the joys of being a mechanic

[Poil336]

so i've been around cars for a few years, currently have an internship at a chevrolet dealership, and am going to school for auto tech. i have a little practical experience and a basic set of hand tools. i'm also only 20 years old. i am, in most respects, a noob when it comes to really turning a wrench. i know more than average people do about cars, but the only thing that really sets me apart is that i have the drive to figure out how to work on them and get a certain job done. ever since i've decided that this was the path i was taking, i've been told that it's a mistake, i won't make any money at it, that the grand prix project is stupid and a waste of money, i should be doing something more "important", etc. that attitude really changes when somebody needs a f*cking technician. like my parents, who have said nothing good about my life choices since junior year of high school. b!tched and moaned and complained and screamed until i finally did the brakes on my dad's truck. i let it go, because i owe them money for helping me with my down payment on my car. so they basically paid me $100. works for me, even though that job at a dealership is a lot more. not to mention they brought me the wrong parts three times. so then my mom's car had a bad vibration in the brakes. the fronts were fine, had half a pad left, but the shoes on the back were worn. my dad told me i was wrong, incorrectly assuming that the top of the shoe would wear the same as the bottom part. so i told him to take it somewhere else. he did, and of course got f*cked. the shop said it had a bad brake line... wtf does that mean? i told him that the shop would put the parts that they sold him on, flip the shoes around, and turn the drums. that's exactly what they did, and charged him $400. and it was my fault because i didn't wanna mess with drum brakes. and then tonight, i do a complete stereo and subwoofer install for free, after getting wrong part after wrong part after not getting parts at all, and the guy has the balls to say the head unit mount looked like sh!t? i told him he bought the wrong one and there's nothing i could do for him, and politely tell him to take himself and his sh!tty ass music elsewhere before he woke up my entire neighborhood. he's lucky i don't do something retarded like wire his horn to his brake lights after that. bastards.

TL;DR - mechanic does good for people after being disrespected, and then gets disrespected.

[Fatboy501]

Man, some people. I work as an installer at an audio shop part-time (whenever the owner needs extra help lol) and you wouldn't believe how some people hover over you and explain what to do like you don't know what the hell you're doing. I just follow their directions, and then kindly ask if I can have a moment to do it correctly when they complain about the results.

[matt5112]

HA.

thats nothing.

Know one guy who worked 50-60 hours a week just to make 20 K in one year.

I made 16K in the same year working 30 hours a week at minimum wage.

On the audio topic: my buddy paid two grand for some "high end audio install" BS.

the guys there told him to not let his buddies play with the settings....


Lone behold, they had the rear speaker output from the deck hooked up to the sub and the sub output hooked up to the rear speaker on the speaker amp.

then they had the bass "boost" (aka clipptastic fail EQ) turned up halfway.

Hilarious how "pros" are really not so professional all the time, yet "joes" can be equally lacking or significantly better.

[dsmuts]

I've been told by almost every mechanic I know it's a bad field to get into so I just do work on the side. I'm always working on mom and dads cars and grandma's car for free. It sucks but I figure I owe them that after they have taken care of me all my life. I hope it gets better for you phil.

[matt5112]

The biggest issue is you'll spend so much on tools that it negates any increase in wage over another comparable field given your invested education.

[Fatboy501]

Lol.. yeah, I've talked myself blue in the face (and I'm a light-skinned black/puerto rican guy, so that's a LOT of talking lmao) about clipping because of turning on "loud", bass boost, etc. etc. etc.

I really hope my education pays off... I'm currently enrolled in a Diesel Mechanic program.

[sportred04]

Lol.. yeah, I've talked myself blue in the face (and I'm a light-skinned black/puerto rican guy, so that's a LOT of talking lmao) about clipping because of turning on "loud", bass boost, etc. etc. etc.

