Need a consensus on what techs are driving these days. Company or personal. If everyone could enlighten me and give specifics and conditions, mileage reimbursement, etc.
Region also would be helpful.
Thanks!
Z

Personal vehicle, reimbursed about 3/4 of Federal allowance, mileage to shop in the morning and to home at night is personal mileage. Conditions can be dangerous in the winter, one tech badly damaged his car a few months ago.

Midwest region.

We are in the Mid-west and our service tech's drive company owned Ford Focus wagons. Generally the cars are parked at our office and the tech's drive their own car to our office, use the company car, and they return back at the end of the day. We are a smaller comapny and we try to focus our sales efforts within 25 miles of the office. Our analysis proves that providing a service vehicle is more economical than paying mileage. We do our own oil changes, plug tires, minor repairs, etc.. This is quicker and less expensive. Additionally it solves all of the complaining of carrying spare parts, having tech's calling in and taking days off because of car problems, etc...
We buy the cars, and run them until they drop. I hope this helps.

Company car and gas card provided since forever (22nd year there). Salary lowest in the market according to Federal wage information though.

The company car basically also becomes a traveling billboard with the signage on the side, the new owner has been switching to bright, shiny red cars for that reason.

Company 2008 Scion Xb (as in 'the box') with company gas card. I pay gas for commuting to the office.

How do you cram all those huge Kyo PM kits in a Focus? I have to re-stack the Scion every time a kit gets added or removed from my stock. More than once, the driver in front of me has done an emergency stop, and I've been buried in the front seat under parts. =^..^=

Focus station wagons can fit a machine and it's base.

quote:

More than once, the driver in front of me has done an emergency stop, and I've been buried in the front seat under parts. =^..^=

Here is a solution you might try for that

http://www.petco.com/product/1...-Safety-Barrier.aspx

Company Caravan for calls, and also to and from work. It's safer at my place overnight than it is parked behind the shop.

company car is provided for us. they are pontiac vibes. gas, tires, everything is taken care of through the company and we get to drive them home at night!

Personal car. Get so much(not enough) per kilometer. No mileage to or from work. That's it. We have magnetic signs but no advertising allowance so they aren't used anymore.

Company Car is the way to go.

Any time we tried personal vehicles with reimbursement the guys would get used to just spending the money instead of using it for a vehicle payment and/or maintenance.

Personal use is just another benefit (we don't allow big road trips, though - just the basic day to day stuff).

We have the same philosophy with health insurance - we provide it outright. No excuses for not taking care of yourself.

I have a company car that has a GPS tracker so the boss and the dispatcher know exactly where I am all the time (no beer runs for me ) The car is a Vibe, and gets good gas milage, they're a little on the small side for the PM kits we have to carry, but other than that I think it's great. I used to have to buy a car every 2-4 years, and just dive them into the ground 200-400k on them when I was done, now I just use the company gas card and go , life is good, and I don't have to worry about if I can afford to go another 2 weeks on these tires, I just call the boss and say "Hey, this thing needs tires" and my problem is solved, no money out of my pocket and no three months on interest worries.

Thanks 313ZD. That could work nicely. I'll take a ride down to Petco this weekend and look at it.

I've always imagined some loose heat roller flying forward and impaling me.

Well where I am we have company vehicles. Mostly Ford Rangers and Toyota Tacomas. I had a Tundra, great truck, piss poor gas mileage.
We get a gas card, have to fill out weekly expense reports, no major deal. We are supposed to get 3 estimates on vehicle repairs but I feel it should be the service managers responsibility to do that not the techs.
I get resistance from our Service VP on that but we should be paying techs to fix problems not run around and get estimates.
We used to have a dedicated shop buy after awhile they start to dick you over.
The strange thing is that we have a lot of techs that have vehicles that look like they have been pulled from a river bed. Filthy, full of trash. My opinion is I have a vehicle that I don't pay for, have a gas card and the insurance is paid for. I drive it to and from home so the least I can do it keep it clean!
I just got a Ford Focus 4-door. I'm mostly troubleshooter/fireman so I don't carry much anymore. Decent car, loving the Microsoft Sync and cruise control

If we did go to pov's I would have to say a late 90's Honda Civic hatchback. After being in to import tuners, you can get a rebuilt motor and trans for $1,000.00. Takes a Saturday to swap out. The cars are simple to work on and drive for ever.
Z

quote:

Originally posted by blackcat4866:
Thanks 313ZD. That could work nicely. I'll take a ride down to Petco this weekend and look at it.

I've always imagined some loose heat roller flying forward and impaling me.

I drove an Aerostar at a dealership in Ohio. I was too cheap to spend $99 so I went to Home Depot and picked up some 1/2" pvc and fittings and a piece of plastic 4x8 lattice. Made a frame, cut the lattice to fit, attached it with wire tires and painted it flat black. Worked great.
Z

company car. pontiac vibe ( also known as toyota matrix) great car great mileage. lots of room. I can fit a 3035 w/o srdf in it, also has a built in dc/ac converter for my laptop. All I pay is commuter miles to and from work.

Hey Mike,
Does this mean we gettin new cars!!

Ford Focus,(new ones are much nicer)no logos, gas card, everything covered. It's worth a few grand a year to me, depending on current gas prices. I've crunched the numbers as far as gas, tires, brakes etc, re-sale value, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I only do about 8k per year on my personal car. That would be more like 18k if I had to drive to/from the dealership everyday.

And as far as GPS on company vehicles, that is just plain wrong. I don't think I could work for someone who doesn't trust me. I guess I can understand the need to keep an eye on certain people though.

Personal cars, gotta log mileage to be re-embursed at $.395 a mile. I miss company cars.

quote:

Originally posted by Vtxc:
And as far as GPS on company vehicles, that is just plain wrong. I don't think I could work for someone who doesn't trust me. I guess I can understand the need to keep an eye on certain people though.

As an employer I have debated this in my mind over and over again. My experience with too much information (which I think is what I'd get with GPS tracking) is:
1. Looking at it can take a great deal of time.
2. You start seeing little things that really didn't matter before you started looking.
3. If you're tech's are smart and don't like it they'll either go elsewhere or find a way to work around it (like pulling the battery out of their phones between calls).

I think GPS has it's place, mostly as a tech aid so they can figure out where to go.

I am working on integrating GPS functionality into the Windows Mobile Time Tracking application I'm working on - but not to track movement. I'm trying to use it as a reminder system so that Tech's don't go to far from the Job site without clocking out (or clocking in ideally). We don't use that data for paying the tech - just billing the customer and/or evaluating contract labor costs.