Online small engine repair schools?

[Tiger Small Engine]

Just out of curiousity, what are experienced small engine mechanics making hourly these days?

If you go online and check, supposedly the median salary for small engine mechanics is $36,000 per year, which seems pretty low to me.

 

[Fish]

If you go online and check, supposedly the median salary for small engine mechanics is $36,000 per year, which seems pretty low to me.

Yeah, it is pretty dang low around here.

 

[bertsmobile1]

In Oz the rate is around $ 75,000 /pa which is $ 15,000 less than the average wage
The the shops wonder why they can not get trades people .

 

[DaveTN]

LMAO at Shaved Monkeys! Yep I’ve seen a bunch of those UNSHAVED APES too,
especially down South where I live. Thanks for a great visual laugh. That Taryl guy
looks like one but he’s a PhD on small engines. And more than a few aren’t shaved.
I could use a Bigfoot shaved or not to help me pick up and move those big heavy units.

 

[Fish]

It is pretty bad when the small engine mechanics can quit and go to work at McDonalds, and get a raise.
I should have gotten into working on boat motors.

 

[bertsmobile1]

when I finally graduated a freshly minted 4 year graduate metallurgist was paid $ 8,000/pa. a 3 year certificate accountant was paid $ 15,000/pa and a 2 year trained book keeper $ 11,000/.pa . Needless to say I kept on at it doing 4 more diplomas part time but after 8 year I was told to retain the job I had been doing for over a year I had to do a MBA as it was a "management " job & not a technical one.
I did 6 months of the MBA course and realised that to succeede I would have to become totally dehumanised so I left & drove taxis for a while, while doing a masters in material science ( never finished it either ). As a cab driver I was making $ 18,000 /pa
The I went into international satchels riding a motorcycle and was turning over $ 45,000/pa by which time graduate metallurgist salaries had risen to $ 11,000/pa .
Now I am not the quickest witt but it became abundantly clear that trained professionals in manufacturing were not regarded as essential by the accountants with MBA's One by one all of my graduate year got sacked & re-employed on short term contracts so eventually I had 5 of them working for me as fashion couriers earning double what they got paid as graduates till most went overseas , in particular to South Africa

 

[StarTech]

This is you must buy wisely especially as retire and get on a fixed income.

 

[1madmouse]

Nowadays you had better know more than 1 trade. Service is the only one everybody will need ongoing. Then you find that when you retire, SSI takes Medi Care of the top of whatever you get and COL raises never keep up with inflation. And a lot of people just don't get why raising the minimum wage isn't going to help anyone, quite the opposite. Where do they think the extra wage is coming from? Ain't no money trees around here. I don't know how you guys can run your shops alone without killing yourselves and still make a decent living.

 

[StarTech]

Nowadays you had better know more than 1 trade. Service is the only one everybody will need ongoing. Then you find that when you retire, SSI takes Medi Care of the top of whatever you get and COL raises never keep up with inflation. And a lot of people just don't get why raising the minimum wage isn't going to help anyone, quite the opposite. Where do they think the extra wage is coming from? Ain't no money trees around here. I don't know how you guys can run your shops alone without killing yourselves and still make a decent living.

Your darn toot'n. I started out in electronics but as things got cheaper and cheaper the need for a decent repairman became obsolete. I managed 16 yrs but had take a new field of repairs.

Running a small shop is a major undertaking when you got to be the chief cook and bottle washer. Yes I spend 10 hr / 6 days in the shop and then another 4-6 hrs working on finding parts and the bookkeeping for very little profit. I am looking forward to drawing my SS and the medicare coverage coming up in June this year. Then at least I will have small steady income but I will still need to keep on working in this field until the battery power equipment takes over as OEM are refusing to provide info and parts for most of smaller equipment. Since I work main outside and the shop is at my home I don't have the overhead that a brick and mortar shop has.

As for minimum wage when it increases so does everything else which usually takes more than worker gets in the raise.

One drawback this year is also I am having to do things at cost due the Moron Idiots at the IRS refusing to get my account straighten out which they mess up in 2018. I finally had it with them and no going to pay taxes to them until it is straighten out. I figure the best to achieve this was to switch to a non profit mode and depend on my SS later this year.

 

[Kevin Dibling]

I had been playing with vintage motorcycles for better he 30 years when I bought the small engine repair run which I thought would be a doddle.
What a steep learning curve.
There are hundreds of books about repairing small engines and most of them are not much chop.
Down here we call them coffee table ( if they are full of photos ) or bedside ( no pictures ) books.
Lots of information so general in nature as to be useless.

The best books are the John Deer Technical manuals as they tell you how the bits work and how to test them and what order to test them.
Most technical college libraries will have them and some are available from the web.
However GOOD & CHEAP are mutually exclusive. It costs money to write good manuals.

Other than that, You Tube is good once you sort out the shaved monkeys with a camera from those who actually know something.
Taryl Fixes All & Donnyboy87 are very good, subscribe to their channels and run through the entire play list.

A lot of parts suppliers also have videos, e-eplacement parts, Jacks small engines.

I am a licensed small engine tech and those channels are good also Elimanator Perormance is a good ne