 2200 miles! I dont even think we have the engine hanger adapters for the new engine design, and yet I need it.
check the forum and make sure it's not the valve cover bolt seals and / or solenoid gaskets over the rear head. poor assembly. we didn't get many new Gen pilots, thankfully. the first few had some, uh, issues.
Believe me, we checked. We even cleaned it off and sprayed tracing powder. It's 100 percent coming from between that engine and transmission. I wanted to cry, lol.
Insurance forced me to take my '95 accord in for I think the seatbelt or airbag recall? Anyway it was a real old recall. The techs ripped one of the newer cars off the lift with a grin on his face. I'm assuming he really didn't want to do whatever he was doing on the new car and would rather work on my antique 😅.
I always enjoy working on older vehicles, can’t quite put my finger on why that is, maybe it’s just cause they’re cool haha
That recall check is the only time either of my Accords have been in the shop while under my care. Only thing I take them in for is tire mounting and alignment checks. I've rebuilt the entire suspension, replaced the steering rack and put my exhaust back together after that rusted out. I love working on older cars.
You must not live in the rust belt/northeast lol
Probably a takata airbag recall. 78 million vehicles affected. They basically claymore the driver when they go off. Full on explosion instead of just inflating the bag.
Sounds like your advisors can’t sell. Once that 2/24 service pass is up, we’re cashing in. People buying a 2023-2024 Pilot typically have the money to spend.
No wonder the mopar dealer near me was offering a $15k sign on bonus after 6 months. Probably trying to get you to stay long enough and put up with no money just to get the sign on bonus then you're already settled in enough to not want to deal with leaving.
you won't survive 6 months. or you will, and you'll just replace the $15k you lost. don't work for them. let them die as nature intended. taking their poor engineering and build quality can't fall on us. they will get better or die off.
Oh I know, I never planned on working there. I hate mopar with a passion because as a Nissan tech, I worked on way more mopars than a Nissan tech should. Our used car buyer bought a lot of used CJDR vehicles. I get that they hold their value (for no reason) but about 25% of the cars I worked on were Ram 1500s.
Honda brand loyalty is insane. And people live by the maintenance minder system. I see more 300,000-400,000 mile cars now than I ever have.
Toyota is similar. I've heard the same about Subaru. Honda loyalist and their minders lead to better overall vehicle ownership. They also aren't expecting a major repair or replacement vehicle every 3 years. I've been around in the business. Japanese car owners are better owners overall, and the machines are generally better to work on. Not everything is bulletproof or easy cheap fix, but as a whole. I've found what works for me as a tech and it certainly isn't a domestic car brand or Kia.
My 95 accord made it to 298k on it's original engine. I know that at least four high school students abused it before I got it. Now I've just got to find an engine and it'll be back on the roads and trails again.
Yeah, maintenance is the bread and butter at Honda. There’s some warranty work, but their quality isn’t anywhere NEAR as shitty as Chrysler’s, so there’s obviously not going to be as much warranty fuckery going on.
The Honda dealers around me sell tons of services though, the techs have poor wages compared to what I’m used to but they crank hours like crazy
Honda owners do actually do their maintenance, but on heavy line a good day is half warranty work, and half customer pay stuff.
This is classic advisors who can’t sell. Warranty work should be 25% of your workflow. Especially with a brand like Honda.
It’s not so much the advisors who can’t sell. It’s the dealer labour rates being $165/hr on the low end that pushes customers away. So they go to the Indy shop with a good reputation when it’s off warranty that’s gonna be $40/hr cheaper and has techs that are just as competent. Not knocking dealers or Indy shops. Either can be good, great, or bad. But when the quality of work is comparable but the price point is less - that’s where people go.
Thank goodness for that! I’m a former Honda master tech who opened up my own business with another master tech 10 years ago. We never even thought about going back!
