Just picked up my bike after having some warr.work found out that the service manager is leaving, i.had a great relationship with him.alway treated me right,hes going to work at a car dealer to make more money.just sux that the bike industry pays so low to work on high priced bikes.it affects the quality of work that gets done.there should be a higher pay scale in the bike industry or aleast close to the car side

 

Whats a bigger shame is the dealers charging $90 an hour. If the service techs are getting low wages then the dealership is raking it in

 

This is true,i know here in ny its a seasonal biz but they keep busy all year pretty much,workin 6 days in the summer

 

When I was growing up in the auto repair industry, mechanics typically got flat rate for jobs @ approx 50% of the shops hourly rate. Then consider that, on average, a good mechanic could beat the flat rate by about 30%. That was pretty good money.

I wonder what these HD mechanics are getting paid as an hourly rate these days?

With the dealers charging anywhere from $75 and up, you'd think that in order to attract the best mechanics, the dealers ought to be paying in the neighborhood of $35 - $40 an hour. I really doubt that is the case.

 

You would think that they would want the best of the best,but doesnt seem that way

 

they might be. but the mechanic isn't getting paid for the time that he's on the clock, he's getting paid for the clock hours of the jobs he's doing. so if he only gets one cam job for the week, then he's only gonna get about 6 hrs (or whatever the book rate is for that job) for the week. hard to support a family on that.

 

Quite a few are only making $12-14 or around $25-30k/year to start and don't go above $16-18. They generally move on long before they can reach that anyway. Owners pushing them to get things done quicker so dealer can have more bikes in and out and make more money. That's why things get overlooked or phucked up all the time. It's all about the money, screw the service.

 

Theres a lot more money to be made with a good auto dealer .Good service writers and techs can make some big bucks.
As a Chevy tech,my son was making $30 per hour(base)working flat rate.Now working as a union tech for public transit.$32.50 per hour starting pay,less work.
His friend is a SW for a well known Toyota dealership.Think he's making $90K plus.

 

im an auto mechanic and could only dream of making half of the shop labor rate. Nowhere close. The dealers want their cake and eat it too. They want top notch service techs but wont pay shiznit for it. Not sure how bike industry is but cars it about how much work you turn out in the least amount of time. Flat rate is, the tech get paid say 4hrs for a job. If that job takes him less time or longer the tech gets paid for that 4hrs. Top notch techs can make great money but they work like dogs and hopefully without any problems on that particular job. And they dont get paid anywhere close to half the labor rate. Its all about dealers making money

 

I work in a GM dealer in the service department. Assistant service manager. Our labor rate is 100.00 top paid man in the shop is 25.00 flat rate.