s13coupe92

Hello fellow zilvians, names brandon! Anyways I figured id ask my car community for some advice. Basically im working as a electrican right now for the family buisness but I have lost all ambition to continue this work. Its boring as f..... I've always had a weird tase in cars and doing crazy things to them so I've been looking into custom fabrication schools/coarses to take and get me into the automotive field.I was wondering if anyone has takin wyotechs streed rod and custom fab coarse or knows anyone who has. If so would you recommend it?? Good or bad things to say about it would be appreciated!!

slw240sx

find a good local shop that does this type of work. go there ask for a apprentice position, or intern style position. you will most likely work for free,or make near nothing. you may have to sweep floors or do other dumb random tasks for the other workers. eventually though if you have the passion for it they will teach you all you want to know.
From personal experience its hard to hire a person fresh out of these schools. they are green, they often are about as good as any person off the street who walks in that has worked on their own projects and had access to fab tools. they are far from experianced enough to bring into a shop and cut loose on their own. Normally you have to baby sit them, but thats difficult because they often have the ego of a professional thats been doing it for 30 years. So teaching them anything or retraining them in your fashion is nearly impossible and you have to fire them for being cocky and skillless. when tech school grads drop off resumes i often show them the fab area and tell them to build me something, most of the time the welds are shitty, they struggle to use basic tools and they think they are god gift to cars so i politely tell them ill call them, and then throw their resume in the trash as they walk out the door. most of my best workers have been young 17-18 year old kids that come by work for free for a few days or weeks and learn fast.

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s13coupe92

Great response!! I completely understand what your getting at here. I do have family that have been build full custom fabricated cars for 30+ years so I could get some learning experiences from him. He's just a very busy man. As for shops, there's not much of a selection of fab shops around lincoln ne. I will look into that for sure though. The only shitty part of my situation is I don't have the fab tools that a school like this would have or a teacher willing to spend the time training me.

xoxide

I can second everything SLW said. My dad has been in the custom fab/bodywork/auto repair/hotrod buisness for a good 25 years, and I was actually talking to him about the wyotech/ITT, etc. schools and he pretty much said the same thing. He said those tech schools are a huge ripoff, because once you actually get hired by a shop, the people from tech schools usually dont know their ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to actually doing the job right. Like SLW said find an internship, you will learn so much more, and actually be qualified for the job afterwards.

KA-Life86

I went there for 3 months before realizing it was a huge rip. Classes too big, not enough instructors...you're better off learning from someone who gets paid to do the actual work instead of getting paid to kind of teach you how to sorta do it. I came home, asked around a few body shops, and was hired on to wash cars, then prep, then to a full body tech. I was at that shop for 4 years and now own my own full service garage. And none of this is thanks to Wyojoke.

khabra

^This. Im a UTI graduate and it seems like both of the schools are the same. I would just do as mentioned above and try to land a apprentice position and save yourself a lot of money.

angel mkiv

Idk I went to wyotech in sacramento and has little automitive experience prior but I learned alot there and think it was worth it..honestly u only get out of it if u put in hard work and not get distracted but it is on the expensive side..thats one of the downsides

s13coupe92

Yeah I think ill look around for an apprentive job at some of our restoration shops around here considering they would be welding, painting, motor work, body work everything. I have little experience in these traits, I welded in high school and loved it and was not that bad but haven't touched a welder for 2 years, im doing my own body work on my s13 right now so I will have some hands on learning there. Motor work I plan to have my uncle (experienced drag car builder, painter, fabricator) help me tear my motor down and rebuild it so ill know what im doing. Than I planned on painting my self. I think I will look into a general automotive class at our community college so I can learn the basics so I have a base to start with. Its cheap so why not. It seems like all these big auto colleges are a rip off from the people who went. I really appreciate the advice guys its really change my outlook on this situation.

Okinawandrifter87

Now just out of curiousity to throw this into the mix, are you better off going to like a community college and just getting your stuff done there instead of wasting time with UTI and Wyotech, and then just going for an internship or straight for a position?