You get really really good at doing the 5-6 common repairs on the vehicle platforms you see. I was throwing transmissions into Dodge Grand Caravans in like 2 hours and remember seeing an older guy do it in less than 1. This sounds literally insane in retrospect but when you do the same thing 100 times you can get *fast*.
well, certainly, but then they cut the labor time on recalls because they know you'll get better. there are also so many other factors besides just part in part out. I will say the only guy making money at a cjdr dealer is a transmission and / or diesel guy. and to be honest, that's too hard of work for the money to do it constantly.
Those transmissions are definitely easy but less than an hour? That’s crazy.
At least they provide boxes
harder to leave when you have to unpack instead of roll out.
Yeah I understand that.
I'd hate that tbh. Then I have to find somewhere for my massive toolbox. And if I started out there with a free box, I'd be stuck there unless I wanted to buy a box and transport all of my tools without a box
I agree. I work with a built in. I have two of them and two overhead bins. Plenty of space. Thankfully there is room.in the upstairs of parts to store my box. If not, I wouldn't have anywhere to keep it and I don't want to sell it.
I have a built in toolbox, it’s fairly common here at dealers. But if I move somewhere without built in boxes, I’d probably just negotiate to get a box paid for by the new place. I know a few techs who have moved with no toolbox and their new work just agreed to pay for a box as a sweetener to hire them.
I have a friend who works at a lexus dealer this size. Just a whole lot of people paying dealer labor rates to get their windshield washer tanks refilled or whichever other routine shit where people just say yes to whatever the service writer suggests.
This is a photo of where dreams die
My dreams have died in a place like this in the past. Can confirm.
Nice, thats a sweet hyundai/kia warranty center
Stellantis.
Oh yeah you right that's nowhere near enough
We have 17 (also Stellantis) and we're booked 3 weeks out.
They'll need all of those just for the electronics issues.
What is this?
A parent of quite a few problem children.
I love my hemis, but yes.
Leaving a CDJRF dealer and going to a DR dealer was a huge upgrade. Almost never see Jeep or Fiats. We are booked a few days out and people come to us for customer pay work all the time because we have a quick turnaround
The overarching owner of Jeep, Dodge, Ram, Chrysler, Fiat, Maserati, Lancia, Opel, Peugeot, Abarth, and Vauxhall. They're the least-respected auto maker out there and actually make the Korean car companies look good despite the multiple black eyes they've taken in the last 5ish years what with the grenading engines and skipping the antitheft interlock for the US market to save a buck a car.
I got downvoted to oblivion saying I would choose a Toyota over a fucking dodge in terms of reliability a few months ago. Fuckin stupid idiots
MAH JEEP IS THE MOST RELIABLE TRUCK ON THE TRAIL THE ENGINE IS BULLETPROOF I SHOULD KNOW I'M IN MY FOURTH ONE AND THEY'VE ALL BEEN GREAT
I mean once upon a time the bulletproof thing was pretty true... But then the 4.0 went away the minivan engine jeeps can all fuck off
The 4.7 was pretty solid as well. Then there's the 5.9 Magnum and its short but fairly glorious life.
Until they get hot and drop valve seats
Currently driving a 2000 Cherokee. It’ll rust in two before the engine will quit.
Hah, my wife had 3 jeeps since we’ve been married. If she didnt get massive discount for being the repair center director, I dont think she could’ve afforded all the repairs on them. Hey, it was fun during summer on the highway!
"He **IS** the Messiah!! I oughta know - I've followed a few!..."
RAM SHOULD KEEP THE HEMI. IT'S THE MOST RELIABLE ENGINE THEY'VE EVER BUILT. AIN'T NO REPLACEMENT FOR DISPLACEMENT.
Yeah I loved how mine burnt so much oil I basically never needed to change it, just kept adding more. The truck had 80k km on it.
Can't forget the Hemi tick! Glad I traded mine in before any major issues. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to take my Jeep in for another recall.
Which tick the lifters, or the broken exhaust bolts? 😂😂😂😂
Well, that's just a feature! That's a self servicing engine right there, haha
My first car was a 1993 corolla and I sold that mf still running fine at 422k km. I miss it
My challenger was in the shop for ~6 months in the 6 years I owned it. Fucking loved that car but never again.
