Mechanic Shop and job Rework...

[lords8n]

So we want RP, right?
Lee Malone, Antonio Malone, Jayden Steely, Brandon Robinson, and I have worked our asses off and have been rewarded with the keys to our own mechanic shop. This is great and we love performing fine RP for our customers. But the money isn't there to sustain a proper employee base. As example, Lee Malone himself made just $5,000 from the mechanic shop yesterday. This means that our Hayes Auto employees are forced to venture out and find other means to supplement out income. This isn't about getting rich. This is about just making enough money to live and mildly prosper. It can't happen with the current system. Too many people just want the no RP quick repair and out, and they gravitate to the wild west unmanaged shops to get this. A repair at Eljin will often get you in and out extremely fast with out a single word being spoken. Often time Eljin mechanics will tell you up front that your repair will cost you $500 without even know what they are looking at first. Is this what we want? Do we not want to promote more and better RP in this fine city?

What can we do to improve the mechanic industry in BLRP?

A possible solution (and any of your thoughts and ideas are also welcome)...

- Remove the mechanic job from the job center and make mechanic shops a business like the food stores (Burger Shot, etc...). Further, make unoccupied mechanic repairs cost more than the current $900 for non-clocked in repairs. This will put repairs more in the hands of certified and acknowledged RP engaging businesses and out of the hands of those just interested in making a few bucks with no thought or effort to RP. Sure you can go to an unoccupied mechanic shop and do your own repair, but it's going to cost you.

- Lower the amount of repair a repair kit provides making it a tool used to get you to a mechanic shop for a proper repair.

If anyone has any ideas, comments, suggestions on this feel free to post here...

Thanks and as always 100% legal 100% of the time (see disclaimer below),
Phil Long

disclaimer: This does not include accidental traffic violations that can occur from time to time due to various circumstances beyond Phil's control for which he should not be punished, threatened, or made to be judged by fate to avoid

Edited November 3, 2021 by lords8n

[Lee Malone]

+1

Mechanics should be required to have some type of certification…allowing every single person to be able to clock in as mechanic really takes away from the effort we are putting in at Hayes

[mehzylmao]

+1

 

i think the current clock in system for mechanics allows people to do very minimal repairs and be rewarded for not rping. It also allows people to abuse the system and get free repairs anytime a shops doesn’t have people working.

[Jayden Steely]

+1 

We aren't saying choose Hayes but mechanics should expected to RP when fixing cars and interact with customers. Would you trust someone who just landed in the city to fix your million dollar super car or someone who tells you exactly what they are doing to your car it as they are doing it in front of you (with a possible certification)? Also lowering the amount a repair kit fixes would help to drive business towards mechanic shops. 

#makemechanicsgreat 

[Budal]

While i agree that the RP certain mechanic shops provide should be rewarded (AOD, Haze) i don't think that the ability to be a mechanic should be stripped from new players. I think that the mechanic job is a good way for new people to get introduced to the city and the people off it, and taking that away leaves them with jobs that are grindy and don't offer any interaction with the other citizens of Los Santos. I feel like a better solution would be for vehicle upgrades to be done at mechanic shops/tuner shop (AOD/Haze/Aces are the ones i can think off the top of my head) and not at dealerships. This should help Haze pay their employees a livable wage and i am pretty sure the dealerships wont even feel it.

[ShesElectrick]

+1

I have stated this opinion before - Mechanics should be whitelisted. HOWEVER, they should not need a clean record. This should be a job anyone can do regardless of record and it's ultimately up to the shop that they apply for to hire them.

Repair kits shouldn't be as cheap as they are either. Make them more expensive, that way people are more likely to call a tow to get their car to a mechanic shop.

Edited November 3, 2021 by ShesElectrick

[Roger Fetamine]

+1 To this as well. I'm always blown away by people who don't say a single word when fixing cars and act like I'm obligated to tip them. The way Hayes is ran is amazing, it feels like an actual garage. There was a night I was straight up given the silent treatment at elgin and it steamed me all night. 

 

Fix my dang ole spark plugs and up charge me for an oil change dammit. 

 

[tay]

There should not be a limit to who can clock on as a mechanic, if you want to put in time and effort into mechanical RP then by all means do so. I like the idea of the 'self-serve' repair increasing based on the price/category of the car and it taking longer for them as damage increases on the vehicle.

