$3k seems extremely low unless you're offering only a subset of services. Things like tire machines, alignment racks, and even just a smaller/non-shop air compressor is pricey. If you want to contract at a shop that has those, they typically want an ASE cert too
Being a mechanic is a lot like being a hair stylist. In many cases they're paying for a bay at a shop, and bring their own tools, in exchange for not having to do any of the business operations.
My optometrist wants to retire. Nobody wants to buy the (very successful) business. New graduates (only two took the state boards last year. Two.) want to work regular hours and go home. No interest in running the business, hiring and firing, purchasing and rent and all the rest.
They just want a gig. Do their expert thing and go home.
At the art fair downtown I noticed many of the stall operators are quite old. I quizzed a couple - same answer. They can get a partner in the (kiln, woodshop, metalshop etc) but not in the business side, selling at fairs. Nobody wants to do that.
Even retail - my sister had a chocolate shop. Her employees were business students! But when she wanted to retire, none of them, zero, wanted to take over the business. They wanted to exercise their speciality at some big firm.
The western world of business has changed beyond recognition since I was young.
The problem isn't that no one wants to do it, its that the math doesn't work out.
If you have 6 figures of student loan debt just to get an optometry degree, you don't want to double or triple that to buy an established business. Your interest cost will eat any hope of profit.
For small businesses, its the same issue. A pottery shop or fabrication shop isn't really worth a lot more than a used kiln or set of tools, but I'm guessing that the owners want to be bought out for a lot more than they can sell their old stuff for. There is a serious mismatch going on. At the same time, the work itself is devalued. Fewer people are going to lay out $1k on a handmade dinnerware set from their local ceramics people when they can pay 1/3rd the price from an importer.
>No interest in running the business, hiring and firing, purchasing and rent and all the rest.
Just like everything else these days the middle option is rendered economically useless by cost (time or money or both) of all the overhead and the juice isn't worth the squeeze unless you're employing dozens.
While I get that it's fashionable to peddle it that way because it confirms the HN audience's biases the overwhelming majority of mechanics are paid flat rate same as they would have been 50yr ago.
Renting a bay is the kind of thing a business owner does. Like a gas station with a 2-bay garage will be owned by a landlord who leases it to a tenant business. Perhaps the same or different business than is operating the convieience store.
You are describing being an automotive repair shop owner. A mechanic may work on cars, or they may work on generators, pumps, valves, augers, or any number of other kinds of industrial machinery that services a vast field of critical infrastructure. Most applications for mechanics are on-premise not in a shop… it’s just there are so many cars that we think of automotive mechanics as representing the field.
