Shortage of skilled mechanics

The future of the world. Myself at 73, learned many skills fixing my own motorcycles and cars in 60 years.

 

I'm pretty sure you're talking about the time studies that dictate the amount of time for a repair. It's been revised for power tools and it's now much harder to beat the clock.

 

I bet that what they will say about you is your grammar is improper.

 

please elaborate

 

agreed its not like we don't pay bills that reflect high labor costs.... and as a consumer I can verify that it is difficult to get something fixed correctly regardless of price paid

 

Is there a ladder of sorts to climb before you can get into working on Ferrari's?

When I worked at the Porsche store here, there were numerous guys who started with the brand.

Some worked as valets before apprenticing with a shop tech, and some applied straight into being an apprentice with zero experience. Old, young, all over.

I think it would be something I'd be interested in later on, possibly.

I have other income streams outside of my current career and have a lot of flexibility with what I want to do. So, it could work I guess.

 

Working on expensive cars is more about trust and responsibility than anything else. That takes time to develop and a serious amount of self discipline. Working on fancy cars looks like fun on the outside. Once you are in it..you had better be prepared for a culture shock.

 

Few people realize that being a tech on Ferrari and Lambo, or similar cars, the typical Italian Factories offer no or little tech support to independents, or even their dealers. As time goes on, the factories abandon their after sales support. That makes techs a super hero when they discover a cure for a problem that Factory test equipment can't solve, and the Factory won't help. A simple example, 575 Super Americas have a rea problem in California getting a smog cetificate every two years because the secondary air injection monitor refuses to turn off, therefore making getting a smog cert is not possible. I had that same problem with two cars, and out of frustration called John Amette, Ferrari North America's head technical advisor here on the west coast. John explained to me that he had 5 Super Americas at his dealership for close to a year with out solutions, and that Ferrari North America wanted nothing to do with this problem, as the cars were off warranty and offered absolutely no technical support. As we spend countless hours after looking for a solution, we discovered that there are two vacuum check valves installed that operate the secondary air injection systems that were installed backwards from the Factory. Once reversed, we were able to turn off the secondary air system with a drive cycle and were able to get a smog cert.Total time spent, close to 30 hours. The customer was not charged even close to the 30 hours spent, but that is a typical example of what a good Ferrari tech has to deal with every day.
Gary Bobileff

 

Yeah I remember talking to the Porsche foreman about the CGT and what an absolute nightmare doing anything on that car was. But those cars are sort of in a different category. After being here for almost two decades now I know working on Ferrari's would require a ton of patience, for sure. Sometimes an "easy" job requires a lot more work than in normal cars.

 

I realise there are different categories when it comes to these cars. But I'm 15 years in maintaining my own 360 and now 430 and it's been quite easy. I am no super mechanic. But hands on with a solid trade background, they are just cars/machines. And in a lot of ways easier than many, many others.

 

It's my first time being actually qualified to talk about a certain topic on this forum. I might get a bit carried away due to this being about my peers, bear with me.

As a proud 17 year old, i can confidently say the reason as to why there is a massive shortage of skillful technicians in just about any field resides in the fact that WE. WON'T. F*****. LEARN. ANYTHING.

A world which just about anyone on the street has an university degree comes with a strong number of drawbacks, apprentinceship going out of favor being one of those.

The massive gap in trades lies in this, nobody wants to go to trade school and/or be tradespeople. Everybody is afraid of real life skills and blindly want to study at a university. The fear of "Being a failure" and "Missing out on sick Tiktok memes" is too great for people to raise their heads and look around themselves for once to figure out what they want to do for the majority of their lifetimes.

And because not everyone belongs to a university, most people pick out a major they'll hate just because they can enroll in it and then go ahead to be horrible at what they're supposed to do! That's why there are loads of unemployed, lack of basic skills "alumni" roaming around on the streets spending their parents' money!

But no, hardly making ends meet working a job you hate and have no interest in whilst paying off a useless degree is definitely a more respected life path than working in trades despite the fact the latter can actually provide for your future family and bring you more enjoyment in the thing you will do for the half of your time here on earth right? Damn clowns.

I know most of the people here are around 40-50 years old, if you fall in this range then please for the love of god help your kids figure out what career path they want to take. Your son being a mechanic while you are an engineer shouldn't be looked down upon, if you worry about the money please remember supply and demand, a skilled mechanic makes more than an engineer who can't use excel.

If everybody is super, nobody is.

