I joined this group because I know a lot of techs have been taken advantage of early in their career, and I figured I’d share what happened to me at BMW.
I came in young but I already had many years of experience, my own tools, and I worked hard. The advisors in the shop depended on me. I was helping other apprentices, letting them use my tools, and management convinced me that letting flat rate techs punch on MY ROs I was doing would help everyone move up faster, including me.
It didn’t. All it did was make other people look better while I stayed in the same spot.
I watched guys with less experience and less ability get pushed ahead of me because of the program they came from or who management liked more. I also watched 4 different apprentices get trained into flat rate, struggle, fail to make money, and eventually get pushed out or moved. Then the same foreman and “mentor” who trained them would ridicule them for failing.
That really opened my eyes. If 4 people in a row fail under the same system, at some point you have to stop blaming every apprentice and look at the people training and managing them. I tried to work things out with the manager and foreman but was brushed off, so I left. The quicklane has gone downhill since then, service manager left, and multiple techs were “transferred” to other dealers.
My biggest lesson was that being the reliable guy can actually hurt you. If you keep producing, lending tools, covering for people and doing whatever they ask, they have no reason to move you up.
Work hard, but protect yourself. Keep track of your labor, protect your tools, and don’t let vague promises of “your time is coming” keep you stuck. The flat rate man has nothing to gain from training you to compete with him for the gravy.