Well Wish Me Luck. . .

[badvibrations]

After six years of slingin' pie and working my way up from driver to prep bitch and then to manager here at Imo's Pizza, I am finally leaving this small town and heading accross the country to pursue an actual career. Well school first that is and then hopefully a career at a deicent BMW shop.

Haven't been a class room for 4 + years so I am s00per excited. It may have taken me a pointless 3 years of community college and 7 years of living in "the real world" but I'm damn sure I'll be happy at least pursuing this dream.

Kinda late for such a question considering I am already enrolled to start on July 14 but, anyone with first hand info on UTI and the STEP program I'd love to hear anything you want to say about it good, bad, what to expect etc.

mike eddie

[Devil Inc]

Well the best to ya

[gazellebeigem3]

yeah, ive done the pizza bitch thing and you can only go up from there!

[der affe]

my old roommate and a couple of friends have gone through UTI. if you have the knack for working on cars, it will give you valuable experience, if you don't, that just can't be taught in school. get all of your certs that you can while you are there, they are included in your education and cost an ass load in the outside world and you are out of pocket for them.

if you can afford it take your diesel too, if you get tired of cars heavy transport pays very well!

i don't know about the STEP programs, but the Porsche program was kind of a joke. it was a big political deal to get a PHONE interview with the board who decided who got a chance to interview for the selection process to be enrolled in the Porsche programme. my roommate had a low A average, and went straight through without re-phasing any classes. he didn't suck up to the right people and could not get the interview. in the meantime he worked with me at an independent Porsche shop as well as owning and working on his own 911sc all the way through school and 2 years out. he now works for the only independent Porsche repair shop in Columbia, SC (his home town).

we had a guy that came from the Porsche programme at the same shop. he had to do every repair out of the workshop manuals. he couldn't do anything on his own. he said that is the way they taught them to do repairs at the Porsche programme. WTF? you'll never make any $$ that way

[badvibrations]

we had a guy that came from the Porsche programme at the same shop. he had to do every repair out of the workshop manuals. he couldn't do anything on his own. he said that is the way they taught them to do repairs at the Porsche programme. WTF? you'll never make any $$ that way

Well I hope this isin't the case.

And I really dont mind suckin a few dicks along the way if it will help me in the long run.
Shit, thats how people running for political office do it right?

[der affe]

not really. you should be able to figure it out with help from the workshop manuals. do it a couple of times, then pretty much have it down in your head. maybe reference back to the books for torque specs ETC.

ALSO:
you will die on flat rate at first, it happens, nothing you can do about it. when you go to a dealer they will put you under a tech to "train and evaluate you" learn all you can from them "in the REAL WORLD". you will get to know some of the shortcuts ways to flag stuff so you don't get screwed ETC. listen to him, buy him lunch, make friends. he will help you out more than you can imagine!

it may sound like hacking, but in the real world, as long as you do the job correctly with out compromising quality, the book is not always right.

[Farbin Kaiber]

der affe has the Stealership M.O. down to a tee. I have run shops for quite some time, and have had many a UTI student attempt to apply for a job. Most of them were those that fell thru the cracks and didn't make any of the Factory Mfg programs. If your paying +30k, which, I know it's gotten up to, (it was 18-20k back in 1998 or so when I was looking into going) plus tools, your going to want to max out every possible opportunity that arises (Any A1-x, C-1, etc ASE pretests/certs) ,and really focus and get as many S.O.P. pins as your badge can hold. Then follow der affe's list.

[der affe]

i don't know if they still offer it or not (I've heard that it was discontinued or limited $$$'s now) but snap-on used to give a stupid discount to UTI students while they were in school. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT BY ANY MEANS NECCESSARY. tools are fucking expensive and so is the box you put them in. any help, discounts, etc will help you in the long run. tool debt is an ugly, but necessary part of becoming a tech.

i am not sure of the cost of ASE test, but to give you an idea...... i have to take an I-CAR (body works = to ASE ) test for welding because i let mine laps while i was in the hospital. $750.00!!!! for one test!!!! so i can keep my I-CAR gold rating, fuck me!

[318isbmw]

Good luck, der affe has it down.

Look at the book for torque specs is all that's needed, easy once you've repeated it a few times.

[Danny]

This was written by Kellie on here except its on bf.c.

Should be alot of help.

http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=747329

Best of luck to you!

[PiercedE30]

Yea, definitely take FULL advantage of the Snap-On discount. I want to say it is somewhere in the range of 50% off of the list price.

[der affe]

a good thing about being at a dealership though is the BENE's.
usually decent affordable health care.
401K
discount on parts...of all makes!
access to special tools, tsb's, etc
discount on cars, ability to buy trading at a deep discount


downside
a bunch of ass kissing and bullshit goes on, if you don't do the proper amount of sucking up, there are some things you will never get.

everyone knows who is fucking who. it is a small world. everyone spends around 9-10 hours there every day. it is going to happen, you will prob hook up or try to hook up with one of the receptionists or cashiers.
i did it at Chapman, then she told everyone about it in graphic detail!
about 8 months ago, i bumped into an old friend Gina at work. we were fixing her Audi in the body shop. i bs'ed with her for about 20 min. and the manager kept check it out through the window. i walked through the office and he said"oh no, Greg is hitting on our customers now" i told him "we were friends from way back" showed him he number that she just gave me, told him "I've already been in that and we are hooking up this weekend" he got embarrassed and now stays out of my shit.
we went out to lunch when she came to pick up her car....for 2 hours.

then one of the parts guys started giving me shit about it. what ever's

just one of many examples. just trying to give you and idea of what it is like.

[Farbin Kaiber]

it's even better running the front, more flirts.

[e30s52]

what campus are you going to? im going to the arizona campus in september

[Van Westervelt]

I really dont mind suckin a few dicks along the way if it will help me in the long run.

Good luck! My car never see's a shop. The only people who have messed it up, were UTI and STEP grads. I learned my lesson then, and do it all myself now.