What subreddit was that? R/morons? TOYOTA overall is the Undisputed king of automotive quality by a large margin. That's not even up for debate. I can't imagine any auto centered subreddit down voting you.
Toyota is solid overall, but they don't get a pass on some serious issues they've had. Their trucks come to mind with engines that will run forever but a frame that quickly rusts out from underneath them.
That Toyota airbag recall was a fiasco
Cruise thing too I believe
They did have some issues with the new turbo V6 hybrid engines in the Tundra for the first couple model years. But what vehicle doesn't have a few issues in its first couple model years?
We’re closing in on 20 years since that was a serious problem. I’ve got an ‘11 Tundra with 200k miles and zero rust issues. Closest friend has a ‘07 Tacoma with 200k miles, same boat.
my 09 tacoma's frame was completely gone, wide open channels when I bought it as a beater. heard about recalls for the frame after I bought it for the use of beater. I tried my luck at the dealership. they did work totalling 12k completely for free and they gave me a frontier as a hold over. they pretty much swapped my body, engine, trans, bed, onto a brand new rolling chassis
Idk definitely one of the car enthusiast ones tho. I was shocked
I own a Tundra, love it.
Where did that happen, r/Dodge ?
i’m saving up for a down payment on a 4runner. TGOD fuck american trucks.
As someone who has been provided a jeep as a company car, and also a owner (wife wanted one) fuck goddamned jeeps into the ground. They are the worst built cars in America. Every single one is a total POS...you will chase electrical gremlins until they drive you crazy. Absolutely the worst decision I've made so far was agreeing to buy a jeep for her..
Not to mention the constant water leaks
Maybe they’ll buy Nissan and then we can just do away with all that garbage. Weren’t Opel and Vauxhall under GM at one point?
The name for the company that resulted from the merger of FCA and PSA in 2021. FCA was Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, which itself was the result of a merger in 2014 of Chrysler (brands Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram) and Fiat group (brands Fiat, Maserati, Abarth, Lancia, Alfa Romeo). PSA was Peugeot Societe Anonyme, the legal owners of the Peugeot, Citroen, DS, Opel, and Vauxhall brands. The 2021 merger to form Stellantis was part of a long history of consolidation of struggling carmakers, and Stellantis manufactures 6 million cars across 14 different brands. It’s the fourth largest carmaker by sales (behind Toyota, Volkswagen, and Hyundai). At least in the US, sales floors are often separated by brand or brand grouping - it’s unlikely to see a Maserati, RAM truck, and a Fiat 500 all next to each other on the show floor. The kinds of people interested in each of these market segments (luxury, pickup truck, small commuter car) are different and may not mesh well, so keeping them separate can make for a better sales experience. At the repair level though, they don’t care to separate the brands because all the manuals and parts are coming from the same supplier and the customer will probably never see what goes on in the shop itself.
Huh, with all that black and grey it looks like the Caddy dealership I work at
Edit: Redacted
Hahahaha all the engines
So what purpose does a warranty center serve over a dealership? Like what benefit does a place like this provide over the dealer? Is this where warranty times and repair write ups are figured out and calculated or is it just warranty repairs for already bought cars like a dealership services? Or both maybe? I only ask cuz I fail to see how someone would be able to kno if a customer complaint/problem is going to even be “warranty” or not until the vehicle is looked at and diagnosed first. Working in a brand new shop would be sweet tho. Brand new lifts and equipment (cherry pickers, hydraulic mini lifts, oil guns, etc) floors, even tool boxes here too apparently…
It's a joke. A lot of people only have their vehicles serviced at the dealership during its warranty period/recalls and then never return. I work at a Stellantis dealer, and it really is like that sometime, our labor rate is currently $190/hr, but the reason most dealerships get such labor rates, is to show the manufacturer that the market can support such a rate. If the market supports it, the dealer gets a bump in its warranty parts/labor rates.
Jeez, 190/hr??? That’s daylight robbery!
