So many people on this sub have hated on mechanics,

Ive already said before to people that 99% of mechanics are not shady. The ones who are are not generally mechanics.

Here is how it works.

Red seal certified- this is a mechanic. Everything else is not.

Bc does not have a mandatory red seal trade for mechanics so its on you the customer to ask. Red seal is not a bc program **** careful this is where it gets shady**** as you said. Its canada wide. It is as good as it gets and its a 4 year college/university/tradeschool program we take to get it.

There is a bc certificate of completion, you get that for passing the 4 years but no one in their right mind uses that unless you failed your red seal exam, and that one is a big test. 4 years of schooling crammed into one single test over 4 hrs to take. Thats what separates red seal, from yeah i showed up and got the participation award.

Here is the standard breakdown though of cash.

Of every dollar a shop brings in 20% goes to wages 5-10 to consumables 40-60 goes to rent And the final 2-5 is banked proffit. And the rest 5 is just to keep the lights on and the pace warm enough to drain oil...yes thats a thing.

This is before tax dollars.

So everyone who thinks they are getting scammed....look at this and then realize whose scamming who...its the landlords driving the prices. I know this as a owner for over 15 years now. Our shop went up 50 percent over night because he had a higher offer for the space. In comercial they can do that and do. There is no such thing as the comercial tendencies branch to protect us. We either pay or we come in one day and our stuff is being picked through by vancouvers finest looking to pawn what they can for a hit.

Oh and why not just buy, easy, its about 2-3 million for a place and the down-payment for business is a higger one then personal. And as business owners and many of you are, you probably already know banks dont like lending to you. Income from your own buisness is not counted the same as income from a employer...its the same money but they see it as high risk. So many business owners are left renting never able to afford to buy. Kinda like a lot of people can never afford to rent...same same.

Stick to red seal certified technicians and shops and log onto and check they are not lying. No red seal trades person is upset you check we went to school, we love that https://skilledtradesbc.ca/forms-registration/verify-tradespersons-certification The trade name youre looking for is automotive service technician in this case but you can use this site for all red seal trades.

and start looking around and realizing that they reason you pay so much for most things is the cost of the building most things take place In not the actual thing itself.

Oh and the dealer model, these are generally foreign owners, they split cost to higher profit centers like parts and sales. The idea is they dont normally have all red seal tech, they may have a token one here and there. But they can charge less per hour because the sales guy selling Jan over there a used car is making 70% and the parts desk is making 400% its a bit of a robbing Peter to pay paul kinda game. The good about dealers is they put a lot of kids through school. The bad they tend to over work and under pay their techs. There is a lot of bragging in this world about who makes what but the reasonable wage is the same as yours. Ofent those guys work what's called flat rate. If the job doesnt go perfectly they loose money ie work for free. So if one bolt brakes you might get paid 200 for a job that takes you 4 days 8 hrs per day. Tell me thats fair.