 

John Amette WAS the FNA regional technical advisor. That was a long time ago. He was one of the people who made being in a dealer and interacting with Ferrari tolerable. He cared, he tried. The Italians never did. The factory position was the cars have no issues. If you are having trouble it is your fault. John, Craig Lortie and Ken McKay diid more to keep Ferraris running in the USA than all but a handful will ever know. What very few know and fewer understand is Ferrari has just as much contempt for their dealers as their customers.

 

When my generation was growing up and maybe for another 15 or so years Dad had a garage full of tools. We grew up helping him fix the car and stuff around the house. We built slot cars and model airplanes. I used to hop up model airplane engines and make them make a lot more power. We broke stuff and then fixed and redesigned it. We built and broke coasters, graduated into go carts and mini bikes. Broke and fixed those too. Graduated into real cars and repeated the process all over again. We knew a lot and had a lot of good experience and knowledge before we ever had a job.

How many kids have we seen grow up that way on the last 30+ years? I have a lot of friends whose kids have no desire to even get a drivers license. Its why all the skilled trades are in a dire shortage of people. Our society changed but some of our old needs remain the same.
We have very little need for buggy whips but I suspect a very good one is very expensive. Quality skilled trade work of any kind isn't really any different.

 

Amazing business model, huh?

 

The good thing was in those days Ferrari was pretty much hands off FNA. They had a good guy running it who hired good people below him. Ferrari didn't understand the American market and knew it. In early 90s whenever it was that the economy took a dump and Ferraris quit selling Ferrari decided FNA could do better and FNA was just using the economy as an excuse. FNA had always been very customer service driven and took good care of the dealers and the owners. Then the wheels fell off. One new FNA president after the other. Every one more clueless than the last each with a "These guys have no idea what they are doing" attitude. I saw a lot of very good FNA people leave, some with a very long history with the cars and the company. We wound up with people from Toyota and Ford as service technical reps. They didnt even know how to open the hood. A few were smart enough to know they were in deep over their heads. It was a mess and it has not improved a bunch. Most are Italian now as I understand it. But when there is an issue they tend to have the attitude "If you weren't so cheap you'd just buy another".

 

Quality is VERY hard to find. Recently a Porsche dealer near me missed a lower control arm that was bent probably 30 degrees from true during a 4-wheel alignment. How they aligned the thing, I don't know. You'd think the banana-shaped LCA would have stood out, if only because it would be darned hard to align that corner of the car. I guess that's why they didn't share the alignment sheet with the customer....

 

Outside of the racing world very few really understand chassis dynamics or alignment. Its been said many times by very knowledgeable people in the industry that after an alignment all the car needs is a good alignment. Its true. Most management think a car can be aligned in twenty minutes and if you do not make that come true you are in trouble. Hence the workshop saying "Set the toe and let it go". In reality most cars were better off before they were put on an alignment rack. Truth is most mechanics are clueless about it. As a shop foreman in a very large Ferrari dealer service department I did most of the alignments. I had on average one other guy good at it.

 

Ferrari establishes their own times. We often thought they drew numbers out of a hat. They made no sense and except for warranty claims no one uses them.

Now that flat rate is nearly universal dealers develop their own times completely independent of any publication. I have never seen a Ferrari flat rate guide except for the factory supplied times.

 

And you have never once done it with a timer running.

Changing parts and taking all day to do it do does not make you a mechanic.

 

No, changing parts and BILLING all day makes you a mechanic. Some Ferrari techs must work 40+ hour DAYS.

 

Here locally in Vegas the O'Gara McLaren dealership from LA opened at branch in the Wynn Resort and started a new shop for exotics. Some of the local F dealer staff jumped. The place is already stacked full of business. There's basically no one else in Vegas working on McLarens than these guys.


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Well you know nothing about me obviously.

I'm a hands on mechanical engineer that works in a time critical environment that a mechanic will never experience.

Not when I'm working on my Ferrari though.

 

BFD

 

Geez, you make it pretty obvious to all what you do. So what's the BFD with a mechanic that works with the timer running?

 

And yet people make a big deal out of sending their cars to the factory for Classiche certification or restoration work. It's hilarious the brand power Ferrari have to hoodwink most everyone. The Italian shakedown is real. Ferrari is not even doing the work most of the time.

Reminds me of people trying to get into the Vatican, you pay to get in then stand in line all day, then people approach you to pay a bit more and they will take you to another line, and that line is just as long. What's funny is the Catholic church employs those scammers to do this lol. True colors shown....