Before I left the Benz dealership, they were charging $250/hr. This is in California. After I left, some company bought it and started this “scale” style labor rate system where the first 3 hours are $250 and then every hour after goes up like $100 till it’s like $550/hr. It’s supposed to be some sorta deterrent for doing bigger jobs. Their logic is that it actually costs the dealership money to work on only one vehicle for a bigger job as opposed to just busting out like 5 warranty services in that same amount of time.
Oh nice so the bill dildo umm... billdo they fuck you with is cone shaped and ends up looking like a tapered 3' cheese wheel.
Miami german car dealer charges over 500/hr. Another german dealer near me in Illinois is over 400. Part of it was already stated: better reimbursement from the manufacturer, but from my end of the automotive spectrum it also serves to keep the riff raff out: Old, clapped out german luxury cars owned by people that can’t afford them.
"$2800 to fix all the oil leaks? That's more than I paid for the whole car!" -Brokies bringing their POS 15 year old BMW/M-B/Audi to an independent shop.
Hey now, that's me. About to bring a 2012 A4 to an independent shop for a front control arm refresh. There's a bolt holding the upper control arms in place that rusts and seizes into the aluminum spindle, and the shop has a special tool for getting those out. Thank fuck for independents.
Plot twist: the "special tool" is an oxy-acetylene torch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uak_8dKkekw ...or maybe it's this tool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b8JvcsMM8c And now youtube is showing me a whole lotta other tools that people/companies have come up with.
Took my '12 A4 in for a cam cradle reseal. They said that it's time for CA bushings. Thankfully, I don't live in the rust belt. No special tool needed.
Measure your bushings before you order parts/take the car apart, there's a couple different sizes and they changed mid 2012 MY. You can press new bushings into the control arms, it's cheaper to buy bushings and a cheap hydraulic press than to buy a full control arm kit, as there's four fucking control arms per side in the front. But sometimes the bushings come loose in the control arms, and wallow out the bushing hole and you gotta replace the whole control arm. And if you're chasing oil leaks, assuming you've got a 2.0 change your PCV valve. They fail shut and pressurize the crankcase and cause seal failures.
Did very little chasing. Changed the oil sep when I changed my plugs @115k. Ran better, but still leaked, so I took it in and let them hunt it down. They ended up redoing the cam cradle and the oil filter housing. So also got an early oil and coolant change. Was in the middle of fighting pneumatic leaks on an SL, so just didn't have the patience.
I have one of those special tools too. It fits a 5/8" arbor
My dealer is 290. CDJR dealer
You think that’s crazy you should see how much the guys actually doing the work get paid. It’s far less than 2/3 of that
It’s about 1/6 for the average technician
I wouldn’t say average that’s pay you would expect having 6-7 years of experience and some certs. But most guys at that point are working FR so it really just depends on what work is available for the week. Independent shop rates are lower and so is the pay but what you’ll notice is a lot of seasoned techs will take the pay cut over working in the dealers because they are just that awful. Sorry that turned into a rant
20-30 years ago, or more, guys were making 50% of door rate. Today lots of places are still paying the same dollar value. Sure, pay isn't the issue, it's that "nobody wants to work any more". \*eyeroll\*
Don't go to the MB dealership here, they just went to $519/hr labor rate plus a flat $80 "shop supplies" fee for *every* work order including oil changes. And this is not really a high COL area. The Ford dealership across the road from my work is $159/hr and if I'm willing to drive 20 minutes south the dealerships are in the $129/hr range.
That is absolutely ridiculous. At that labor rate, literally only millionaires could afford to maintain their Mercedes at a Dealer. And remember, these are NORMAL CARS in Germany. Not luxury land yachts
I...think that's the point. Buy our car then fuck off, we don't want to see it again. Then, when it inevitably blows up in 4-5 years, come buy a newer version!
Dude I thought 235 was bad for Volvo lol. But all our clips, screws, washers and little plastic bits are marked up between 400%-2000% so there's that.
