I live in Brisbane Australia and I am currently applying for mechanic apprenticeships in my area using seek. I got a callback from an Audi recruiter about an automotive technician apprenticeship, is this any different to a mechanic apprenticeships or is it just a different phrasing of the sane qualification? Also is there any difference between a light car mechanic and a normal mechanic apprenticeship?

Has anyone made the transition from car mechanic to HGV mechanic? And if so how did you find it?

Tooling much different? I have a well equipt toolbox for cars

Wages any better?

General repair knowledge much different apart from everything being bigger?

I’m a maintenance tech at a shop and i’m on hourly pay (duh) and i’ve been working for about a month and so far i’ve loved everything about it. Until today whenever my paycheck is lower than it should be, I talk to manager and turns out i only get paid for 8 hours a day whenever i’m working 10-12. Absolutely disappointing.

As a Aircraft Mechanic,what type of mechanics would be good to learn and do on the side?

Boats,motorcycles,diesels? Generators?

Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

I just finished trade school. Waste of money btw, currently applying to dealerships and don’t know if i should bring tools on my first day and buy a toolbox. What did you guys do for your first day? I have my tools stuffed in a small tool bag as of right now.

I recently got a streamlight 76800 stinger from amazon, it’s pretty decent but I want to hear from you guys. What’s your “go to” flashlights?

Got told recently in a meeting recently that I was slow on my tire jobs as a new hire. It was somewhat discouraging considering I have no car knowledge prior to this job and I thought I was doing good taking the initiative to learn as much as I can to improve as fast as possible..

I’ve currently been working as a “lube tech(?)” for almost 3 months and I can do a set of 4 tires in around an hour-hour 30 if I’m locked in, and that includes the balancing thing too before I place the wheels back on. In my bay I also have to Jack the car up with 3-4 ground jacks depending on the vehicle, so also any tips for placement would be appreciated as well. I don’t do alignments yet since I didn’t learn that at all, but any tips to cut down time would be appreciated or just any feedback in general.

For example: A vehicle comes in for an oil change. The customer waits while the service is being performed. The technician lowers the driver's window when he pulls into his bay. This is standard procedure for him to ensure that he doesn't accidently get locked out of the vehicle. When the work is completed, and he is backing the vehicle out of the shop, he tries to roll up the window only to hear a "crunching/grinding" sound from the window regulator inside the door, and the window will not go up. The customer is notified about this, and the customers response is, "You broke it, you fix it". When it is explained to the customer that the technician did not "break" the window regulator, it just happened under normal usage. And it probably would have happened to anyone that had tied to operate the power window. However, the customer is NOT HAVING ANY OF IT! Takes the position that there was nothing wrong with that window until YOU worked on the car, so there had to be SOMETHING that your guy did to break it.

How would something like this be handled at your shop?

So I get this "Person" whose car craps out at a business. BEGS BEGS BEGS for me to get out there, I load the van and get out there. I charge DAIG time and explained it to him, In Florida your MV repair license requires a signed estimate for DIAG also, so I get one with the standard 1 hour to start. DTC codes and described behavior shows low fuel pressure in rail. SO Pro Demand shows it can be a fuel pump issue, everything else reports back fine and the customer had the car running in front of me. Mind you there is two fuel pumps cause this is an GDI style engine. Customer of course seems very strung out and amped / skeezy acting and of course tells me his life story and needs it done cheap and fast. Then start telling me how his friend and another mechanic who scanned the car first says its an alternator then claims if electrical issues pretty much telling me I'm wrong or acts like I'm an dumbass, so I was like well then you can have them fix it then. Of course the customer is like oohh noo they can't get to it... Whatever, he accepts and signs the work estimate and I pick up the parts and go to his house down the way (nearby). Somehow the car drove there with no issue. They guy of course also calls me and tells me his "other friend" says its the alternator and not the fuel pump then the customer calls that person an idiot.. So I get to his place change the High Pressure fuel pump, test drive with live data on scanner was perfectly fine. He then demands to drive it alone and tells me to keep my phone on cause "he knows its going to fail" and sure enough 5 min later car stalls but yet he still drives back without an issue. So I put the scanner on it, a stored not pending code shows engine cranked with low fuel rail pressure and NO OTHER CODES, live data showed car fuel pressure pre HPDI pump is at 45-55 normal and post HPDI 400-1900 when revving. so super odd.. I suspected the in tank lift pump low pressure may be failing BUT live data scanner says otherwise.. So on the test drive the customer was passenger this time and I saw NO ISSUES UNTIL we pulled on the street, COMEPLTY STALLED and acting like it had no gas. Mind you live data was still acceptable numbers for both pumps. NO DTCS at all! I suspect either failing lift pump or customer has ECU setup to be controlled from his phone cause I keep seeing him mess with his phone when this issue happened. Shit head customer starts blowing up at me and insulting me and I said well you can have your car towed but demand I help him push it down the street to the house. Long story short is he's steering and I'm semi helping and he decides to open the door and roll himself out of the car and claim I ran hit foot over.. Then demands I keep fixing his car for nothing, I told him I'd qoute replacing the in tank fuel pump but thats alot of labor. Customer just turned into shithead and seems like he was high and shit.. Wtf why are some people like this, Yes I know he'd probably gonna try and sue me or hustle me. So Mobile Mechanics tell me what you think? Regular shop guys too, spread the love. lol

Do you prefer silicone, molly, or ceramic brake lube? And why?

I’m about to take over a shop and we just lost one of our technicians. What’s the best way to go about trying to recruit a new one (Located in South Georgia)?