 

One thing I always tell people that do want to give the full mechanic RP is don't rush it, if people want to rush you, send them somewhere else. Take time to look over the car, see the issues, quote the person X amount before even starting repairs, make them pay it before repairs start and if they don't want to pay it, they can leave. I understand that that could deter people and bring more business to the low effort M>Vehicle>Repair people for $500 but I think pushing for a quality mechanics RP will shift others in the right direction imo. I am sure over time the speed run mechanics will change their ways when there competition is being paid 10x more per repair than they are.

Edited November 4, 2021 by tay

[GK47_]

+1

I think the problem which you’re talking about stems from new people in the server becoming mechanics at Elgin and staying on that mechanic arc for longer than they should because they’re making a lot of money. 

Recently the RP, actually I wouldn’t even call it RP, the Call of Duty vibe at Elgin has been so unbearable I tend to just avoid it now. Mechanics are being taught how to say “no” when a gun is pointed at their head to be someones hostage rather than ways to make a repair more interactive. 

The work the boys have done at Hayes is top tier. As someone who’s tried to bring traction to the mechanic at Mirror Park and not done a great job at it, I can tell you first hand how hard it is to get people to choose your mechanic rather than Elgin where you can get a quick repair with minimal to no interaction. 

I’ve made a post in the past about mechanic changes in the past, a system where you’re car damages over time, it could be a oil change, engine change, wheel changes etc. You can go to a mechanic and they can quickly give you a repair but it won’t be fully repaired, which overtime will cost you more as your engine will continue to become worse and so on. That full repair will mean you’d need to find some free time in your day to visit the mechanic, so they can do a full diagnostic, change up everything that needs changing. I don’t know, I’m just throwing ideas, it could be a complete different system. 

Whether you like or dislike the current system, the server recently has been doing a lot of little tweaks and changes to make certain things feel new and fresh that have been in since I remember first playing in 2019, like the HUD that got changed recently. Well in my opinion, the mechanic system could be another one that can get added to the roadmap for the future. 

[lords8n]

13 hours ago, tay said:

There should not be a limit to who can clock on as a mechanic, if you want to put in time and effort into mechanical RP then by all means do so. I like the idea of the 'self-serve' repair increasing based on the price/category of the car and it taking longer for them as damage increases on the vehicle.

 

One thing I always tell people that do want to give the full mechanic RP is don't rush it, if people want to rush you, send them somewhere else. Take time to look over the car, see the issues, quote the person X amount before even starting repairs, make them pay it before repairs start and if they don't want to pay it, they can leave. I understand that that could deter people and bring more business to the low effort M>Vehicle>Repair people for $500 but I think pushing for a quality mechanics RP will shift others in the right direction imo. I am sure over time the speed run mechanics will change their ways when there competition is being paid 10x more per repair than they are.

So the problem is that performing good accurate mechanic RP takes time and effort above just repairing a car with no interaction, putting on matching shirts, and throwing gang signs for a group picture.
It's also extremely difficult to find people that know about cars, or that can quickly learn to fake it in a convincing way.
What we've done at Hayes didn't just fall out of the sky. We worked very hard on it. We've spent a lot of time in meetings, practicing and creating documents as guidelines in order to get our staff in a position so each one can handle a proper diagnosis and repair worthy of our standard.
The reason Hayes works so well is because we didn't hire people off the street and throw them into the mix. We were a team before there was a Hayes. We know each other. We know how to communicate with each other. We know the limitations on what each of us can and cannot do. And we have used that to learn and do the best we can in the mechanic realm.

All I hear from the OGs is RP RP RP RP RP. Well we've shown we can hammer the RP.
The problem?
It's is hit and miss and not sustainable. Not a single one of our mechanics can pull a descent weekly wage from mechanic work alone. Every one of us has to pull off of mechanic duty to do something else that will actually allow us to prosper. And as each mechanic ventures off for a few hours to make a survivable wage our full-show RP suffers.
None of us have allusions of getting rich from being a mechanic, but it would be nice to be something further above the poverty level for the work we put in.

We have three day Dannys making vastly more money than those that put in a great amount of time and effort to hone their craft.
If this doesn't ring as a problem then maybe the city doesn't really want the RP they claim they want, and we've wasted our time.

So the question remains...
Does the city want good mechanics doing awesome RP, or does the city want to allow the anyone can clock in speed mechanic with no interaction what so ever?

If the city wants the RP representation then something has to happen that drives more business to the good RPing mechanic shops and away from the fly-by-night amateurs banging on engine blocks with rusty hammers.

And, yes, I repair my ambulance at Eljin all the time just to see how they've improved and I have yet to be even slightly impressed by the service.

Edited November 5, 2021 by lords8n

[Kathryn Davies]

Big big +1 to this one

[ZaxxYs]

Huge +1, agree with absolutely everything you said.