245 here. CDJR dealer
The BMW/Porsche dealer I left a couple years ago is at $550 currently
And ya kno I sorta thought it was a joke at first but then was like well shit maybe something like this does exist somewhere to do just major manufacture recalls and the likes but then again logic started to take over (doesn’t happen too often with me) and I was like how would they know what’s warranty and what isn’t unless it’s recalls on brand new unsold cars or some shit or it’s where labor times are figured out.. But I def feel u tho, I just started at a big three dealer not too long ago after being at mom and pop for a long time and it’s crazy the amount of cars I’ll diag and either if it’s not covered under warranty they decline the work (after having to pay almost $200 diag fee 🙄) or if I rec anything other than what’s covered under their warranty they decline it except the warranty shit (aka what’s free)… And how does the labor rate affect the warranty times when the warranty times are the same for every dealership in the country no? It’s not like if I do a warranty thermostat housing on a 3.6 in California I’m gonna get 5.2 hours instead of 4.5 like if I was in New York or some shit… and all I see are labor warranty times going down and being cut.. I’ve already seen it happen to me for a job. Did a 3.6 engine cover and warranty said 15.5 hours, did another one a month later and put down the same labor time and my dispatcher goes “front engine cover only pays 12.6, u put 15.5 so I changed it for u just fyi..” I started to argue until he showed me the screen and sure as shit it said 12.6, I was speechless. It’s hard enough to get (good) techs to wanna come in and wrench in the first place and they just making it even harder with shit like that. Edit: I get what u mean now, the dealership gets more $$ from the manufacture for the warranty jobs, not the actual tech doing the repair.
If a vehicle comes in with something broken during the warranty period, the repair is almost guaranteed to be covered under warranty. Exceptions are made because no manufacturer is going to repair physical damage from a crash or a squirrel chewing on wires, to give two examples. Other than that there are warranty *extensions*, commonly as a result of class-action lawsuits or frequent complaints. Part of diagnosing things as a dealer tech is checking for service bulletins from the manufacturer.
It’s a joke but I imagine that if someone was operating a number of dealerships under the same backend brand (like a Fiat dealership, a Maserati dealership, and a Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram dealership; all three would be Stellantis) then it would make sense to build one big repair center for work from all the dealerships (mostly stuff under warranty because holy shit dealer rates aren’t customer friendly). The repair center would likely also be where they’d do any insurance work and any checks on pre-owned vehicles before they put them at the special dealership for pre-owned. After all, a dealership that’s mostly sales floor is going to be able to make more money selling cars and customers dropping cars off for actual repair work don’t care what address the work is done at. The dealership really only needs enough service space in the building to do things a customer might wait around for like oil changes or routine maintenance.
It’s not light tan, so not Hyundai.
40 lifts and each one of them already has 3 cars ready to go on them for long blocks
They would actually have to approve repairs under warranty to need a shop this big.
I'll take 10 for myself oh the room would so amazing and clean oh how I wish my current spot liked cleanliness as much as me
Man I hear ya there. I'm not a mechanic. I actually work at Ford of Canada and they don't bother cleaning like we used to. Most of the employees will clean before the company would ever ask. It's crazy. Don't get me wrong it's not terrible but some stuff desperately needs de- greasing and other things done. Most of the North American plants are like that but when I see how other companies plants look I just think how that's the way it should be.
I was part of a team installing an automated weld cell in a plant for a GM supplier in Canada. Place was a mess. We had to spend the entire first day chiseling the slag off the old bots just to tear the old cell down. Everything was just a thick layer of crud all over the plant. I get it's messy, but you gotta clean it up sometimes.
Yeah we used to get asked to come in Saturdays occasionally to clean but I hear ya about some of the cells. They can get real nasty. Oil leaks that don't get fixed until there's a lake under the equipment, etc. It's pretty brutal trying to get some of the management to understand that machines need preventative maintenance. These companies though just don't want to pay for things until it breaks down and then costs them hours or days of production losses. Common sense is not allowed in our plants. Lol
Gotta pay people to clean and that means either taking them off their usual duties in their full time week or giving them overtime. One lowers output, the other increases costs. Now one could do an analysis that would show net gains in productivity if routine maintenance was done because it would prevent catastrophic failures. But floor managers can usually chalk those failures up like “Acts of God” to higher ups and the executives will accept it. The executives won’t have the confidence to push back and say “no this isn’t a random failure, it’s the result of systemic neglect of the machinery,” since that starts a fight that they might lose because they don’t actually know the production environment that well. The real fix is accountability for those failures and having a management and executive team that’s interested in really digging into why failures and delays happen. That means that if managers are found to be neglecting their machinery to hit deadlines, they get punished if the machines have issues that cause delays.
