Mechanics, defend your trade!

McPete

McPete

Likes Dirt
I've only ever dealt with one mechanic. He's been nothing short of brilliant, he really takes pride in his work, and our cars always come back looking immaculate. Washed, polished, cleaned extensively, no mechanical problems and no massive costs for no reason.

It'll be a real shame when he retires.
 
H

Haro Xeon

Likes Bikes
If you want work done right find a mechanic that works by himself and has been trading for years.

If you send your car to a dealership you pay top dollar for labour and your car is fixed by an apprentice earning 10 bucks an hour.

The reason why employees of dealerships dont give a shit is because they arent paid enough to give a shit. They get only about $20 per hour for a tradesman. Most plebs earn more than them.

The old saying is that if you pay peanuts you get monkeys applies to those that work at dealerships.

The ones with brains are out working for themselves or have gone to the mines to earn decent bucks.
 
Tomas

Tomas

my mum says im cool
Haro Xeon said:
If you send your car to a dealership you pay top dollar for labour and your car is fixed by an apprentice earning 10 bucks an hour.
Click to expand...
Less.

(im in the 'ive found one really superb mechanic and stuck with him' camp.)
 
Jon

Jon

Not Grip, OK... So don't ask!
Haro Xeon said:
If you want work done right find a mechanic that works by himself and has been trading for years.

If you send your car to a dealership you pay top dollar for labour and your car is fixed by an apprentice earning 10 bucks an hour.

The reason why employees of dealerships dont give a shit is because they arent paid enough to give a shit. They get only about $20 per hour for a tradesman. Most plebs earn more than them.

The old saying is that if you pay peanuts you get monkeys applies to those that work at dealerships.

The ones with brains are out working for themselves or have gone to the mines to earn decent bucks.
Click to expand...
This is 100% true.
I am a service manager in a major commercial air con company and some of the blokes that work around the traps,well.......:(
Out of 10 mechanics in my trade ,2 you would donate a kidney for, 4 are acceptable but with good and bad days and the other 4 you wouldnt piss on if they were on fire.

The universal thing with almost all trades is the good trades people work for themselves. That's it. Nothing else.
There are a few good company people but the chances of finding one are a lot lower.
 
N

NH_

Likes Bikes and Dirt
ive got me an awesome mechanic, if it doesnt need to be done he wont do it, sources really cheap second hand parts and knows his stuff

the funny thing is his yard is really hidden and if you drove past it you would go yucky, but damn hes good, very cheap too im happy my mum found him before i got a car, hes now got all my familys cars being serviced there, so thats 5 cars just from one family because hes a really good mechanic, if he gets that from every person who comes in wow
 
R33F

R33F

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Haro Xeon said:
If you send your car to a dealership you pay top dollar for labour and your car is fixed by an apprentice earning 10 bucks an hour.
Click to expand...
Having an apprentice fix my car doesn't bother me - seriously.

I am currently driving my 2nd Falcon Ute (dedicated LPG), and both of them have always been serviced through Ford Service Centres. The first one only had a problem once, and I rang Ford, they sent out a tow truck, gave me a loan ute, so apart from the inconvenience of having to go back a day later to get my ute back it didn't bother me.

The current ute has done about 180'000 km's in 21 months, and has never missed a beat, and has always been serviced by Ford Service Centres - from Mackay to the Gold Coast.

The Landcruiser ute was exactly the same - no complaints with Toyota Service Centres either.

If you pick your car up, and don't like the quality of work, just take it back and say "fix it". End of story.
 
A

Arete

Likes Dirt
I'm dreading having to find a mechanic is Adelaide after moving here from Sydney. I ended up finding a good one in Sydney, He worked in a race preparation business and was a mate of a mate. Their workshop was always droolworthy... last time I went in they were prepping a couple of Lotus 7's and a Dodge Charger big block drag car...

Anyway he knew what he was doing, knew how to do it to a budget and knew what did and didn't need fixing.

Last time I took my car to a regular mechanic, they rang me up to tell me that the air con had been taken out, that the suspension had been modified and the standard front mount intercooler was missing (due to the installation of a FMIC sunshine) and quoted me 5000 to have it all put back, and refused to just change the oil and filter. Needless to say I told them not to ouch the car and picked it up, wasting everyone's time.

Good tradies are hard to weed out from all the morons out there.
 
