Lots of Mechanics Quitting?

[AngliaGT]

Lately,I've been seeing a lot of ads for used tools/toolboxes.
Many of them (toolboxes full of tools) in the $20,000 + range. I
would think that it'd be hard for someone starting out to spend
that kind of money,& most car guys wouldn't have the room in
their garages for some of these monsters.

 

[bobhustead]

Yeah. I started out as a teenager needing to work on a '42 military jeep with 12.50/16 aircraft tires that we bought to use in the Big Cypress. Various acts of butchery on that got me most of my skills. Usual small box of hand tools. When I needed to fix something I didn't have the "expensive tool" for, my mom would ask 'will you use the tool again?'. After college, I was a line mech at a BMC dealer and I loved the Cornwell/Snapon trucks that came by weekly. I'm sure I have way more than the 20k box now (though my chest is still a 3 stack Craftsman, but I have a few other bags and boxes (one 30# bag devoted mostly to hammers and pliers). When I was a line mech, labor was 50/50 to shop and mech. Bet it ain't that way now. I pay people to work on my drivers. I HATE the idea of having a computer tell me what part to change. Refuse to buy one of those diagnostic computers. A Sun machine was high tech where I come from.
Glad you're posting.
Bob

 

[bobhustead]

Regarding the mentioned acts of butchery, I fondly recall the parts-and-everything-else guy at Jeep dealer DL Gaddis Motors (in Opa Locka, Fl) saying 'I've never seen one taken apart quite that way before'.
Bob

 

[DrEntropy]

I'd hate to guess what I've got in tools & boxes. Also well over that $20K mark. Specialty Porsche/Lotus/Alfa tools alone would be in the $2~3K range. Craftsman "legacy" hand-tools from the late '60's, three generations of other stuff. Proto, Snap-On, MAC, & others since the mid-'70's. One drawer alone full of taps and dies. Three Snap-On roll cabs, one is bigger than my refrigerator, with a side box. Other two are 32"Wx38"Hx18"D.

Not sure someone starting out could afford to buy the stuff I've got unless they could come up with enough cash. But I have seen newly minted Tech School folks go into heavy debt to finance BIG roll cabs from the various vendors (some even with sound systems built in!). "Indentured servitude" would describe those kids. The dealerships and shops aren't paying a 50/50 split, guaranteed. More likely a flat-rate scheme with an agreed-upon hourly stipend. The diagnostic computer tells 'em what bits to swap out, with mechanical expertise as a secondary consideration.

My former partner and pal recently watched a dealership "newbie" climb into a mid-nineties Ford van and couldn't figure out how to start it... couldn't find "The Button"!!

 

[bobhustead]

Doc
If I recall correctly, I had only taken the spindle bolts off the steering knuckle and brought him the spindle, hub and axle as an assembled unit.
Bob

 

[bobhustead]

Or maybe the upper and lower steering knuckle bearings removed, the felt and rubber oil seals and retainers removed, thus taking him the Carden joint housing, hub, spindle and axle as an assembled unit.
Bob

 

[bobhustead]

Doc
Free association and a new bottle of rum earns a response to your post #4 and the topic in general. My current swamp buggy is a 1968 Chev K-10. I may have posted 2 years ago about the rebuild of its T-221 transfer case. (Here omit bad language). My last rebuild of said gearbox was in 1979. I studied the parts carefully with a six pack of Regal beer ( a now dead Miami brand) and reassembled them in my laundry room. My paternal gramps was a tool and die maker and my maternal gramps a millwright for Jones/Laughlin Steel. The point of all this is that I believe that the ability to think thru how stuff works is genetic.

 

[DrEntropy]

My last rebuild of said gearbox was in 1979. I studied the parts carefully with a six pack of Regal beer ( a now dead Miami brand) and reassembled them in my laundry room. My paternal gramps was a tool and die maker and my maternal gramps a millwright for Jones/Laughlin Steel. The point of all this is that I believe that the ability to think thru how stuff works is genetic.

Funny. Mine were a millwright for Babcock & Wilcox and an Italian (immigrant) stone mason, respectively.

I know (knew) Regal. All my in-laws are in Miami. And I do have a cousin in Miami, too.

 

[Gliderman8]

Funny. Mine were a millwright for Babcock & Wilcox and an Italian (immigrant) stone mason, respectively.

I know (knew) Regal. All my in-laws are in Miami. And I do have a cousin in Miami, too.

My grandparents immigrated from what is ~now~ the Ukraine. He owned a blacksmith shop. When he arrived in NYC in the early 1900's he soon realized their was no need for a blacksmith services so he became a window washer on the skyscrapers in the city.

 

[AngliaGT]

I'd hate to guess what I've got in tools & boxes. Also well over that $20K mark. Specialty Porsche/Lotus/Alfa tools alone would be in the $2~3K range. Craftsman "legacy" hand-tools from the late '60's, three generations of other stuff. Proto, Snap-On, MAC, & others since the mid-'70's. One drawer alone full of taps and dies. Three Snap-On roll cabs, one is bigger than my refrigerator, with a side box. Other two are 32"Wx38"Hx18"D.

Not sure someone starting out could afford to buy the stuff I've got unless they could come up with enough cash. But I have seen newly minted Tech School folks go into heavy debt to finance BIG roll cabs from the various vendors (some even with sound systems built in!). "Indentured servitude" would describe those kids. The dealerships and shops aren't paying a 50/50 split, guaranteed. More likely a flat-rate scheme with an agreed-upon hourly stipend. The diagnostic computer tells 'em what bits to swap out, with mechanical expertise as a secondary consideration.

My former partner and pal recently watched a dealership "newbie" climb into a mid-nineties Ford van and couldn't figure out how to start it... couldn't find "The Button"!!

Yeah,but they get a really cool coffee cup "free" with all that.

 

[JPSmit]

To come back to your original question - more likely we are seeing mechanics retiring (rather than quitting) I do know some that have quit/retired as per earlier comments about computers etc. However, I suspect it is the mechanc's version of the reality that many in the trades are of retirement age and there is a shortage of people going into the trades. (getting almost any tradesperson is very difficult in a city like Toronto)