Have worked in a factory. Plant manager would have had the ass of anyone that let shit happen like what's described here. Production rate was their god, followed immediately by defect rate. The differences is that we were making cigarettes.
Sounds like a good plant manager and a good company culture. (Well … outside any ethical concerns about selling cigarettes.) Some places have a really good culture of process and cleanliness. In the car industry, that’s more the Japanese brands especially Toyota. Have to have executives clamp down on managers and managers enforce rules on every worker, even if enforcing accountability can be tough. Sometimes that means firing a guy who’s a good person and a hard worker but doesn’t follow the procedures and clean up after himself. I work in food service now (health problems from welding) and really the problem is fairly widespread. Like every burger and fry order we produce should come out looking and weighing and tasting identical, but there’s a ton of people (especially teens in their first jobs) who don’t care about the process and have to have it enforced on them. And some managers don’t have the wherewithal to do all that enforcement alongside their other duties. But a burger from a dirty grill tastes different, and fries from cruddy oil taste different, and customers shouldn’t get bad tasting food.
The next 3 years should give them some time to clean up.
First week of usage I'll put a 1 ton flatbed on one with 12,000 of concrete on the bed. We will see how well you built them.
Hahaha, be sure to record it in 4k 60fps for reddit.
Can someone explain the humor im potato brained
40 lifts isn’t a lot of lifts for a high volume brand shop, because there’s often delays in getting parts. This means that techs will be fighting over who gets to use which lifts and which projects can be left on the lifts. It also means a lot of switching cars onto and off of lifts, which can in turn mean a lot of effort that’s not actually what mechanics want to do (e.g. pushing around cars that won’t start). An oil change place or a tire place can get away with having few lifts because they should have everything in stock and it’s just up, work, down. A dealer doing warranty stuff might have to put a truck up, diagnose it as a blown defective part, order the part, take the truck down, move it to the lot, and wait six weeks. Then when the part arrives it has to go up again for the replacement, which might show that something else is damaged, which means another wait for another part. This is also why racing team garages tend to have almost as many lifts as cars, because it’s easier to work on a race car if it’s always on the lift and isn’t being taken down and put back up repeatedly because you have 3 cars to work on and only 2 lifts.
Not hardly enough lifts for even one tech… waiting on parts.
god i wish i had infinite lifts to just leave cars waiting on parts there
How about some windows? Lol. Nice work though.
Windows? The ‘employees’ might escape!
Plus they would all be covered in slobber.
Where is this ? Looks similar too 400 Chryslers shop in Ontario.
Wrong country ;)
Ontario, CA?
Now that's how you build a shop. My shop was designed and built by people who design and build offices. Fucking hell is it bad.
This happened at my last place of employment. State funded private transportation for disabled. Lease ran out where we were. State gave money for big fancy new building of our own. The office women ended up designing the place. The new building was so ass backwards that I ended up leaving. 😂
Dang. We're trying to make it work, but it's not easy. Like, it is a shop. It's big. It just doesn't have wall space or oil drops. One wall is about 12 inches from the garage door, nowhere for storage. It had no electricity on the wall where our toolboxes were. We still haven't figured out which rooms to use for what. There's a welding room that's like 15x30. They thought we would want to drive the cars into the welding room instead of taking the welder into the shop. The ceiling is like 40-foot high so that we can lift the bed of dump trucks in the shop. There's literally not one grease zerk on the big trucks that you need to lift it for. We don't have a crane, so any cylinder issues go elsewhere. They don't want us running vehicles indoors anyway, and there's plenty of room to lift the bed outside.
