It's like anything else in life. You won't get **** out of it if you don't put anything into it. I'm starting at MMI Orlando in August. I don't really care if the instructors are *********...as long as I graduate with certifications and hopefully the harley PHD stuff, I'll be fine.

I've seen several posts talking about apprentice work. That may have been more valid 10-15 years ago, but if you want to do it right, I would say go to school, unless you just want to work on Evo's and earlier at the mom and pops shops.

I agree with the previous posts about going in the military. That will open up your world and give you college money. Army was the best decision I ever made when I was 18. Now I can go to school and let the VA pay for it.

 

I know a cpl HD techs and they have hard time not getting leyed off in fall and then you move to new dealer in spring maybe get a year or 2 there then do it again....and HD doses not pay chit to tech....if you plan to run an Indythats a good plan but to go and think HD will take care of you aint going happen....

 

i want to go to school to work on bikes. ive done it all my life but really i got into it more in the past few years! can some1 plz point me in a direction????

 

do not choose your career based on what you like doing now. most times you will come to hate it.

I know a few guys who went to school to be mechanics, they dont even change their oil now.

I went to school for IST back in 00-03, i dont mind working on computers, but i would hate to do it now. I think your passion dies off when you have to deal with all the side/corporate bullshit when you actually start to work on your career.

Perhaps if you opened up your own shop then it wouldnt be soo bad, but 9/10 what people go to school for isnt what they end up ndoing with their life.

 

sell womens shoes, pay is better, and you get to put very small shoes on very big women!! better than trying to make a living working on bikes, just no money in it. I do it as a side job in my garage, but my real job is working on cars, real money there if you're good

 

I used to love wrenching on cars and I didn't have much education to speak of due to life being, well, life so I decided becoming an auto mechanic would be a great career path. I mean, I love cars, I love working on cars, why not get paid to do what I love, right?

I started in a lube shop doing oil changes and tire rotations, air filters, super basic crap and then moved to a dealer doing the same thing. At the dealer I worked in the bays with the full techs, however, so I got plenty of exposure to them and was able to shadow a lot while the oil changes were slow. I did this for about 6-7 months total and then became an apprentice technician for a few months before becoming a full tech. I think it took me a total of 9-10 months from the day I started on that road to be a full fledged technician.

Anyway, at that time I was still fine with it because I was getting paid hourly and I still enjoyed it. It didn't matter if I worked on an ignition problem for 6 hours because I was getting paid by the hour and at 21 the money was good enough. Guess what happened when I went full technician? Yeah, switched to flat rate which meant I got paid by the job. If the job paid 3 hours by the book, and it took me 1 hour, I got paid for 3. Sounds great, right? Yeah, well, what about those head scratchers that take 6 hours and pay for 1 because it ended up being some stupid wire that isn't hard to replace?

Long story short, on gravy jobs I made bank, on hard jobs it broke the bank. Some pay periods I would turn in 120-130+ flat rate hours, some I would turn in 40-50. It was entirely dependent on the ticket queue and how many cars came through the doors. I can remember a stretch when we just had no work so we would literally get like 1 job a day at most. That **** lasted for like 2 months which meant I was physically at work for 80 hours a pay period, but was only getting paid for 40-50. Many an hour were spent sitting on my stupid expensive Mac tool box full of my stupid expensive Snap On, Matco, and Mac tools.

I did it for about 5 years before I finally had enough. I was 24-25 yeas old and was waking up in the morning full of aches and pains. I used to have to spend 10 minutes every morning stretching my back and my fingers to work out the cramps and soreness. I was getting by financially, but I certainly wasn't living a comfortable life and I went from loving working on cars to loathing it. I was always the guy my friends would hit up for car help and I would be more than happy to do it because I loved it, however after doing it for years as a job I became jaded and when I was asked by friends and family for the help I would respond with a price quote.

I woke up one morning and went to work, got pissed off because my service manager was a bitch and she stuck me with a crappy job that another tech was supposed to do on top of an already bad pay period and I quit. Literally, I just quit. I made a deal with my Snap On rep and sold my tools back to him to clear most of my finance debt and used what little money I had saved up to pay the rest and walked the hell away.

I am not saying you can't make a good living as a mechanic, just know what you're getting into before you do it. I knew guys that were making 6 figures, but they were shady as hell and would scam customer pay jobs, as well as warranty, in order to do it. The best honest tech I knew was pulling down around 60-70k/yr, but he had something like 20 years under his belt. Me? At 5 years in I was making $14.50/hr (3 years at the same dealer, and I was a lead tech which in my dealership meant second in command of the team I was on, just below the team lead).

It may be different working for Harley, but I would imagine being a bike mechanic would actually be worse simply because it is so seasonal in most states. Good luck to you in whatever you decide, but be real honest with yourself and think this through immensely before you drop a bunch of money on school to work on bikes just because you "like being around bikes".

 

Old ongoing thread. Yet, most any type of mechanic work isn't easy. Lots of sweat and freezing along with paying off the never ending expensive accumulation of tools you've bled on, or been burnt by, at one time or another. It's not a simple job, but some make good money at it. Those who are good and with smarts are able to run their own shop with success.

 

What is your present education?

 

OP stick with pimpin hookers n dealin blow.

 

wow a thread from the dead 8/2009 first post

MMI or any other school is going to put you in big time debt

read there required disclosures only 2 out of 3 students graduate, and only 4 out of 5 of the 66% that graduate get jobs in a year, so you have a 50/50 chance of graduating and getting SOME SORT of job... you will not be working on engine builds, you will be doing set ups and oil changes for 8 bucks an hour.

it costs 28 grand for tuition, and it takes 15 months, plus you need to eat and sleep somewhere.... add 25 grand for that! got 50 grand?

2600 students a year graduate... lots of competition for few jobs

Median wages (2012) $15.93 hourly, $33,140 annual

those are the MEDIAN wages, you are not going to make that for a few years

if you can live on 500 a week, pay the student loans off, pay the snap on guy a c note a week, go for it