the cost of entry is too high the pay is too low and most customers are morons.
join a real trade.
electrician, plumber, pipe fitter, boiler maker, etc.
don't waste your time swinging wrenches.
Having been in the car business my entire life, I wholeheartedly agree with this.
Even though dealerships tend to have the best-skilled mechanics, you essentially have to learn to game the system to make any money. In other words, you have to lie and steal and cheat the book time.....because all the manufacturers have been systematically cutting times for decades now, and you can't get paid a fair amount for the jobs.
So you lie and say you did more than you actually had to. Or some guys choose to gouge the customer pay jobs.
Either way, the system requires you to cheat in order to make a decent living. All dealerships want to pay you flat rate times, then they want you to produce more hours than you work. (e.g., you work 40, you turn 60 hours)
You can't do that legitimately by just working hard and accepting "what the book pays". Not anymore. You have to cheat the warranty times.
Example:
Ford used to pay .7 for an EEC test. (what an OBD scan used to be called)
They'd then pay you .3 for the retest after the repair, plus whatever time the component you replaced needed.
So your average check engine light job, you'd get 1.2-1.5 hours. You could knock those our in 30 minutes once you knew what you were doing, then if the car had some miles on it you could legitimately upsell some maintenance.
They they started changing things. Suddenly it was .5 for the test. .2 for the pinpoint tests, and the parts replacement time. You could barely get 1 hour.
I think now it's about .2-.3 for the test. For some vehicles that had known problems, if one of those came in you weren't even supposed to pinpoint test to verify the cause...just replace a sensor that Ford knew about, which the whole job didn't even pay a half an hour.
Now, there's really no way to legitimately do a job in a half an hour. You get the job. You bring it in your stall. Get the tester and test it. It's got "that code". Go to parts. Wait in parts for your turn. Install part. Take the old part back to parts and get it signed off, as all warranty parts must be. Test drive car.
No way. Even if you manage that in a half hour, best you're going to do is equal the time, you're not getting ahead.
Warranty is loaded with jobs like that. Ford Windstars used to pay 15 or so hours to R&R and overhaul a transmission. Then one year, with almost no change in the car itself, they cut it back to 12 hours. No explanation.
Hundreds of examples of manufacturers doing this over the years.
If you're going to be a mechanic, and a top one, you need to work in a dealership for at least long enough to get their top certifications (ASE certifications are meaningless and any kid right out of tech school or the local community college's mechanic course can pass them.) ....and be prepared to suck it up and not be paid fairly while you do.
Now, if you can get more money by having the ASE certs, by all means...get them. They are dead easy to pass if you know your stuff.
Then go open your own shop so you can get paid fairly.
Or just skip this profession altogether.
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