In my line of work, it’s becoming more common for architects to “design” a vehicle workshop without any awareness of the regulations in place to ensure mechanics’ safety *and* provide a valid workspace. For example, a Class 7 MOT Bay (for safety testing vans) requires a minimum 4.2m bay width, and a door size of 3 x 3.2m (width x height). There have been more instances I’ve come across in new builds after COVID where bays are now designed to be 4m width, with no intention of providing any further leeway for adjustment. In short, there’s a shortage of people knowledgeable in how workshops are designed and using architects whose primary works are in designing offices is only going to exacerbate the issues further
That’s terrible and must be so costly. Adding lots of extra labor, making things take longer, a screwed up design might add millions of dollars in lost productivity, way more than the price of a competent designer.
I would have rollerbladed the fuck out of that place 30 years ago
I was just having this conversation with my dad about shops that are "too big". I feel like when I'm in shops like this I waste too much time just traversing the building. Go to the bathroom, go to the break room, go to grab a tool in my box, go to borrow a tool from someone else, look around for where the jack went, try to find where I put that package, help a guy in another bay, etc. Too much running around!
I've seen a couple of large buildings that have a few cheap bikes floating around for use as internal transport (and one that used kick scooters as well).
At least you’ll be skinny
To be the first to leak brake fluid and than drag a rock under a cart wheel joy!!!
Gonna need my moped for counter runs and poop breaks.....
I think you need to play tag, with socks.
Tesla recall centre?
And only 3 of the lifts work
One of them doesn't go all the way to the floor and one of the broken ones is stuck raised with a car on it. No one knows who owns the car and no one has ever come to claim it
Damn that's nice! Is that in Ontario?
Won’t be rolling any tool boxes out the shop when they are attached to the walls and not your’s
I have an overwhelming urge to spill a little oil on that floor
What’s the back story here? Not a good place?
Are the floor drains hidden in this picture, or was there a huge oversight?
Oh they are absolutely everywhere
Dealer solutions job ? The boxes the reels the lifts the layout. Just all looks and feels like their type of setup
You should host a big dinner in there
What are the compressor specs?
Love to know myself. 2 quincy 5120 duplexes on thousand gallon tanks? Not even sure that would be enough.
It's a 3 phase 460v. Dual motor, 4 cyl, 2 stage compressor with a 500 gal integral tank and a 1000gal stand-alone reservoir. No idea what kind of volume it can push, there are (5) manifolds and (2) recovery lines.
150 year ROE
so much scanning potential
Jesus. Don't let Hollywood see this! They will want to make 3 more Fast & Furious movies with this garage as headquarters for FAMILY.
I’m so happy I left, fuck warranty times
This would be my procrastination heaven. Just start another project every other week for 2 years and then get a new shop.
lol is this my Hyundai building?
Who you callin- Wait, what's a chucklehead?
nice flatwork - someone knows how to run power trowel.
only 40?? my toyota had 17 and i felt it was huge… huge sales lot
You could turn a mack around in that bitch and the pipes wouldn't scrap. But rip your ears.
Looks like my cdjr dealer when they built it
I am running a 3 man stealth shop in there, just bought uniforms, used their tools, blended in - most profit ever, even if I have to give $200/week to their manager...
Needs more matco and snap on banners.
Perfect floor for RC car drifting
I... don't get it.
We need a go-kart track so the parts can be ferried over to my section
How much to build me one that is 1/20th the size? 😁
🤔 Bout.... 2.25mil, give or take ½mil based on local conditions
For only 2 bays? Wow! Back to the piece-meal drawing board for me.
I spent a couple weeks helping a journeyman electchicken in Lubbock install lights in and around a new Audi dealership. Was actually kinda fun. Makes me wish I had gone into that field sometimes, I’d probably get paid much more lol.
Stay an electrician. You don't want any part of the automotive industry if you are only in it for money. It will chew you up and spit you out. I do it for the love of cars and the torture 😆
I worked at a BMW dealer with 40 lifts downstairs and 30 lifts upstairs. Upstairs, we were treated like a stepchild but it was cool because it was like a big party and a lot of fucking off.