Do you work with cars for a living?

[Andrew300zx]

I've been working in television for some time now, and I think its time to look elsewhere- I'm tired of the lifestyle and my job may not be getting me where I want to goSo, I want your help brainstorming- do you work with cars for a living (in any way) and if you do, what do you do, do you make enough money to live off of and are you happy?Thanx everyone

[Altiman94]

If you wanan work on cars, plan on not having alot of money. More often that not its not a very lucrative job.

[nsrZ32]

I do it on the side now (my business) and I'm going to school to attain my Master Technican Certification with specialization in high performance and racing. So yeah it'll be my career. I know plenty of people who do it for a living and enjoy their job every day and have enough money for their projects and house and are comfortable.

[UncleBen]

I work with cars everyday (going to school for it) but I dont like it. Its a bunch of BS, which I was expecting, but it sucks worse than what I figured. So, I guess I am going to start taking computer classes and become a nerd.....

[IvoryJ30t]

i have a ton of things that i do.

computers-im A+, CCNT [cisco network tech], and im working on MCSE cert. and working on a BS in information technology or electrical engineering. i do residential/commercial computer and network installation/maint./repair

i work on cars [i have worked in shops for years, but i do not have ASE certification because of the BS "requirements", and the fact that it would be alot of time involved, but very little return since i dont depend on auto work for a living]there are gas stations around here that do not have a shop, and they call me when a break down rolls in. i would love to get my ASE L1 EPS certification.

finally, im a tow truck driver. my specialties include repossesions, lockouts, and major accident recovery [rollovers, destroyed vehicles, ect]

you could say i have a heavy background in auto work.

[Andrew300zx]

thanx for all the responses everyone!uncleben- just curious whats the bs thats worse than you expect? is it the people you deal with?

[Bronze MFP]

I'm going to school for engineering, I like the fact that my school offers a motorsports engineering degree that I may or may not do. Clemson has a motorsports engineering offering too from what I recall. Usually people from that go on to nascar, but thats not the only job market. It's hard work, but well worth it.

[Japanese Steel]

I'm an auto damage adjuster for an insurance company. I go to body shops and write estimates. I like it, it's something different everyday.

When I was younger and worked at a dealership, I would hang out with the techs and try to learn some stuff. They all said not to get into that line of work because they are busting their *** everyday.

[UncleBen]

I just do alot of stupid electrical work and I'm tired of it. I hate electrical work, especially in cars. I'm not good at it and never will be.

[driverdriver]

I have worked in the automobile business for GM, Honda/Acura and DC, but not on the direct work on car side rather the business intelligence marketing end, a lot of it being who is the "consumer" for a particular brand and model, research work and analysis on what the target consumer would like to see, psychological profiles, socio-economic profiles etc, etc. Very interesting stuff!!!

[IvoryJ30t]

I just do alot of stupid electrical work and I'm tired of it. I hate electrical work, especially in cars. I'm not good at it and never will be.

thats funny you said that, i noticed that alot of the mechanics that ive worked with do not like doing electrical work.

any time we got a theft recovery, a stereo install, customers' botched work, ect... it would wind up in my bay.

ive known my electrical long before i knew what en egr valve was.

i think i etched my first circuit board around 13 y/o

[UncleBen]

See thats opposite of me, I was a grease monkey long before I did anything electrical. I had an entire class on automotive electicity, and i'm still kind of in the dark.

[Bruno240]

i want to go into a mechanical engineering degree and design the engines and such. I enjoy working on cars but i would rather do it in my garage on my car.

[gaehrings13]

I worked doing exhaust, turbo, piping but i mostly did more on the performance side but i hate doing basic mechanical work brakes radiator wheels tires rack and pinion things like that i hate i did it for a while in a shop that had a lot of business and it is a lot of work very very tiring but sometimes when your done and you think about all the work you do in one day your impressed, in one day i had to pull a engine from a little tercel take a head out of a saturn a head from a crappy chrysler sebring change brakes on 2 cars one suv change a bunch of tires and change oil on some of the cars too, it was a lot of work but you get used to it, i don't do it anymore cause im more experienced in computers, computer are a lot nicer to your hands too. The one thing to always remember in that kink of job is SAFETY IS ALWAYS FIRST I HOPE YOU NEVER FORGET THAT. If you think your going to get hurt don't do it ask somebody first, check twice you never want to get yourself in a bad situation. I was upset one time when i was working and i took a spring off on the spring compressor and i wasn't paying attention that the top plate caught the thread and when i put it down to pull the spring off the plate hit my face right over my eye and luckily i only needed 5 stitches. Working on cars is great but like i said safety is always the best thing.

[SmithSR]

<-- works on cars

Advice:Don't work on cars, work with cars.

Meaning, don't aspire to be the guy working under the hood. Be the guy working under the hood if it means one day you'll be the boss of the guy thats working under the hood.

[NSR_s30]

I work around cars all day. I work for Tire Kingdom and I'm a tire tech so I do rotations,balancing, flat repairs, oil changes...etc

[IvoryJ30t]

<-- works on cars

Advice:Don't work on cars, work with cars.

Meaning, don't aspire to be the guy working under the hood. Be the guy working under the hood if it means one day you'll be the boss of the guy thats working under the hood.

very true. if you really like cars, stay away from being a mechanic. after a while you will begin to hate them, and cars just become work.

see, i had no intentions of working on cars for a living. i wanted the knowledge and experience of hands on work.

[rousie13]

I'll let you know if I'll be working with cars later today....god I hope I get this job.

[Andrew300zx]

good luck on the jobthanx for all the input- I'm curious- does anyone work in any kind of racing?

[getnrowdy23]

i write tickets to cars, does that count?

[xyster]

I search cars for weapons and bombs, does that count?

[I Need $$$]

I went to school in Nashville to get a job as a tech. They taught us a lot of electrical and kept telling us that a multimeter was going to be are best friend. Ever since I have started working at BMW I have only seen 2 techs use a multimeter, granted I've only been there about 2 months. Then again most of the time the GT-1 (our diagnostic tool) tells you which circuits are not responding and what not. So far I really like my job. The only thing that sucks is starting out I have to do all the B.S. like taking out the trash and cleaning up but it will all be good later. Oh and from what I can tell a lot of places don't even care about being ASE certified anymore. Most of them will send you to a manufacturers specific school.

[toptechracing]

I do.....NO money no time and I wouldn't change it for the world.

[s13sr20chris]

srsmith hit it on the head. im looking to take correspondance classes in auto engineering. turning wrenches is fun but i hate the "human" factor.

[Andrew300zx]

I appreciate all the responses- I think I will try to get into some type of PR or dealer support type of job with one of the big automakers. In the meantime, I am going to leave tv anyway, not tough to make more money elsewhere in ATL- then I can move careers without debt! anyone have any experience with working for any type of racing team?