I really hope my education pays off... I'm currently enrolled in a Diesel Mechanic program.

fatboy...that the field i went into. i like it. i currently work on semis but if i had to do it again i would have gone to heavy equipment, either way. i have yet to find a shop that i actually like, management sucks, people are slobs, etc. but i keep to myself and do my work and enjoy it. its certainly different that working in a dealership or car shop, i work with company drivers and a few owner ops, they know if they want it fixed and done right they have to leave us alone, if they b*tch and moan and piss me off it wont get fixed very quickly at all.

been in it for 4 years and have 8k plus in tool and just spent 2500 on a box. it wont stop but itll slow down

[cerick08GP]

Lol I feel for you man. I try to do people favors and save them hundreds of dollars. The only thing I usually get is some ignorant comment about how they want a professional to do what is in reality a very simple task. Man I had this 8iacth of a gf not long ago, she didn’t have much money so I offered to do her brakes if she just bought the pads. Well, I kindly offered a few times but I’d get “I have no money” or “What if you break my car?” or some other BS response. I’m like fine, what ever, I would have done the job totally pro gratis if she would have been the least bit appreciative. But the rub is I knew the brake pads needed replacing, but in her ignorance they were fine. Well she drove them way past metal to metal, and only when the noise and smell (not to mention the car would barely stop) got so bad THEN she asked me to fix them 4 months later. I was like nope, you need a profession now. So $600 later she had her wish.

Welcome to the real world where good deeds rarely go unpunished.

[Poil336]

honestly, the investment in tools and knowing that i'll never really finish buying tools is the scariest part, for me at least. working flat rate is a close second. the guys at my shop seem to be doing pretty well, whether that's from being a tech or selling drugs remains to be seen. i kinda keep to myself and live within my means when it comes to finances, and i'm pretty well decided that kids aren't in my future. my house doesn't have to be anything special. if the garage is bigger than the living area, that's fine too. i got into it because i think that being a tech gives me the best shot at not dreading going to work in the morning. i like the guys i work with, and the guys i go to class with. i honestly enjoy the job, at least for the time being, and hopefully that leads to excelling at it

but yeah, i forgot about the other head unit install. didn't even have to take the dash apart for this one, it was an old honda accord. i just kept hearing" what if you break it?" and "don't break it or i'll kill you/stab your eyes out/key your car" and stuff. if you're scared of a car breaking, don't own one. and don't threaten the guy working on it when you don't know anything about it, because all of a sudden it won't start and he mysteriously won't know how to fix it. and people complaining about time, jesus christ. i get paid by the job, believe me i'm not slacking

[Jackblack99]

I am a tech in a Dodge dealer. I have always been a mechanic of some sorts. I have always been lucky and got paid houry up until the dealership. But flat rate straight up sucks unless the shop is swamped. My service manager fed me a line of **** about how busy they are... Blah blah blah. Yea so damn busy the average weekly flag rate is low to mid 30's. Not accepable in my book. And to touch on the whole "people taking advantage/disrespecting you" thing... I only help out my close family. I work on my moms, dads, sisters and 1 of my brothers vehicles for free. You phuck me once you can kiss my ass. Youll never get a break from me again. I dont talk to my older brother anymore because of chit like that. As much as i love mechanics and working on cars, it does suck as a profession IMO. I probably wont be a mechanic for much longer.. Which kind of sucks like you said, becuse i have a massive investment in my box and tools inside it. But you can bet once i get my garage built at my house ill be doing work out of it.

[BillBoost37]

There is an art to working on people's cars. The first and foremost thing is typically having them drop off the car and pick it up after you are done. Many people view their cars as a child etc and don't understand how work is done to cars. Those are the hovering, constant nagger types. Then there's the other people..like you and I that are interested in how things work, ask questions to learn and think it's cool how you can fix broken things. Those are the ones you can let hang around. It takes a little time to get an understanding of who you let hang out and who you do work for when they aren't around.

Like any job and daily life..there's a balance of going through the herd of people.

