How are car technicians get paid?

People are paid what they are paid. I can't really think of many professions that are underpaid, but many that are overpaid (i.e. anything where catching a ball is part of the "job").

Hybrid-Tech: Plug in a computer, order the part it tells you to, replace it
Biotech: This is a broad field, not a job. You could wash beakers or be the research scientist and you are in the biotech field.
Xerographic Machines: lol. Seriously? Copy repair people, same deal. Replace not repair 99% of the time. Remove paper jams, and when it is something "bad" you plug in a computer and replace what it tells you to. Hardly many skills required.
Network IT: If you are low paid and in network IT, then you are dealing with standard networks for standard security people. If you are dealing with ultrasecure server farm rooms, you are paid well. Very very well.

I am underpaid for what I do, but since I am still "new" I expect it to grow. You can't expect to make top salary right away, you must prove yourself. What that top salary is, is dependent on what you do. A car tech that does nothing but plug in a computer does not deserve to be paid as well as the person who made the computer tech man plugs in.

 

this dude is s retard. i have worked for BMW, Lexus and several independent repair shops. this guy is like a bad infomercial they way he makes everything sound. sure you may only get paid a set amount to replace something under warranty, and the first time you might loose, but after the 3rd or 4th time you will make money if you are a decent mechanic. dealership work is easy, and extremely repetitive, you see the same thing over and over, you get so good after a while, it is just boring. no need to cut corners because it gets so simple. i eventually went to an independent because at lease it is different every day, and i still beat book time on something i have never done before...

and i turned 70 or 80 hours a week flag time consistently at BMW working under 40 hours a week. Lexus is a bit less generous with warranty pay but i was still able to consistently flag 50 or 60 a week. you would have to be an awful mechanic to make less than what you put in... no respect whatsoever for this dude

 

Now it is my turn to LOL. Not only do you appear to know very little about the fields I referred to and the actual skills required, but misunderstand the whole point of my post. That's OK though, I couldn't agree more on the professional sports.

 

I just found this post by accident. I'm actually the author of this video. (I'm the one asking the questions in the video)

This "retard" as you describe is my best friend and we have talked for hours on end about his work and I've spent many hours up at his dealership watching exactly what he describes. He's worked at two different dealerships in the Dallas/Ft.Worth area. We specifically didn't name them, in order to protect his job.

He brings in about $32,000 per year. He used to make more, but the dealerships keep cutting their pay more and more each year. Now they've gone to a "menu pricing" which is sort of hard to explain. It works like this.. My friend makes somewhere around $25 per hour. But they only pay that much if he's doing a job that requires high levels of training, such as replacing an engine or something like that. If he does an oil change, then he gets paid like $7 per hour. There are 3 different levels of pay, and most of the time he is earning pay on the bottom two levels.

Now, let me explain something to you.. This guy is an absolute genius when it comes to diagnostic work. Plus he has every piece of equipment known to man for diagnosing cars. (Yes, techs have to buy and bring their own tools) Unfortunately, his boss knows it. So here's what happens. Every time a car comes into the dealership that has some hard problem to diagnose, the tech who is assigned to it complains to the boss that he can't figure it out. So the boss gives it to my friend. This happens pretty much every day. So he spends several hours per day diagnosing cars. But here's the really almost criminal part of it. After he figures out what the problem is, the car goes back to the other tech who replaces the part and gets paid for it. My friend gets paid nothing at all. So many of the other techs in the shop who are far less skilled than he is actually make more money than him because they stay busy working all day.

Now the truth of the problem is that my friend is a pushover. Everybody knows it. More than likely if he had the balls to stand up to the boss and say that he isn't going to diagnose other tech's cars for free, maybe he'd end up making more money.

But the real problem comes in to the fact that dealerships aren't hiring very many qualified techs anymore. Toyota has a "tech support" line for technicians. So instead of keeping more qualified techs in the shop and paying them more, they rely more and more on the tech support. So they just bring in any old person off the street and pay them $15 per hour (commission) and when they can't figure out the problem they just call tech support or give the car to my friend to diagnose for free.