"Why I Left Toyota" ―Former Toyota Mechanic Shares What It Is Like Drinking the Dealership Kool-Aid

In previous articles, we've learned about some of the risks of trusting an automotive technician with your car's maintenance and repair. This is especially true when you go in for one service or repair and wound up with much more than you bargained for. The worst of this is having to return shortly after a service or repair is done.

When things go wrong with a repair or service, it is easy to despair of another's intellect, level of education, and maybe even their genetic parenthood. In fact, many of us have been guilty of jumping to a negative conclusion too quickly just because we did not have all the facts or information we needed concerning a recommended repair.

The critical point I am trying to make here is that it is hard to remember that everyone is more or less human at times like these. We all occasionally make mistakes that do not always deserve the ridicule and/or anger when something goes wrong in the repair shop.

This brings us to today's topic: What life is like for a dealership mechanic that may help us understand part of the problem customers face with repairs at a dealership service department is not about the mechanic’s abilities but is about his workplace conditions.

The Life of a Toyota Mechanic

In a recent post on the ShiftWrenchRepeat YouTube channel, the host, a former Toyota dealership mechanic, takes the time to explain why he left Toyota. The host, who has been working his own repair business for the past three and one-half years, discusses how the nature of being chained into the servitude of flat-rate employment can and does affect many mechanics who might otherwise have repaired customers’ cars better…or at least with more care.

What Is a Flat-Rate Mechanic?

Working at a flat rate as a mechanic means you are paid based on specific tasks or jobs rather than receiving an hourly wage for the time spent at work. In other words, the more jobs you complete, the higher your wages will be for that day. Conversely, if you do fewer jobs, you will be paid less regardless of the time spent in the garage service department wrenching away the hours.

Here is how the flat-rate system typically works in many garages:

1. Every repair or maintenance task has a standardized time estimate called "book time" or "flat rate time." For example, replacing brake pads might be assigned 2 hours of flat rate time. A mechanic is paid for those 2 hours regardless of how long it took them to complete the job.
2. The advantage is that the more skilled and quick a mechanic is, the more jobs they can complete daily. This is a big plus, as potentially a mechanic could make more this way than with an hourly wage.
3. The disadvantage of this, however, outweighs this advantage if business is slow and there are no cars currently in the shop to work on; or if the repair, in reality, takes longer to complete than the flat rate estimate; and when obstacles like a problematic repair and/or having to wait for parts to arrive can severely cut into the number of repairs completed daily―a mechanic doesn't earn money, since pay is tied to completed jobs.

The onus of this kind of working relationship between a garage and a mechanic is that the mechanic may feel pressured to work faster, which could impact the quality of their work as they try to cut corners to make up for lost time.

In the best-case scenario, the flat rate system can be rewarding IF a mechanic is efficient, experienced, and skilled at completing jobs quickly without sacrificing quality.

But here's the rub.

Experience comes with time―years of it. Skills must be continually updated to keep up with the advances and changes in modern cars that have become increasingly complicated, each model with its own repair idiosyncrasies.

To hear it from someone who has "been there and done that," follow along with the host to discover why life as a Toyota mechanic was bad enough to drive him away and drive him to venture into running a business in addition to repairing cars.

Please note: Begin watching at timepoint 4:05 to get to the meat of the "been-there and done-that" story.

If you prefer, however, a summary of the video is provided below for your convenience as well.

Why I Left the Toyota Dealership…Discussion…Or Rant?

Video Summary

1. "Drinking the Dealership Kool-Aid" is the moniker for the selling point provided by service departments to newbie mechanics that promise good wages as long as you are willing to work hard. In practice, however, it does not work out that way.
2. "Saturday Rotations" or filling in for a sick or absent mechanic means that too often, you will be working 6 days a week, leaving you exhausted and on the road to workplace burnout. Do not expect those life/work balance measures you may hear about in other fields.
3. After two years, reality sets in once a new tech becomes more experienced, only to discover that flat-rate work benefits the business more than it does the worker despite the worker's accumulated weekly hours. Remember, the completed job pays a mechanic, not the hours spent wrenching.
4. The Toyota dealership he worked at did not have a base-rate guarantee for the less busy winter months to help mechanics earn a decent living during business slowdown.
5. Training modules done online were expected to be done by the mechanic either at work or at home―without pay. Other dealership garages reputedly pay their employees for time spent increasing their skills through required training.
6. Warranty work and recall work sucks because there is a shorter labor time allotment for warranty-related work as opposed to non-warranty work for the same repair. Compounding this with some repairs of the same type can be easy on some models but horrendously complex on other models of Toyota.
7. Corporate managerial changes and restructuring can create chaos and make a hard job harder. The mechanic has no say or input when these kinds of decisions are made that directly affect them.
8. The Sales department dictates to the Service department what repairs are okayed and not okayed when it comes to used car lot vehicles, which is a conflict of interest for a mechanic who wants to do a good job every time and knows that if a job is not done well, a customer will come after them later with complaints.
9. The host finalizes his discussion with what it came down to that forced him to leave Toyota:

"You guys can see where this just created all this turmoil. It was just horrible and at the end of my career at Toyota I resented being there. I couldn't even believe how bad that this dealership setting and the experience that I was now having. You know, 7 years into being there had just like completely destroyed my ability to want to do my job," explains the host.

"It was like the worst job experience I'd ever had. And that says something because in college I worked as a janitor in the summertime and that wasn't rainbows and unicorn farts either. But it was just I'd never been so miserable, and I was like I can't stand this anymore."

For additional straight talk from mechanics about their job and what they see, here are three related articles that show for your consideration:

1. Truth from a Toyota Mechanic Might Offend Toyota Truck Owners
2. Master Mechanic Admits Technician Mistakes
3. 5 Things Never Say to a Mechanic if You Want to Save Money on Your Repair Bills

Timothy Boyer is an automotive reporter based in Cincinnati who currently researches and works on restoring older vehicles with engine modifications for improved performance. He also reports on modern cars (including EVs) with a focus on DIY mechanics, buying and using tools, and other related topical automotive repair news. Follow Tim on Twitter at @TimBoyerWrites as well as on Facebook and his automotive blog "Zen and the Art of DIY Car Repair" for useful daily news and topics related to new and used cars and trucks.

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