Service Advisor or Parts Advisor as a career

[jalopi]

In general, working in the auto industry sucks a whole bag of assholes. Significantly less so at smaller/independent shops. Just no matter what you do, STAY AWAY FROM CORPORATE PLACES. Both coworkers and customers are shitty at places like those.

Working in a small shop can be pretty cool if the owner is easy to work with and he pays decent enough (so you're not working with bottom-of-the-barrel crackhead mechanics)

[rturbo 930]

neither sound like much of a career to me. *shrug*

I'd stay in healthcare if I were you..

This.

Aim higher, OP.

[TimKninja]

Ive been a tech at an Independent VW/Audi/BMW shop for about 3 years now. I love the job, everbody here is awesome. But the pay isint enough, and as a newer tech you get fucked by tool bills . I spend $75 a week in tool bills.

I'm looking into being a Mechanic in the National Guard right now. RI Sucks, No jobs here.

I wouldnt reccomend doing anything in this feild.

[jalopi]

+1 on bending over for the tool man

my advice is to buy as much basic shit as you can on tooltopia.com

if you're really hellbent on getting name brand stuff, see if your local community college has any auto tech courses. sign up for one (maybe $300-500) and you'll be qualified for a SnapOn and Matco online discount for six months or so. 50% off almost EVERYTHING

[e30austin]

I went to tech school. Decided, like you, I didn't want my hobby turned into work.

I did parts for 3 years at an indie shop. Not bad. Felt as though my potential wasn't being reached. Now I do service advising at a different indie shop. Same makes of cars. I hate people, but enjoy my job a lot. Coming from slinging parts to what I do now worked really well. I was already familiar with common fail points on VW, Audi, Volvo, BMW, and MB, as well as P-cars. Thus, I don't look like a dumbass trying to explain stuff to customers. I make more money now. Always can advance. I've been at my current job since Feburary 2014 and already got a hefty raise and basically run the place when the owner goes on vacay.

One hint, you're not here to help people. Your there to sell work. Can't advise people on how to fix their cars. Just what is wrong, how much, when it'll be done.

Only sucky part is if someone isn't happy, it gets directed at me. So far nothing terrible has happened, but we're a pretty tight shop that doesn't fuck shit up.

I can't even explain how accurate this is for me too. I see myself heading in the service advisor direction fairly soon as well.

But, yes, as said above, don't ever make your hobby your job. I did, and I fucking hated it.

[SpecM]

^excellent explanation. Did it for many years. Like he said, you are the face of the repair in the consumers eyes, and you'll always either end up the great guy to the customer, and bad guy to the techs, or bad guy to the customers, and great guy to the techs. It's a balancing act to try and stay an ok guy to both sides.

This

I'm a service adviser / service writer for a local chain, been there about 4 years. It's not a glorious job, but I've had worse. I make about 50-60k / year, gross, 100% commission.

It's not for everybody. You ARE a salesperson...