Just trying to play devil's advocate I guess and get some info flowin from people who have experienced this kind of stuff or pro's and con's.

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Driftphreak87

coupesallday!

Yeah let's hear it because so far this has been a good insight I wanna know more. Like Okinawadrifter87 said let's hear the pros and cons

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KA-Life86

Maybe your experience was different from mine, I went to the one in Laramie, long before all the branch campuses. I tried my ass off, I was still only 17, and I was more mature than 75% of my classmates. I worked at a Carl's Jr. during the day and went to night classes, lived in a dorm with all day students (which blew ass, they were leaving for class when I was just falling asleep) Our instructors wouldn't start teaching until everyone was silent and trust, it was a small miracle getting half of those retards to keep their mouth shut for 10 seconds. Usually even when they would start teaching us something, some asshole would lop half his finger off with a grinder or get welding sparks in their damn eye(how?) I liked my instructors when they actually bothered to try and help me, but mostly it was taught in a class room and if you couldn't get it right in the shop they just figured you were an idiot and left you behind.

So in a sense, I'm sure you're right about getting back what you put in, but its hard for 4 (most of the time 3) instructors to teach 75+ guys and girls how to do something as complex as body work the right way. IMO auto body repair/customization is an art form, not just a way of living. It takes some real dedication to want to teach someone something you have crafted through years of hard work.

And then again, that has been 9 years, so maybe lots of things have changed since then.

DJ-of-E

Hence the term "diploma mills" to describe such schools.

A friend of mine has a shop and he still goes to other shops to help out on random stuff on the weekends, but for learning and experience. These guys do that not so much to steal techniques and information, but to understand the process and maintain connection for recommendation of business.

This idea applies to everything, no just "car stuff."

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Hashiriya415

yotech is POS in my opinon. Complete waste of money.
Everyone in the shop that worked with me and came from there was seriously lost. I mean some of the stuff they say and the way they work. I heard from some elder automotive teachers that stuff moves way to fast and kids don't pick up everything.
I've finished community auto college and I've worked at 2 shops and everyone knows me from employers to employees in the shops that I'm the best of the best when it comes to me working in the shop. Could also be because I'm European and grew up in Germany so I'm not lazy as some of the American mechanics show themselves to be, always cutting corners and not being creative to make something better, so it last longer and works better. And don't show much motivation to work.

Neverliftchassisworks

If your willing to go another state look into Nashville Auto Diesel College, UNO, or the hennessey school. Not really heard good things from wyotech or UTI.

slw240sx

the person above you actually brought that up and i was going to repsond.

here in our city our community college actually has a really impressive auto tech program. they have many different facets of the industry all of which give you a head start but you will still be a entry level person maybe more qualified then say a 18 year old kid walking into a shop with no experiance.

our college actually has a intensive hands on honda program that graduates you into dealerships. they do a good amount of hands on work and tear down of trans and motors. they also get credit for bringing in jobs at the school and doing labor work. thats the honda program. they also have a high performance program where they will teach you the technical stuff that many of us learn by doing and reading service manuals and being around others that have learned it before us. they also do alot of hands on stuff and for a project you can choose a engine and you get to machine and build that. these types of programs are good, but you are a paying a premium for a entry level education.

the dealer programs help get you a foot in the door for dealers that are willing to invest in on going training of new tech's. to walk into a dealer ship with no mechanical experience you are never going to land a tech job, at best you can get lube tech or lot tech. from there though you can network with the real techs and sort of assist them and help out probably for free, but once you start getting hands on you can work your way into an open tech position and start gaining experience. all the major dealers offer school programs and training online and in person for their techs. i know my last employee went from here to Hyundai and he has been sent out of state three times paid for by corporate to learn diag and labor stuff. they put him in a hotel a week at a time and compensated him for his week. for a tech job some schooling that is a reasonable price can be very advantageous.

