How long did it take for you to become an Auto Tech?

First off, there are different ways of becoming an auto tech. In my case, I joined a company as a "porter" which meant that I moved the cars from the service advisor's station (the person who greeted the customer, listened to the problem, suggested a course of action and wrote up the "ticket" (repair order)). Either the car would be taken to the back lot to wait for repair or to a designated repair bay. I did this for about a year until I was given some simpler repair tasks to do. Since I had worked on cars myself before that, I got an assignment first to do oil changes and body coating. Then I went to working on brakes and tune-ups.

These jobs were learned informally. In a private shop, this might still be possible. Most dealerships for major companies today provide training and certification in various areas. The technical nature of today's vehicles cover a very large set of skills. Some repairs have actually gotten simpler. But almost all parts of a car today are very complicated and advanced. All in all, just be a low-level technician took me more than two years.

When you work for a dealership, your training will continue. No matter how good you are at working on cars, car manufacturers require you to study their models. They not only want to be efficient, but they also need to assure customers who bring their car in that the technicians are very, very familiar with those machines.

A side benefit of all this is that the technology is always advancing, and you'll have a lot of opportunity to learn for years to come. And the manufacturers make the knowledge very accessible. In my day, the reps would come from corporate with a few cases of repair manuals. When I got my '84 Eldorado, the manuals for one care filled the case. These days, the information is simply not distributed on paper because there's so much of it. But it is very well organized and computers make it much easier. Still a lot of learning, tho'.