It is more than likely a relatively shitty hard job.
Most shops have a shop time per hour, which lets say it’s 60, you would probably make like 20 an hour. But your hours are not time worked, they are what the body that sets the job time. So say you have to replace a water pump, and the job time is 10 hours. If you can do it faster you still make ten hours, but if it’s slower you still only make 10 hours.
There are pros and cons to every job of course, but generally speaking they get paid by the job, which can be profitable: if you’re quick, know what you need to do, and have what you need to do it. OR the exact opposite, figuring out what is wrong, doing a job, and you have to redo it because the parts that you got from the manufacturer are faulty, you still only get paid for one job. Or if that aforementioned water pump actually takes you 20 hours, it would hurt your bottom line.
My highschool autoshop teacher worked at a dealership with the only real exception I’ve heard about automotive, which is electrical. His shop time and pay was 100 an hour, but he hated that job.
TootSweet@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Probably just that he’s already spent 4 years getting a bachelor’s degree and only now finds out it’s insufficient to land a job and now he has to do more school and cross his fingers that improves his job-seeking situation. (It should, but so should a bachelor’s degree.)
Honestly, “what’s wrong with a master’s degree” is almost as good a question, except that it would likely require going into more debt than trade school would.
TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
and then he gets those degrees and finds out those degrees don’t get him jobs either.
WoodScientist@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Mechanics also have the cost problem. A good mechanic will have to put an amount of money into tools that is comparable to the cost of a university degree. A career mechanic will spend tens of thousands on their tools.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
They accumulate over time as you work on different cars (and thus earn money) though, university degree is an upfront cost.
Yes if you want to start a VW dealer, you need like 100k USD worth of VW special tools alone in the US if I remember correctly from some Eric The Car Guy video from 10-15 years ago. If you want to just start an honest shop for honest people, you can probably get started for under 10k in tools and equipment, particularly if you have tools at home from fixing your own cars.
Or you can get a job as a mechanic and your employer should be paying for the tools you use.