“Do you guys want to know why there is a technician shortage,” Buchowicz says.
Toyota Master Mechanic Kris Buchowicz shared a video earlier this week showing just how hard it is to replace a simple evaporator on a newer model Toyota Tacoma and compared it to how fast Toyota expects its technicians to finish it.
In doing so, Buchowicz hopes to show one major reason why dealerships and auto shops are having a hard time finding and retaining people willing to work on cars for a living.
Check out Buchowicz’s video below.
Mechanics, if you don’t already know, are usually paid a salary (hourly workers) or by flat rate (per job.) There are pros and cons to each but mainly, if you’re a seasoned and efficient mechanic like Buchowicz, you can earn a lot of money working flat rate.
Flat rate jobs are determined by a set book rate that says how long a job should take.
As the name suggests, service managers used to use a literal reference book to look up labor rates but, nowadays, the book rate is determined by software taking into account variables like how complex the job is for a certain car, how long previous mechanics took, and, most importantly, what management’s final say is on said labor rates.
Worse yet, warranty work, is, as Jim MacPherson on Monster.com explains,
“…governed by the manufacturers’ estimates of how much time it should take to do the job. These are often less generous, so technicians who work according to flat rates based on manufacturers’ estimates may end up with less compensation — one-quarter to one-third less…”
As Buchowicz explains, Toyota’s determined he only needs 4.3 hours to complete an evaporator replacement job if it’s warranty work. But, looking at how complicated it actually is, especially for Tacomas, that’s not feasible.
There’s obviously a disconnect between what Toyota says it takes and reality. I mean, look at screenshots from his video, it probably took him 4.5 hours to just take everything apart.
As Buchowicz says in his Instagram comments, this is a common problem for all years of Toyota Tacomas so, if he or any Toyota tech, is inundated with this repair job too often, it can really eat into his overall take home pay.
If you’re trying to maintain a low turnover rate, this type of warranty work and what it pays is understandably demoralizing, especially for new mechanics who want to make a living out of doing this.
“The point is,” Buchowicz explains “….the times for warranty are made by fictional characters with super sonic hands and bodies.”
Buchowicz’s video is, by no means, a knock on whoever engineered where everything is laid out in the Tacoma. Since the job of an evaporator is to place cooled refrigerant in line with the blower motor, almost all modern cars today have evaporator coils between the car’s firewall and dashboard. It’s a logical location for one.
Hopefully Buchowicz’s video becomes a point of reference when Toyota management evaluates their labor rates and hopefully determines that said rates are part of the problem of dealership technician retention.
It would also probably behoove Toyota to, I don’t know…engineer a more robust evaporator?
It’s a Toyota, after all.
I’m an ex General Motors master technician. There’s always been a huge difference between factory warranty time and customer pay Chilton time. I left the proffesion 20 years ago.