B

bigkevthumper

Likes Dirt
Joel O said:
I think the problem most people have is they are still paying full rate for the apprentices time.
Click to expand...
Its not as if each work shop is going to have differnt hourly rates for apprentises and trademen. People are running businesses they are trying to make money.
I actually reckon that the pay stinks. People that winge owe i paid to much, build a bridge get ova it. At our work shop (family owned bussiness) we charge 70 dollars an hour+ gst and then parts.Look at what dentists and builders and plumbers etc charge.
You have a good point if you get the work done you wont it done properly.
Our bussiness has got a good name around town. If we do stuff up, thats if we will more then be helpfull and take the car back and redo the job or fix it properly.Our moto is do it right the first time wont have any problems, fuck it up it will always come back and haunt you.
There is nothing more that shits you off more when you have spent alot of time working on somthing and getting it right and then having a person ahve a go at you for charging to much. For example we re-wired a hole trailer,new plug and lights and replaced the wheel bearings. We charged $210 which was a great price and the idiot still had ingorence to come back and argue about the price. Some people a nooobs.

Feel better now. My rant gone.
 
Funkee

Funkee

Squid
In my field the daily consulting rate is $1500 and up $1800 per day. Mechanics are charging about $60 - 80 an hour so why should that bother us? The problem is that cars these days are sold so much on reliability and quality, so it's annoying when you have to pay for anything.

The best way to solve car problems is just to lease them, not buy them. I've leased for 4 years and never once had a problem because the service centre must seek the payment from the leasing company, who in turn authorise all changes to the car. And nobody doesn't take crap like a leasing company :)

Had my car serviced on Saturday morning. Interesting watching the customer service person stamp "LEASE" (in big red letters) on the service docket and then cross out 4 of the 5 service items (like cleaning of injectors and all that crap) before it went to the mechanic.
 
BM Epic

BM Epic

Eats Squid
I only ever took my car once to a factory mechanic,i am used to always doing my own work,ever since i was 17,my brother built and raced cars and advised me to do it all myself(learn from your own mistakes etc.),well, a few years ago i bought a brand new nissan patrol deisel,not knowing a lot about deisels and worrying about warranty issues,i decided that nissan could do my servicing,the first service was at 10k,so i shot the car in for it's scheduled service and decided to hang around unbeknown to them.
I am sitting on a fence reading the paper near the service centre and next thing my 4wd comes barreling past with the motor revving so hard that it was literally yelping,this clown was trying to do a compression lock-up!
Well,i went back to the centre and who was driving my car?,none other than the actual service manager,well it got physical because he tried to tell me that he had to do this to "test" the 4wd,lets just say i never went back and nor was i welcome either!
The upshot to this was,i looked around and found a guy who specialised in four wheel drives(specifically nissan and toyota),he was a repco franchisee and he was absolutely awesome with the car,he is now not there,which is a shame,but i have reverted back to doing my own work again!
So there are the odd occasional good guy out there,just not many!
 
TheLunchbox

TheLunchbox

Likes Dirt
I generally do my own services:eek: seeing that i only drive my car on the weekends and the odd occassion during the week I never really have to visit the mechanics. 250 000 and still punches a mean burnout. OOO i Love FWD burnouts HONDA POWER!!!:D
 
M

mytoy747

Cannon Fodder
I have been in the engineering trade for ten years now and the biggest problem with the industry is quality control. In many cases, the unlucky ones, the quality control is simply not there! A trade is relativly easy to get, four years of fantastic traning, but without good supervision it's a waste of time... Each job should be throughly checked upon completion and then every costomer and the supervisor should be happy...

All the best with future mechanical encounters!!!;)
 
copps

copps

Likes Bikes
mytoy747 said:
I have been in the engineering trade for ten years now and the biggest problem with the industry is quality control. In many cases, the unlucky ones, the quality control is simply not there! A trade is relativly easy to get, four years of fantastic traning, but without good supervision it's a waste of time... Each job should be throughly checked upon completion and then every costomer and the supervisor should be happy...

All the best with future mechanical encounters!!!;)
Click to expand...
Here here,

In my trade when a tradesman does any given job it is progessively checked by a supervisor, and if it's a particularly a big job, or safety related in nature, the job will also be checked by an independant inspector (all three are of the same trade with increasing degrees of experience and qualifications). Works well for us, and the end product is solid quality assurance.
 
Benzy

Benzy

Likes Dirt
Can I ask who you were insured with? It wouldn't happen to be Bud___, AA__ or Bin___ insurance by any chance? (I really shouldn't name companies).

There are many companies out there who will ensure the repairer cuts corners in every possible manner to cut down on costs in turn increasing their bottom line profit... This only results in dodgy repairs.

Some companies even auction repairs off over the internet to the cheapest bidder (smash repairer/mechanic) and use second hand, non-genuine parts.

I work in the insurance industry and get these complaints all the time (not about my company). Always try to find a company that guarantees to use new, genuine parts and gives you choice of repairer... This may have nothing to do with the repairs in question but sounds like the actions of a couple of companies that shall remain nameless for now.
 
johnny

johnny

I'll tells ya!
Staff member
I once had some farking fool tell me my brake pads needed changing because they were almost halfway worn.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top