Re: Pay Wages For Small Engine Mechanics

Posted by Bret4207 on February 24, 2013 at 05:19:15 from (64.19.90.196):

In Reply to: Pay Wages For Small Engine Mechanics posted by Whizkidkyus on February 23, 2013 at 17:42:16:

I was doing, still am doing actually, small engine repair on the side. I don't think you'll make any real money working for a dealer. Min wage to maybe $10-12.00 @ hour. If you want to get into it, open your own shop. I pretty much specialize in older chainsaws. Word gets around that someone is fixing old Pioneers and Macs and Stihls and you get business. You don't make much money at it though. You will never get $50.00 an hour for instance. I know a shop that charges that and even the owner admits it's a farce. No one keeps track of time, they take a guess and always eat some time. With lawn and garden stuff you'll spend the first half hour getting the stupid stuff clean enough to work on. Most people aren't willing to pay for that and they certainly aren't willing to clean them themselves. And then you have the problem of ow quality replacement parts. I've put 4 or 5 spindle assys in one Craftsman deck in 3 years. They're junk, poorly designed and don't last. But I can get a whole assy for under $30.00 to repair a $2500.00 law mower. Doesn't matter what I do, they don't last. You have to be able to explain that and get the customer to understand that it's not you messing things up. Same goes for those "name brand chainsaws for under $200.00" someone mentioned. They have a working life of maybe 25-50 hours actual work time vs thousands of hours for the pro grade saws. The guy that only cuts a few limbs or a face cord a year is fine with that. The farmer that uses the saw 3-10 times a week or for days straight cleaning fence rows will have an issue understanding why his "name brand" saw crapped out when it's 3 months old. After all, it's a Husky/Stihl/Dolmar/Jonsereds, not a Walmart Wild Thing. But under the cover it's not too much different from a Wild thing. A cheap Husky or Stihl is still a cheap saw made up of cheap components and cheaply designed. The days of the 266 Husly or 028 Stihl that ran for 20 years with no more than a plug change are long gone. Same for the days of the Simplicity garden tractor that mowed, tilled the garden, plowed the driveway and dragged logs for 30 years, or the Briggs 5hp that ran for 40 years without anything remotely resembling service or PM.

It can be a good business if you can meet customer demands. They want it done right, done fast and done cheap. Pretty hard to do all that. Pros, loggers for instance, what it fast and right and if it's cheap that's great, but mostly they want it done right and fast.

I think you should look into your own place if you want to do this. Otherwise you may as well find an easier, cleaner job at TSC or something where people aren't going to be screaming at you they smack a rock with the mower they just paid to have fixed....and they will, even though you fixed the carb and it has nothing to do with the sheared key. :roll:

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