rwraysmith
Member
- Joined
- Nov 18, 2015
- Threads
- 6
- Messages
- 24
Small engine mechanic shortage coming?
- Thread starter rwraysmith
- Start date
There are several things that will cause the shortage to get worse. First you can't teach small engine repair for the most part, it is something that you are born with, and then you can advance that knowledge. Throw in the box store customer base that buy the cheapest piece of equipment they can find, won't pay to have their items repaired. Because it is seasonal, you can't afford to keep all your mechanics employed year round, so the go find other work, and then you start over the following year with new employees in some cases. I went to one of my update seminars in October, and of the 30 or so people in the class there was only 2 with less than 20 years experience. and over 50% of those present had over 30 years experience and will retire in the next 5 years.
The manufacturers and distributors are pushing for larger repair businesses and tend to cater to them, But there a lot of good mom and pop operations that tend to get left behind, and when they pass or retire,there is nobody to take over their business.
This has been the busiest year I have had since I started my own business, but actually did less repairs this year than last year. But have had a unusual amount of high dollar repair jobs in the $500-1000 range.
The manufacturers and distributors are pushing for larger repair businesses and tend to cater to them, But there a lot of good mom and pop operations that tend to get left behind, and when they pass or retire,there is nobody to take over their business.
This has been the busiest year I have had since I started my own business, but actually did less repairs this year than last year. But have had a unusual amount of high dollar repair jobs in the $500-1000 range.
bertsmobile1
Lawn Royalty
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2014
- Threads
- 65
- Messages
- 24,995
Well, yes and no.
I would challenge the first bit.
I do not believe that people are born with mechanical aptitude.
The left brain-right brain dominance theory seems to hold up well so it might partially support your theory but I believe it is more to do with early childhood education.
My wife is a beter mechanic that I will ever be, yet she did fine arts and taught painting so well a prestigious private school made a position for her then she taught every child in the juniour section 6years to 10 years.
However what we both had in common was exposure to a Meccano set at a very early age.
Nuts, bolts & bits of metal that go together in no predefined form.
As a social experiment the Humanities students interviewed all 9000 students doing engineering based studies at UNSW and over 90% played with Meccano as young children where as less than 10% played with Leggo
The following year they did the Commerse based courses and the inverse applied.
Next year it was Fine Arts whose results were very similar to Engineering.
The following year Medicine students took the same test and oddly enough, for them Barbie came out tops but only just above 50%.
I graduated the following year so never found out what the Law Students played with as children, something that I have always pondered about.
Now as to the situation currently here, small engine mechanics are also in short supply as are auto mechanics for that matter.
To work for a shop you need a trade certificate which is a 4 year apprenticeship with 1 day college each week.
To work independently you need nothing more than an insurance certificate.
An idiot government decided apprentices were doing it tough & mandated they get paid full adult rates while training so none got trained.
Both our major political parties took a big step to the right and sold off all government enterprises to private industry and naturally the maximum profit driven private companies stopped training tradespeople which is not cost effective.
This was made worse by right wing government incentives to castrate organised unions by subsidising importing "qualified" tradespeople from overseas.
As such numbers attending trade colleges dropped so they got closed down and we set of on a self feeding closed loop which gets worse & worse every year.
To make matters worse still, it costs about 1/2 of what you pay a tradesperson in wages to insure them so hourly cost out rates are over $ 100 / hr which makes it uneconomic to repair most small engines when comparred to imported temporary deverted landfill, so the buying public do not get things repaired. Mechanics see their $ 25/hr wages and compare it with the $ 100+ charge out rate and feel exploited so they leave.
Glass fronted showrooms use the workshop as a marketing tool for the sales department by giving outrageous quotes for repair, thus most of what the mechanics do is preassembly which is boring so again they leave .
The only mower shop in my territory takes on 1 apprentice every 4 years. He gets over the seasonal problem by storing all the trade ins taken during the peak selling season and gets the apprntice to do full rebuilds on them over the off season to prepare them for sale during the on season. He looses money doing this as the mark up on new equipment down here is 100% so selling rebuilt trade-ins drops his retail margins but he needs the extra hands during peak season for repairs.