How ever these tech schools that teach a trade to you in a few semesters and cost 25-60K per program are more of a joke. I see them as a financial aid scams more then anything. they get you signed up help you get aid and loans and they get paid. they then teach you the concepts and theory behind what goes on in the shop environment. they show you how to do this stuff, but its very limited and when you split that time up between 30 people and 1-2 instructors you just are not going to get a handle on it and be proficient at any of it. you will be a little better off in getting an apprentice position, but if your attitude is like most of the kids then you will get your resume either passed over or trashed when that attitude is frowned on by those of us that have had to put in years of work to learn this stuff to get to where new grads think they are because they have a certificate.

I started by getting a job at the shop i now own. I started in the office selling parts on ebay and on the website. I learned as much as i could about online selling and dealing with customers on the front half of the shop. i was the first to arrive in the morning and after everyone left i would go in the back and practice fabricating anything and everything. I taught myself how to mig, tig, bend tube, cope, sheet metal work, powder coat, everything you need to do i practiced non stop on my own. The people in my shop were really anti teaching new guys. I was thrown out of the shop during the day more then once for criticizing shotty work that was happening due to laziness and lack of progressing skills from our main fabricator. I ended up taking his job and then taking the company over.

i would keep working on cars, save some money at your main job. then take some time off and go work for free for a fabricator or a performance shop. you can also spend some good money with one become a hang around that is valuable to the people working. you can get a foot in as a basic employee. even if its in sales or something like that. that gets you more access to the whole shop and access gets you the ability to learn from other people in the shop.

also remember some times working on cars kills the fun of the hobby...

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slw240sx

i do this also. all the shops in the area are friendly. A good friend i started in cars with works at a competing shop. the shops share things when we need to and no one really cuts throats. Another shop is the dyno shop we use they have friends since they opened and we help each other out, send work to each other if its out of our specialty niche or we are too busy. there is some degree you need to compete, but you also need to keep open to being helpful. you never know when you need a favor or help on something outside of your expertise.

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vehicle336

Course* not coarse. Just FYI.

kouki_pants

i DEFF AGREE with SLW with the intern/shop boy deal. it will save you TONS of money but you also need to find someone willing to bring you in and teach what they can, When they can. if you wanna go the school route....you might want to look into Hot Rod Institute. MOST schools provide proper training, certification tests, specialty courses as well as seminars. although there is a bunch of people that leave tech schools that arent worth a sh*t, YOU still walk out with Training ,Knowledge AND Skills to put you in any shop doing anything you want to . i graduated high school in 05, tech school in late 06 and have been building rods ever since. most have gone to autorama,sema, barret-jackson and countless magazines. im just sayin, ive ALWAYS wanted to build hot rods, but without proper training i would never be where im at now.......just some food for thought i guess. good luck with your decision!!!

cbcm2435

wyotech is decent, it just really depends on what you know before you go there, how well you can pay attention with a bunch of morons running their mouths all day, and like everyone else said, how much you put into it. if you copy from other people and dont actually do anything in the shop your not going to learn a single thing. i have seen some people go through the street rod course and turn out some amazing things. that type of work really isnt for everybody, you either have it or you dont. the same goes with all the electives there, there is alot of people that take them, but only a few have what it takes to work in the industry

my1s14

Pretty much all these guys are right. I'm a current student at the Blairsville, PA campus and have been for over a year. I came from a body shop doing collision work for about three years and took the automotive and high performance program and learned quite a bit that I didn't know before but you gotta put in what you want out. There are many guys here who just want to f*@k around but just the same number are here to do something with their lives. It all depends on how deep your knowledge is now and what you want to do with it. Plus living off techer checks sucks when you could be getting paid and learning at a job

cbcm2435

is this chris with the white s14?

my1s14

Nope. Not me, no way. ha

JS91SILVIA

yo I did the same thing went to the Laramie campus took automotive/ streetrod and custom fab..... it was so sick..... I loved it.... o graduated in 06


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PoorMans180SX

Hahha, exactly my story as far as Wyotech goes. My community college has better courses with better tools and smaller class sizes. Not to mention it is infinitely cheaper.

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