I’m a 17 year old girl who started getting interested in cars and motorbikes, started taking pics of them and that goes from there to a hunger to try and eat up as many information as possible, I’d say I’m still mid about it but I’m there.
I’m curious when I start taking it seriously, where do I go to learn? do I work at a dealership and learn or go through a school or a college? what books and channels are useful for me to get a head start from?
I started with a night course in small engine repair. That taught me how to understand simple two and four stroke engines, their diagnosis and repair. It’s a life long skill. You’ll never go to a mower shop again. I decided I liked two strokes and took courses in outboards, boat repair and rigging. That lead to working for Chris Craft, then a high performance shop and eventually my own shop. Lots of free mowers only have carb problems. Do a quick repair and flip them for pocket money.
Give up on being a mechanic and become a service advisor.
There’s no money in being an automotive mechanic, especially at a dealer. The money is in diesel and medium+ truck. Especially if you don’t mind living onsite at the bottom of a mine.
Women are drastically underrepresented in the field. Sexism is rampant in the shops. Guys grope each other for fun.
But women are also underrepresented in the office. Women customers trust a female advisor more than a male. Male customers want to deal with a female advisor more than a male…
And you can keep your hobby passion for turning wrenches without turning your passion into your career and hating it.
Male customers want to deal with a female advisor more than a male…
I’m not so sure about that part. We have two women service advisors and customers will sometimes question them, but then I tell the customer the same thing and everything is ok. I don’t know for sure if it’s because they are women or because they don’t know how to fix a vehicle. I don’t think most service advisors know how to fix a vehicle, though.
That’s just typical service advisor problems. No one believes you because you’re not covered in grease. And places like Midas and Jiffy Lube don’t give the profession any help.
Since I’ve started working at my dealer as a tech, (about 2 years) we’ve had one female technician and she was one of the best. Moved out of state though. Our advisors are split about 50/50, and I think we might actually have more male advisors. There is plenty of money at the right dealership. I’ll admit though, I definitely work on my own stuff much less now.
From a DIY perspective. Save up $500 and buy a beater old car (and do yourself a favor make it a relatively common American or Asian car). One that’s pretty crappy but still runs is ideal. Then buy the Haynes repair manual for that car, and start YouTubing repairs. Donut media and chrisfix are good YouTube channels to start with.
I work at a Toyota dealership and we have quite a few 18 year old technicians that are doing the T-Ten program, where they work for about 6 weeks and then go to school for about 6 weeks. I think the program is about 2 years, and you come out of it with some certifications. I believe our dealership also helps with the cost of the program. I did a different program so I can’t speak on specifics, but if it interests you, you could do some research on what it’s like working in a dealership setting or maybe even ask to shadow someone for a day. I had one recently. You could also see if your local community College offers any automotive programs. We have a technician who did an automotive program at our local community College and now he is more of a manager over all of our lube techs. It’s also very possible that you end up finding out this line of work isn’t for you, I’ve seen multiple people quit very early on. It definitely isn’t for everybody.