I am brand new to the Corvette world as well as this forum. I live in Utahand the only C6 I have even seen other than my '06 is my '05. I took a walk through the shop at the dealer I bought from and quized the techs a little and I not to excited to turn, as my wife calls it, the center of my universe over to them with my list mods. Does GM have a list of qualified techs ?? Any suggestions ?? BTW this Forum is ruining my life. LOL starting monday i am going to limit my self to 1 hour per day.

 

Congratulations on your entree into a fabulous hobby (or is it obsession?). You were wise in being cautious about who is going to work on your car. You will need to find someone who is interested in and knowledgeable about Corvettes and is passionate about his work. I would recommend joining a local Corvette club. Members are usually pretty aware of who is around to do good quality work. There are instances out there in the world of car dealerships where a mechanic who is not particularily happy about working on Corvettes could get assigned to your car and the results would not be good. These cars are quite complex, have things tightly confined, a little more difficult to work on and a lazy mechanic with a poor attitude might be motivated to slam everything back together with air wrenches, strip bolts, break things and generally shortcut the job. Make sure your mechanic likes Corvettes.

Regards, Greg

 

Thanks for the great feedback, I think your right arent these guys given a certian amout of time that gm pays per task ?? In watching some of them it seems like they are not even concerned about draging their greasy work boots across the door jambs of a new vehicle let alone paying attention to the details of more complex tasks.

 

I am also a new owner and participant in the forum and I share your reluctance. I live in Atlanta, GA. and there are a few more vette owners to say the least. Luckily, I found a dealership I trust. From what I have seen on this forum, you will have no problem getting help and advice. Congradulations and good luck.

 

They are paid by what is called "flat rate hour" times whatever their hourly rate is. You should know that shop repair jobs are priced according to industry time allowances and actual time to do your job could be much less and you will pay the set amount regardless of how long it took your particular mechanic. Many years ago dealership service departments paid their mechanics 50-50 which was quite good and which attracted and fostered good mechanics but this system has long since passed. This means if the shop's rate was $40 per hour the mechanic kept track of his time on each job and was paid $20 per hour of flagged (recorded) flat rate time at weeks end. Today shops charge customers upwards of $100 per hour and pay their mechanics by what they call "flat rate hour". This means a shop is free to hire a mechanic at whatever hourly rate they can get him to accept and compensate him at that rate times the number of flat rate hours he works each pay period. All repair shops use one of two books in figuring your repair bill; a factory time book for warranty work or a Chilton time book for out of warranty customer pay work. The factory time book always allows less time for a given job than the Chilton book. The times are derived from time studies to do actual repair jobs for almost every automotive labor operation broken down by year, make and model. The factory time was derived from a study where high speed air tools were used and does not allow for hand tools. Factory time is cut to the bone and if a mechanic is going to make money working on your car he will feel tempted to employ shortcuts and he may even be tempted to cheat the system. On the otherhand Chilton time allows for hand tools and is more generous. For example if your car is out of warranty and you need a new waterpump let's say the Chilton book time to replace that waterpump is 2.5 hours. You will pay 2.5 times the shops hourly rate for that job. If still in warranty the factory pays for it, the factory time allowance is used and that allowance will be much less, perhaps 1.2 hours derived from results from when they studied that job. The first thing that should be apparent is the more experienced mechanics with more seniority (buddy relationship with the service writers and or gives kick backs to the writers) will always prefer the higher paying out of warranty work and leave the warranty work for the younger less experienced or newer mechanics lower on the shop's totem pole. It is well known by insiders that this system encourages shortcutting and sloppy work because it is possible to leave steps out, not take the time to clean things or properly tighten things, not put all the parts back on, etc., or in short do whatever is possible to save time. This is even more true of warranty work because the hourly allowance is less. If they can rip the old one off and slam the new one on in 1 hour they still receive compensation for 2.5 hours (or 1.2 for warranty). This makes it possible for them to finish and turn your job in and start on another one. Under this system it is possible to flag more hours than there are in the day and under this system warranty work is always less desireable to the good experienced mechanics.

Regards, Greg

 

I was afraid it might be somthing like that, Greg. Sounds like you know exactly what your talking about. That kind of system sure doesn't seem to encourage quality work to me. How do you make sure they are not cutting corners on our cars ?

 

Unfortunately it's not about quality, it's about getting your car fixed in a way that is acceptable enough to you and does not cost the company too much money. Over the years the system has encouraged many of the best mechanics to go in to business for themselves or get into another line of work. There is still one foolproof method, however, of finding yourself a good mechanic. There are a couple of folks who know all the mechanics in town and meet with them regularily; they are the professional tool sellers. All mechanics are required to furnish their own hand tools and tool boxes and because of annual changes and new models mechanics spend thousands buying new and different tools, often on the weekly installment plan. You might have seen the Snap-On Tools and MAC Tools trucks running around. These are the guys who know the mechanics. Ask someone in your dealership service department for the Snap-On man's phone number, call him and he will tell you what day and time he visits that dealership and if that dealership has a good Corvette mechanic whom he would trust working on his car. You might even approach him under the guise of wanting to look at some screwdrivers.

Regards, Greg

 

Hey, Great idea on hiting up the snap-on guy.

 

Couldnt have stated it any better

 

If you approach him right he can give a great perspective.