Long term it is a dying industry and most in the industry can see this.
Ultimately pollution regulations will mean all domestic equipment will be electric and like hot metal type setters, bookbinders, blacksmiths, metalspinners & steam engineers we will vanish down to the ranks of craftsman hobbyists,
I would challenge the first bit.
I do not believe that people are born with mechanical aptitude.
The left brain-right brain dominance theory seems to hold up well so it might partially support your theory but I believe it is more to do with early childhood education.
My wife is a beter mechanic that I will ever be, yet she did fine arts and taught painting so well a prestigious private school made a position for her then she taught every child in the juniour section 6years to 10 years.
However what we both had in common was exposure to a Meccano set at a very early age.
Nuts, bolts & bits of metal that go together in no predefined form.
As a social experiment the Humanities students interviewed all 9000 students doing engineering based studies at UNSW and over 90% played with Meccano as young children where as less than 10% played with Leggo
The following year they did the Commerse based courses and the inverse applied.
Next year it was Fine Arts whose results were very similar to Engineering.
The following year Medicine students took the same test and oddly enough, for them Barbie came out tops but only just above 50%.
I graduated the following year so never found out what the Law Students played with as children, something that I have always pondered about.
Now as to the situation currently here, small engine mechanics are also in short supply as are auto mechanics for that matter.
To work for a shop you need a trade certificate which is a 4 year apprenticeship with 1 day college each week.
To work independently you need nothing more than an insurance certificate.
An idiot government decided apprentices were doing it tough & mandated they get paid full adult rates while training so none got trained.
Both our major political parties took a big step to the right and sold off all government enterprises to private industry and naturally the maximum profit driven private companies stopped training tradespeople which is not cost effective.
This was made worse by right wing government incentives to castrate organised unions by subsidising importing "qualified" tradespeople from overseas.
As such numbers attending trade colleges dropped so they got closed down and we set of on a self feeding closed loop which gets worse & worse every year.
To make matters worse still, it costs about 1/2 of what you pay a tradesperson in wages to insure them so hourly cost out rates are over $ 100 / hr which makes it uneconomic to repair most small engines when comparred to imported temporary deverted landfill, so the buying public do not get things repaired. Mechanics see their $ 25/hr wages and compare it with the $ 100+ charge out rate and feel exploited so they leave.
Glass fronted showrooms use the workshop as a marketing tool for the sales department by giving outrageous quotes for repair, thus most of what the mechanics do is preassembly which is boring so again they leave .
The only mower shop in my territory takes on 1 apprentice every 4 years. He gets over the seasonal problem by storing all the trade ins taken during the peak selling season and gets the apprntice to do full rebuilds on them over the off season to prepare them for sale during the on season. He looses money doing this as the mark up on new equipment down here is 100% so selling rebuilt trade-ins drops his retail margins but he needs the extra hands during peak season for repairs.
Long term it is a dying industry and most in the industry can see this.
Ultimately pollution regulations will mean all domestic equipment will be electric and like hot metal type setters, bookbinders, blacksmiths, metalspinners & steam engineers we will vanish down to the ranks of craftsman hobbyists,
reynoldston
Lawn Pro
- Joined
- May 23, 2011
- Threads
- 92
- Messages
- 5,705
I can understand why. The money to be made is in auto emissions or commercial work not home owner lawn mowers. Just look on this forum and everybody wants to fix their own mower for little to no money. You hand someone a bill for 500 dollars to fix their mower and they think you are ripping them off but not when it comes to fixing their car. I see it all the time its just a one hour job to change a engine or a 15 min. to change a transmission. That isn't making money unless you have shop full of them jobs everyday year around. Not likely. If I was out to make a decent living small engine repair wouldn't be it. I am to the point now I wouldn't work on a mower in my shop for less then 100 dollars.
