Topic: Anyone here got Formal Motorcle Mechanics Training??

[heffay]

What is the average salary of a wrench at a dealership anyway??
 

i've been doing other things since 2002 but, when i was wrenching i was getting $17 flat rate hour.  i was also assistant managing the "PDI" department (pre-delivery inspection), basically setup post-build from the crate.  when i was in the PDI dept. i was getting something like 10 or 12 an hour.  averaged out it was around $12-15 per hour before tax.  i didn't think my wages were terribly bad for only being in the biz for a few years. 

by the way... not all shops separate the build from setup but often times in the bigger shops, bikes will sit for a year or more and you don't want to put gas and oil in and run them until they are purchased.  just depends on the shop. 

when i first started for metro motorsports i was doing all the deliveries.... i've been a "driver" for a lot of my life.  drive from glendale down to tempe EVERYDAY to pick up a truck and trailer full of bikes, quads, watercraft, etc. that the builder did for that day.  usually about 4 vehicles in the back of the truck and 4-10 on the trailer.  i usually hauled all the showbikes and stuff to the bike/car shows too... i had fun calculating each day the value of all the product on my truck... most i ever estimated to be in excess of $200k... very unnerving day when you consider that i was doing all of the tying down and untying and moving, etc.

it seems to me that management and sales make the most money.  or else they just buy big trucks and whatnots to impress people.  i've never really gotten to the bottom of that.
parts and service do the important stuff and usually get a fraction of what the other guys do... don't worry, all of these things i've learned and taken to heart... i'll be one of the good guys to work for 

[bwaller]

I worked as a mechanic at a large dealership in Montreal until 1975 and I know, that to a motorcycle store owner the money was in new unit sales. I don't imagine it's any different now. In this part of the world early spring was high time for sales. Every other aspect of the business would aid to that end, assembling, PDI's, installing accessories (the shop hired guys just for this job in the spring, freed up the mechanics to do our work) and the parts department pushed those sales of accessories, etc.

I also know the owner was happy if the shop showed a profit at the end of the year. And we were busy. I think the idea for the rest of the year was that the shop helped make money for the parts department, and lets face it there was big money in parts sales too. I was never comfortable knowing this.

There was a full time core group of people of course, but it seemed there was always a transient labour force in that business, so I think the wages were lower because of that. It's just the way the business worked. I will say too there was an attempt to offer good service in those days. I was paid an hourly wage and....basically starved, it was a long time ago.

Still in 75 I moved to Vancouver, BC and the scene was somewhat different, less population than in the east, sales weren't as brisk and I worked in a small business that laid more focus on the shop because he sold fewer bikes. It was a real "service department" and we made good service a priority. I worked for 45% of the shop rate. If I made a mistake I made good on my own time so you had to be careful, but if you were fast the money was really good.

A month after moving three thousand miles I averaged $400/week compared to $125 in MTL.  Not bad in those days.