gcfcos

I'm currently working in a main dealer. It's my first experiance of a main dealer, I've always worked in independent garages for the last 18 years. I've been here about 7.5 months and things were going ok but I only ever seem to do services and mots with the odd repair on older cars. We are a franchise so we work on differant makes but were mainly a Mitsubishi garage. Now the other garage down the road (Mazda) I work on all there stuff but any mitsubishis that come in get given to the other mechanic (or tech as they call us) he's off for a week and they got a few mitsubishis lying around waiting for him to come back when I'm stood around with nothing to do. Now I'm used to working on anything that comes in the door and even used to have my own buisness so I'm completely baffled at this. Even when they ask me to diagnose stuff they ignore my findings and ask like 2 other people who come up with varying answers and always comes back to what I said in the first place. Anyone else had probs like this?

gcfcos

I did ask one of the parts guys to see if he knew and he said he thinks it's cause I haven't been on any of the courses yet. I said well it's just nuts, bolts and belts like every other car I've worked on lol

focusv8

My Son did work experience in a BMW dealer over 20years ago.

Before their Techs did ANY task they had to have had training or watched the video.

I would imagine it's a manufacturers requirement for everyone to have training.

gcfcos

Yeah u could be right there. It's weird after doing my Apprentaship and 18 years experiance and more tools than all the techs here put together I'm not allowed to work on certain things lol.

gingeRS

I think you need to be asking your line manager or supervisor rather than a load of randoms on a forum lol!

Seems to me like it's either a training requirement or they don't have any confidence in you?? Hope you resolve it.

gcfcos

I know there's loadsa other mechanics on here who work in Main dealers and have experiance with them so that's why I was asking. Mechanics always ask things between themselves before going anywhere near the management normally first. Line manager/supervisor? That sounds like office talk to me lol. As for no confidence in me I'm forever helping the other guys out with stuff like broken bolts and rust issues etc as they've never been trained to do it and if a car don't start they haven't a clue what to do so they always rely on me with outside experiance which is why I can't understand. I work on all the mazdas and all other makes but when it comes to the mitsubishis I don't seem to be allowed anywhere near them. Which is really why I asked as not being allowed to work on one make, is that common? Cheers

chris cdti

might be like at Vauxhall, we had a Vauxhall tech grading from bronze to platinum standard along with people who are not graded. Only a few people got selected to go for the extra training. But all it meant was when a car first come.out they would go for a day or two course on how crap it is. Everyone seemed to have their fair share of jobs but a few had more engine jobs than others and a few done more servicing etc as they prefer certain jobs over others. So the workshop controller would use peoples skills and what they liked doing to get the work done.

gcfcos

Yeah that sounds about right what's happening at my place. I think I'm just gonna jack it in and go back to independents :-(

markk

iTrader: (2)

I wouldn't take it personally pal.
Having run dealership workshops for years, different brands require differently trained staff and requirements to meet brand standards.

You know the repair order/job card, when that gets audited by the brand if an un-authorised signature is on it then the brand can impose sanctions that can cost the franchise a lot of money.

The fact you have been there 7 months shows they want to keep you there.
Show interest, be the best you can and work hard.
The benefits at dealerships far outway those of independent garages in both training and pay once you are fully skilled/trained by the brand.

Regards

gcfcos

Cheers for that mate made me feel a bit better about it all! Yeah the boss said after the 6 month trial if I was happy and I had been offered another job at an indipendants for more money so I said that to him. He came back an hour later with the main boss and they sat me down and said they wanted me to move up in the company and they then offered more money than the indipendant offered and put me on the courses to work towards master tech! Though that'll take a long time

markk

iTrader: (2)

In my career in the trade i started as an apprentice in an independent, moved to a dealership, back to independent, back to dealerships.
I worked from technician, to qualified tech, master tech in multiple brands, to workshop manager/aftersales management.

It does pay off in franchises rather than spanner jockey' ing all your life.

gcfcos

Yeah there's defo a chance to work your way up. I defo couldn't do an office job but working up to master tech would be good. They said that's Ł13.50 to Ł15 an hour as a master tech

DangerousBryan

From what they said at daventry last time I went there getting rid of master tech qualification. Senior will be as High as you can go.

gcfcos

Oh not good :-( the master tech at work is a nightmare, constantly missing shit, every mot I do that he's just serviced I find shit loads on (he's a tester too) and he's always arguing with the boss and now he won't let the boss talk to him, he has to go through the receptionist lol! What a cock, I'd sack the fucker but apparently they have to have a master tech employed at the garage or something. Think that's why there sending me on the course end of the month

GVK.

Sounds like same shit, different badge.

Main dealers all seem to be similar from what I have seen.

We do Ford and Hyundai, I've been on Fords on & off since leaving school, but where I am now we do less and less Ford stuff, there used to be 2 blokes trained on Hyundai but one had 18 months there, he was sent on loads of Hyundai training, now he's left, leaving only 1 bloke Hyundai trained on the techie stuff.

As Markk above mentioned about dealer standards, we have a problem now where some warranty jobs on Hyundai Ive been doing but not really authorised to do!!

markk

iTrader: (2)

Can be very costly to the brand, I've carried out warranty auditing and incorrect or fraudulent claims are easy to spot in the sample.

GVK.

Yes, I worked at a large dealership in Worcester a few years ago, who had a warranty audit and it cost them about Ł50k IIRC.

markk

iTrader: (2)

As a dealership warranty administrator my biggest debit was Ł126 in a 100k sample.

As an auditer i found 38k in errors.

Another large dealer i knew who were audited had faced over 250k debit 😢

GVK.

Ouch!

creator

I belive now the brands/owners ie gm are now doing the audits then adding 10% ontop
Iv recently heard of a mazda dealer shutting down due to this.
When i was at a dealer there was so much fraud warrenty claims being put through it was comical,the works controler and service manager were pushing for it all the time.