[Jackd90]

There is an art to working on people's cars. The first and foremost thing is typically having them drop off the car and pick it up after you are done. Many people view their cars as a child etc and don't understand how work is done to cars. Those are the hovering, constant nagger types. Then there's the other people..like you and I that are interested in how things work, ask questions to learn and think it's cool how you can fix broken things. Those are the ones you can let hang around. It takes a little time to get an understanding of who you let hang out and who you do work for when they aren't around.

Like any job and daily life..there's a balance of going through the herd of people.

I'm no mechanic, but my neighbor is. I'm getting a BA in comp engineering by the end of this year. Naturally, I have a love of learning how things work. He's often working on something in his garage or in the driveway; I'd love to go "hover" to learn about what he's working on but I feel like I'd be bothering him or getting in his way. Several years ago, he changed out my brake pads and let me watch (even gave me some pointers on what to do). I've been changing my own pads ever since.

[apierce1289]

There is an art to working on people's cars. The first and foremost thing is typically having them drop off the car and pick it up after you are done. Many people view their cars as a child etc and don't understand how work is done to cars. Those are the hovering, constant nagger types. Then there's the other people..like you and I that are interested in how things work, ask questions to learn and think it's cool how you can fix broken things. Those are the ones you can let hang around. It takes a little time to get an understanding of who you let hang out and who you do work for when they aren't around.

Like any job and daily life..there's a balance of going through the herd of people.

You know it's kinda funny my uncle is a mechanic for general motors for over 30 years. And he tells me everything I do with my grand prix is pointless. When I did my headers and the cat back he wouldn't stop complaining. He's 1 of those guys that thinks a car shouldn't be touched or fooled around with. And it should just be left stock. I think he sees me as a stupid high school kid. I remember when Bill did my header install I learned quite a bit :-) Although I am the type of person that's afraid to take things apart because this is my daily driver and sometimes I can't figure out how to get things back together. I guess I should approach this with a more organized method.

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[DoubleBlown]

Yeah but who wants to pay $2100 for a lim gasket job at the dealers when the car becomes over 10 years old. Eventually you need to learn how to do stuff yourself even if you have to ask a stranger to help you out.

[matt5112]

He never modified a car did he...

[Poil336]

yeah, huge difference between fixing and modding. my dad worked at the moraine GM plant (R.I.P.) for 15 years or so. he hasn't had anything good to say about my "toys" for lack of a better term. just really gets under my skin that there's no respect, not even a "yeah, i can see where you're coming from" until the very second their car is broke. the dealership guys nowadays aren't the grease monkeys and shade tree mechanics they were 20-30 years ago, there's plenty of communication lines and programming to be done. hell, the radio i took out of their 04 sunfire had a class2 line through it. now they don't have door chimes

[matt5112]

over 20 devices on the class 2 line in a modern vette IIRC.

Possibly over 30.

[Poil336]

over 20 devices on the class 2 line in a modern vette IIRC.

Possibly over 30.

i think the new cadillacs are up to 24 separate control modules. gotta love U-codes

[Ricky21]

Everytime I talk to someone about being a mechanic they say change your mind its a horrible idea too. I havnt had anyone talk sh!t to me about fixing their car or while im doing it because if they did I would drop what ever was in my hand (unless it was a beer) and walk away. Take it to the dealer b!tch..

[BlackGT97]

I hate knowing how to fix vehicals. Because the mother wakes you up at 6:30 in the morning because her car is making a weird noise. Turned out to be a wheel bearing that suddenly went bad...true story 6:30 in the damn morining lol.

And the week before that i saved her well over 1k becuase she got into an accident. Replace cosmetics and mechanical hardware....fun stuff. And I don't Get Paid. Although if it was my dad, his favorite line is "Your got food in your belly, warm hosuse and a warm bed". I can't Complain, Little labor for 18 yrs worth of their money.

But on the other side, my mom bought a used car. Now she is one to hear noises, but when she bought it the lifter was ticking. And somehow after I changed the oil ( about the 3rd time) she all of a sudden heard the noise and said it was my fault.