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Multiple people have reached out asking what I think about the recent comments from Ford’s CEO Jim Farley. I enjoy it when people ask for my opinion on things like this- so let's get into it.
Farley went public and said he has 5,000 open mechanic jobs that pay about $120,000 a year and he still can’t fill them...... WHY?
“We are in trouble in our country.”
He’s right about the trouble.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says there will be about 70,000 openings for automotive service technicians and mechanics every year for the next decade. That is staggering.
Ever wonder why it takes days, weeks, or even months to get your vehicle looked at? I covered my own four-month wait on my truck’s transmission in this blog:
Dealership woes: Why customers are fed up with “No problem found” https://abrhouston.com/dealership-woes-why-customers-are.../
TechForce Foundation estimates the U.S. will need hundreds of thousands of new entry-level transportation techs over just a few years, with automotive being the largest slice of that pie. The automotive world has a huge opportunity sitting wide open for young adults who want to make real money without walking into life with six-figure student loan debt.
I recently spoke at The Woodlands College Park High School about what my career path looked like and what life in this trade is really like. The students were sharp, curious, and interested. There are young people who want this work. The system they’re walking into is the problem.
So yes, we’re short on techs. Badly.
But that “$120,000 mechanic job” is not what the public thinks it is.
Flat Rate: The Part Mr. Farley Skips
Most dealership technicians are not on salary. They’re not on safe hourly pay either.
They’re on flat rate—which is basically 100% commission, with no overtime and no safety net.
Flat rate means:
You’re paid by the book time, not the clock.
If a job pays 5.0 hours at your agreed rate, you get 5.0 hours.
If that 5.0-hour job takes you 10 hours, you still get paid 5.0.
If:
The part is wrong
You’ve never done that job before
You don’t have the proper tools
The special tool is broken or missing
The car is rusty and everything fights you
The foreman or dispatcher sits on your ticket for half the day
…you eat that time. The book/dealer/world does not care.
On paper, at a high enough flat-rate number, you can “make” $120,000.
In real life, a tech’s income depends on:
How much work the dispatcher actually gives them
How busy the shop is that week or that month
How the manufacturer writes warranty times
How often parts delays or missing/broken tools slow things down
How many broken, half-fixed cars they inherit from the last hack who touched it
That’s before paying for tools, ongoing training, and dealing with the politics in the building.
The Training Pipeline Problem
Farley is right about one thing: this isn’t a six-month trade.
He talks about five-year learning curves. I agree with the timeline, with a twist.
In my world:
Five years in the automotive trade, with the right attitude and effort, will get you to where you can do about 80% of everything well and without drama.
The last 20% of the job—the weird, ugly, one-off problems—takes the rest of your career.
In the beginning, you will have problem cars weekly. It’s not the car’s fault. It’s you. You’re new.
As you get better at your craft:
Those “it just won’t go away” cars get less frequent
You start seeing one or two of those gnarly cases a quarter, maybe every six months
That assumes you’re seeing 20–30 cars a week and actually paying attention
Meanwhile, the cars themselves are getting more complex.
Modern vehicles are rolling computer networks:
20–60 control modules talking over multiple, intertwined networks
Hybrids and EV systems layered on top of existing gasoline platforms
Driver-assist, cameras, radar, lidar, crash avoidance, thermal imaging
Encrypted software, secure gateways, MAC addresses, Ethernet, and firewalls
Manufacturers who digitally lock you out of simple functions, including resetting an oil service light, unless you jump through their hoops
Trade schools and community colleges are trying to keep up. Many are still behind.
High schools are even worse off. I’ve been on Klein ISD’s automotive advisory board for almost 10 years. I’ve pushed for updates. The curriculum hardly moves. Students are still not coming out ready to walk into a real independent shop or dealership and be productive.
So we end up with:
Not enough techs
“Trained” techs who really aren’t ready
Cars that are harder and slower to diagnose
An industry paying like it’s 1998 and acting shocked nobody lines up to do it
It’s Not “Nobody Wants To Work”
The lazy excuse is:
“Young people don’t want to work with their hands.”
That’s nonsense.
Plenty of people are willing to work. What they’re not willing to do is:
Take $40,000 a year for a job that destroys their back, eats nights and weekends, and sends them home filthy
Finance $30,000–$50,000 in tools out of their own pocket just to be employable
Lose pay every time a service writer over-promises or a warranty administrator decides to get picky
Sit in a bay for years with no clear path past “just another tech”
If you want people to chase that $120k number, you can’t bury the fine print.
You fix the pay structure. You fix the training. You fix the culture. You stop wasting good techs with bad leadership and broken systems.
I’ve got more to say about this, and I’ll be expanding on specific parts of this topic over the next few blogs.
If you think I’m off base—or you’ve lived through something similar at a dealership or shop—say so.
ABR Houston – European Auto Repair
IIRC, the book time for that replacement is ~3 hours. Yeah, right! I had to invent tools for the job!
I get the idea of incentivizing good/fast work through a reward system, but you have to make sure that it is a reward system and not a penalty system. As @thecardoc3 has mentioned many times, the most valuable techs are often the ones most screwed by the clock because they get handed the most difficult jobs.
No, techs need solid base pay with a + system. They need to be able to go to work and not be expected to buy their own supplies. But, I fear that manufacturers have already written off the trade. With every new model of vehicle, it becomes more difficult to diagnose and work on than the last, to the point that they will soon be no different than any other appliance considered disposable today.