Yep. A pathetic state of affairs , indeed. The Mercedes mechanic here $121 per hour. Trying to get to the attorney hourly rates ,but can't do it. The "need" for import labor due to the "complexity" of gluing pvc pipe together in the yard irrigation system. Milking the "cloud" to create an app that will wipe you clean in the bathroom. A daughter who builds her own fencing as hubby stays on line. Self driving cars??? What the ?? Today the local community college sent out its catalog. Not one metal working or shop type class.
On the brighter side a politician suggesting a welder makes more than a philosopher. The cost of "college education" is being challenged as no cost benefit in many cases.
Front porch stuff.
On the brighter side a politician suggesting a welder makes more than a philosopher. The cost of "college education" is being challenged as no cost benefit in many cases.
Front porch stuff.
bertsmobile1
Lawn Royalty
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2014
- Threads
- 65
- Messages
- 24,995
Yep,
The landlord bought a mill a few years back.
We thought we would sign up to a trade course to learn how to use it properly.
Nope, milling is no longer taught except as part of the 1st class machine operators course for a cost of $ 1500/pa 1 day a week over 4 years and you can only be enrolled if you are an apprentice working under a lisenced tradesperson.
We had to do the entire course and pass all exams in order to progress to the 1 term ( 13 week ) milling & planing unit in year 3.
So we were about to sign up having found an approved tradesperson to pretend he had a pair of 60 year old apprentices.
Then the department of Labour & Industry stepped in because we had not registered in an approved pre-apprenticeship OH&S safety programme which is only done at 1 college and only between 2 & 4 pm for 13 consective weeks at the start of each year.
Then they sent an inspector to his factory to check that his equipment was certified "apprentice safe" and thus it went till we gave up & bought some demo videos.
The same college runs 1,2,3,4 & 5 year Photoshop courses and all you need to do for them is pay the $ 500 & turn up.
And these are Government Colleges, subsidised by our taxes traning dopes to doctor peoples Farce Book photos.
The landlord bought a mill a few years back.
We thought we would sign up to a trade course to learn how to use it properly.
Nope, milling is no longer taught except as part of the 1st class machine operators course for a cost of $ 1500/pa 1 day a week over 4 years and you can only be enrolled if you are an apprentice working under a lisenced tradesperson.
We had to do the entire course and pass all exams in order to progress to the 1 term ( 13 week ) milling & planing unit in year 3.
So we were about to sign up having found an approved tradesperson to pretend he had a pair of 60 year old apprentices.
Then the department of Labour & Industry stepped in because we had not registered in an approved pre-apprenticeship OH&S safety programme which is only done at 1 college and only between 2 & 4 pm for 13 consective weeks at the start of each year.
Then they sent an inspector to his factory to check that his equipment was certified "apprentice safe" and thus it went till we gave up & bought some demo videos.
The same college runs 1,2,3,4 & 5 year Photoshop courses and all you need to do for them is pay the $ 500 & turn up.
And these are Government Colleges, subsidised by our taxes traning dopes to doctor peoples Farce Book photos.
I have a Chinese round column mill-drill and have been eyeing a 13 inch lathe. Along with this I watch metal working forums. There are a lot of home hobbyists, a few pro's and lots of wannabe's there. It's the lifeline to those who realize how the world is really constructed. The better forums have newby tips and lots of fundamental self help. Most of the forum participants are very enthusiastic helpful. Over here I bought my H Frt mill-drill (considered lowly, but I love it)for $850 delivered back in 2010. No longer offered by H Frt. Lathes are a major subject and the low end Chinese 13 inch models hover around $3500 with minimal tooling. Like other Chinese stuff there is an element of luck with iffy parts support after model obsolescence. The Taiwan units are a cut above and more expensive. This is a bit off topic , but I recruit where I can. All my metalworking is self taught as my family would not let me take any shop courses when young. I recommend that any one with the bug keep trying and starting with basic hand tools is fine. The better you get on the bench, the better.