I’ve read Indeed might be one of the more frequented options…

I work in a big corporation garage and I get paid $18 hourly and $32 flat rate. the problem I’m having is that my Shop is averaging a little under 100 a week and my company. Wants us to rotate tires in disassembled brakes to check on the pad where and rotor where for a furnace inspection with an oil change and only charging .2 flat rate unit. I want to know am I being scammed and am I losing money?

I’m 20+ yr master tech with full set of tools, rarely need anything from the tool truck other than warranty. I’ve never carried a credit account on the trucks and always pay cash.

The old school tool guys who I bought the tools from are retired and the new school Matco and snap on guys don’t wanna warranty tools because they didn’t sell them to me.

Is this normal for the tool guys around you?

I don’t wanna bother with the web return systems so I just replace with tools from Amazon. Customer service and warranty are the reason why I paid a premium for the tools. I told them they not gon last long with shitty customer service in a dying industry. Rant over.

I am currently a senior in highschool, and trying to decide if I should go to a college to continue my auto tech path I’ve made with highschool vocational classes. But I also know that there are schools like Lincoln Tech that promise to be all that. Just wondering which of the two is more appealing to someone looking to hire.

Anyone with experience on Autels motor truspeed software. It cost around 650$ a year. Was looking for someone who has used it before making the purchase. Thanks in advance. Also, I'll be using it on the maxisys ultra.

After 20 years working on everything from Peterbilts to Smart cars. I made the jump to RVs. I was really close to going into heavy equipment. But i found a really good shop closer to home that pays very well.

This place is fun. We do everything from big diesel pushers, to class c and trailers. Today I'm rebuilding the back of a toy hauler that got damaged from the hinges locking up. So far I'm enjoying the change of pace.

Anyone else heard of Wrenchway? They seem to be affiliated with ASE somehow. I like the idea and hope it catches on in our industry. It looks like it could be a valuable tool when determining your value as a technician if it utilized by more technician. For those who have not seen it they have a feature that can search for technician pay in your area based on certs. Experience ect. The only problem I see is it reliant on people submitting their pay which might take a while to catch on and get this data.

Recently applied at Kal tire for OTR tire tech. I'm wondering if it's even worth it? It's in a mine setting 14x14 day/nights. Starts from 30-40 an hr with room for advancement. Anyone work for this company before?

Just getting feedback here. So do your shops turn rotors today? We have an old school person,who was a former mechanic, who believes we are ripping them off because we are recommending rotors. Issue is that today - whenever we just put on pads, the customer always comes back and complain and noise and sometimes shaking.

What is your belief on turning rotors today and do you offer the service?

Hey mechanics of Reddit! Looking to get into the field and curious how you actually spend your time day-to-day. How much is diagnosing vs repairing vs research/googling stuff? What's the split between basic maintenance and complex repairs?

Bonus points if you mention what type of shop you work at (dealer/indie/etc). Thanks!

Edit: Also curious how many cars you typically handle per day.

I’m a performance tech so I work on a lot of domestic muscle and sports cars. Recently I have had a lengthy streak of accidentally breaking a lot of parts. I have pretty bad ocd where I question everything I do and make sure everything is perfect and going to work properly but yet something still fails or fucks up. I’ve been in the field for 3 years but only the performance side for about 9 months. Am I just in a slump? How do I overcome this? I love my job and cars but damn it ruins your confidence in the ability to do heavy line and badass shit. I’ve done swaps, pulls, diags, rebuilds, and a good amount of everything. Just feel terrible when breaking or destroying shit on accident. I’m not careless at all and I take it to heart and want to be the best I can. Any advice is welcomed. Thanks!!!

Long post so bear with me.

Hey guys, I'm just looking for thoughts on my possible shop change situation. So currently I'm at a chain lube shop as their "master tech" where do all of the stuff like tons of brakes, tires, light engine repairs (spark plugs, valve covers), accessory drive components, done a "couple" timing jobs on an older Subaru and 80s Chevy truck. Head gasket and head replacement on a 2000s Taurus... general fluid services, radiator coolant, trans fluid\filters, etc... And I'm a state vehicle inspector. Basically just a bunch of minor stuff with a couple heavier opportunities but other than that I'm usually just helping with oil changes which honestly is 40-60% of my times depending on the day of the week or helping other lube guys who barely know what they're looking at a lot of the time or problem solving their own basics as lube techs.

What I'm worried about is not being 100% elbow deep all the time at a full repair shop or not being used to that might hurt my potential pay, whether it be knowledge or experience based, because now I'm hourly where I get paid $22/hr no matter what I do or how long it takes. At this new shop I might be going to it's flag hours times 1.1 with a 80% guarantee (so if I fuck myself I still get 32 hours basically. I do not know what my hourly rate would be yet. According to my in person meet the other day I would be quite busy and doing everything under the hood including engine and transmission swaps but not rebuilds.

Another of my big worries also is that at my current shop many of the tool sets are provided like brake tools, cooling system testers... Fuel\trans disconnect sets, scan tools... I really don't want a big wallet curve to get into it. I have a lot of tools already but nothing specific like I mentioned, mostly r&I tools personally from a previous transmission shop job. I mean I have a family to take care of so I can't just spend everything to get started.

I'm more than confident in my ability to get the work done, I guess I'm mostly worried about my tool situation holding me back from doing the best as the friggin guy I saw in there with the $30k line-x factory coated snap on 3 bay toolbox and who knows how much in tools, y'know? Jeez

Been pretty slow in my shop and I’d really like to get some new customers in… whats your guys strategy to getting new customers, I have a Google business page, I have an average of 4.9 stars and 70 reviews after being in business only 6 months. Any recommendations?