New job yeah or no.. hmm...

[jason_bet]

Ok so right now I am the commercial manager at autozone.. I get 50 hours a week and I dont ever have to work saturday or sunday but I do most holidays.. so i get 10 hours a week over time!! yesterday i went over to the mitsubishi dealership to get a seal for my tranny and the guys all came out cause they wanted to see the RHD swap.. then today the guy over the parts department came and delivered my seal and gave me his number he wanted to talk to me.. so i called him when i got off work and he wants me to go sell parts for the dealership.. he said he would give me a monday-saturday shift then a monday-thursday shift and it would switch back and forth like that.. and I told him they would have to make it worth it to me.. so I told him how much i make (actualy 1.50 more then i make hehehe) and he will work out the numbers and call me he said he will make it worth my while.. so has anyone worked for a dealership.. some say its great.. some didn't like it.. i dont think any of the people i talk to where in parts sales though.. think i should go for it??

[Igovert500]

This isn't 3S related so I'm moving it. However, I'll toss in my .02
I used to detail cars at a dealership; did it for a year. Personally, I thought there were some great perks.

a) decent pay
b) access to lifts, bays, tools, chemicals, etc pretty much whenever I wanted
c) awesome discounts for purchases, parts, and services
d) I got to drive a TON of cars, which I enjoyed.

Basically that type of stuff. Good benefits if you are a car guy.

Now I had alot of cons as well, granted this was a huge dealership. One family owned 20some dealerships, another few NAPAs, a collision center, etc. So it was a huge business.

a) So many bosses. I had like 8 managers just in my dept...some were great, some were bastards. THat doesn't include all the sales managers, owner, friends and family of hte owner, and anybody else that I had to drop everything and help at any given time.

b) Kinda seemed like there was a hierarchy and generally most people in other departments treated other departments with a general unspoken disdain. There were alot of duties where you had to deal with sales people, or lot attendants, or technicians, and it just seemed like nobody really cared much about anything other than their specific duties. And unless you were higher up in the food chain, they didn't bother to make your job any easier...and often times made it harder.

c) accidents. It's not something you really think about, but when you are working on cars, cleaning them, or driving them all day every day, the chances of you having an accident increase. You may come across something you aren't comfortable driving. I have all little cars in my family...instantly I was expected to drive any size trucks, vans, whatever in reverse into bays packed with cars, pillars, tools, etc. If you aren't extra careful stuff can happen. Plus you may be forced to drive shoddy cars. I had a car's brakes fail. A few weeks later it happened to somebody else. Find out what you will be responsible for paying in the event of damage.
Paired with that, safety. Some places are really good about it, some aren't, and some appear to be good about it and aren't. Make sure you have decent insurance coverage and that they don't neglect their employees safety. When an arm on a lift breaks and an F350 falls...it opens your eyes.

d) holidays. Don't make plans. Dealerships love to have sales on holidays, so I missed some great parties, etc, because I was stuck washing cars on 90% of the holidays.

I probably forgot to mention alot, but that what comes to mind in my experience. Overall 95% of the time I didn't mind the work (only when you had to clean a car with puke, dog crap, or melted candy was it really a PITA). But the BS (which is probably gonna happen anywhere you work) just drove me away. I wasn't getting paid enough money to deal with some of the stuff I was. I guess as a driver you would spend alot of time in transit and not dealing with some of the BS, but just somethings to think about.

[porscheguy9999]

I do the almost same exact thing that Igovert500 did. I detail cars, but I also work in the car wash until 6pm on weekdays, then detail until 9. But the benefits he said are all true for me, so I cant see why they would be different for you. And the cons are the same as well. Some other things that come to mind for me are:

Pros:

-Depending where you work, you will work with customers alot and that means you will make friends and other connections. I work at a BMW dealership so I meet many *ahem* well off people and some know me on a name-to-name basis, but thats only a few people.

-Room to be promoted. Dealerships in my experience are somewhat of a revolving door. Every few weeks I see someone working that I swear Ive never seen before. So if you work hard, then you can get promoted/pay raise, although thats true for just about anywhere.

-Benefits are plentiful.

Cons:

-At my dealership, like Igovert500 said, different departments dislike eachother and dont make your job easier for you. Service for us is the detailers, technitions, and service advisors. But the Pre-Owned and Sales departments are the devil. When you go to a dealer, the salesman might bring you down to where your car is being finished (detailing or fixed, etc) and ask the tech or detailer to do somthing else for you. The guy is nice and does it but they are 90% of the time thinking: "Goddamnit I hate you (salemans name)".

-You have to be careful with what you say because roumors spread like wildfire in a shop. I once told another washer that one of the detailers smoke weed, and this guy tells the detailer I said it, out loud at that right in front of me. Needless to say the detailer was furious at me and if our boss found out, he could have lost his job. So you best keep those kind of things to yourself or at least out of the workplace.

-Your hours you are assigned arent up to you for the most part. So your usially at your boss's mercy. The only reason I havent worked holiday hours is because I've been on vacations.

-Last but not least if your on the search for a lady, dealerships have slim pickins when it comes to eligable women. Its even slimmer for me because Im 18.

All in all, working at a dealership is a great job and never gets boring. It makes my old job of stocking a cooler with drinks look like a terribly depressing job. I reccomend it as long as you know your place there.

[GMMerlin]

Working in parts, you won't run into the same problems that the other 2 posters stated.
Typically parts and service have set hours and holidays off.
Since you are in parts, the chance of you driving cars is low.
Dealers usually offer good money and benefits and depending on which end of parts sales you are going to be in,you may only have to deal with the same people day to day.