Here is a general description of the typical staff at the store level.
Technicians: Pay is flat rate, starts around $12.00/hour and goes higher based on experience and ASE certifications. Technicians currently have some of the most secure jobs as not many new ones are applying. Uniforms are provided but there is a weekly, mandatory, cleaning fee. Training is provided though it isn't terribly in-depth. ASE certifications are paid for by the company and your raises are largely dependent on them. No welding, internal engine, or transmission work is done and is heavily discouraged unless store management is in trouble.
Front-end staff (sales, service manager): Pay typically starts at $14.00/hour. Raises are virtually non-existent. Your hours will fluctuate wildly throughout the year. You may work 35 hours a week, or maybe 48, but it changes on a whim. Sales associates receive a monthly "spiff" bonus based on whatever product the company is trying to peddle that month and are mostly unobtainable after the first half of the year as the products required to be sold are the most expensive ones. Service managers receive a monthly bonus based off a multi-point goal and is also largely unobtainable unless you are in a top producing store. Most front end staff do not need any education, work experience, or prior automotive knowledge to be hired.
Store managers: Pay is salary. Typically starting around $45k-50k/year depending on experience. You are required to work a minimum of 50 hou
Would recommend for an hourly position. Managers and teammates can be very hit or miss (Laid back or toxic). Average 50 hours a week.
So Bridgestone now owns Firestone, Tires Plus, and Wheel Works. Having said that, the training classes that Bridgestone offer (paid in full) are phenomenal, better than the 2-year tech college I went to. A good enough reason to apply for a job if you're looking into free technical training.
The managers and teammates can vary wildly in personality, as they do in every shop. My experience with this company so far is that generally the store managers are very nice and down to earth people who take great pride in their store. I have seen many employees take advantage of their good nature, always leaving early, getting extra time on tickets. These guys just won't fire you unless you cost them a LOT of money in broken parts or entire vehicles. My service manager is on par with every one I've had at the various shops and dealerships I've worked at--BAD. He gets his kicks off by harassing and messing with the technicians in the shop. He doesn't say anything about hard work, but watch out when you're slacking. Unfortunately, they're hard-up for employees which leads to hiring less desirable people who they can't get rid of otherwise they'd be short-staffed, which leads to my next point.
We are either over-staffed or under-staffed most days, usually not a healthy medium. This affects me the most, as a technician paid flat-rate. If there's too many guys in the shop, I don't pull enough hours because there's six of us there. When we're understaffed, I have to pick up a lot of oil
ProsBenefits, opportunities for training and moving up, discounts, access to an automotive shop
ConsNo lunch breaks, 50 hours minimum weeks, tough work, constant stress, Injuries and long-term body pain, no air conditioning in the shop, spend a lot of your money on tools
Wall of text incoming, but an honest review
Firestone is not a good place to work. There was a time when this was a decent place to work, but over the years the overall culture has become one of lip service and back stabbing. Throughout my career with Firestone I have held every service position from general service to lead technician as well as customer service advisor and service manager. I have seen the company shift from a decent shop where people can earn a good living to one where you are a replaceable number. Recent covid concerns aside, the past decade has shown that upper management cares about not thing and one thing only, their bonus. Working conditions are not ideal, especially with so many shops now offering climate controlled shops and set schedules. It was something my coworkers and I have been able to forgo with the prospect of making above average money. Over the years they've made it increasingly difficult to even make that. Technician pay is stagnant. There is little hope for yearly raises, technicians are expected to work an average of 50 hours a week. Back when I started techs could get paid overtime for any hours clocked over 40, but that has went the way of the dodo, unless you're fortunate enough to work on a military installation where they have no choice but to pay you overtime. General service techs are paid hourly and given just enough hours to keep them from being a full time employee and receiving benefits. They spend more time unloading tire tr
ProsThey pay for ASE certification
ConsPay, benefits, work/life balance, honestly too many to list. Seriously, you are worth more than Firestone
What Firestone wants are compliant and obedient robots. You will be expected to memorize written scripts and deal with customers according to the scripts. Mystery shops and phone shops are routine. Incoming calls are recorded, monitored and critiqued regularly. Feel like you’re being watched, evaluated and judged? Well you are…constantly.
Be prepared to surrender your rights as a human being at the door your very first day on the job. Kiss freedom of choice, your life, your family and your dignity goodbye because you are now the sole property of Bridgestone/Firestone and they never let you forget it. Expect to be bounced around from store to store to store because the turnover rate is unbelievable and they absolutely cannot keep people. Think you’re getting a job at a store close to home? It's a lie. Unless there’s only one Firestone store in your town I see a long commute in your future and a lot of your income going straight into your gas tank. You probably won't be staying at the store where you were hired.
You will be required to clock out for lunch (under penalty of death), but you will rarely get a lunch ...and 10 minute breaks? Forget it. Raises are also off the table so don’t ask. You will be on your feet your entire shift and if you opened the store chances are good that you will also be closing the store. With few exceptions, all the stores are chronically short staffed and odds are very high that you will be the only one in the “front shop” greeting customers
If you like to rip people off, this is the place for you
I was hired in as a Manager in Training. Started 3 weeks before the training class in Chicago was held, so I got some experience in the store before the classroom. Was taught how to do most things on computer, ie. look up and assign work orders to be done, set up customer tickets, basic stuff like that. After a few hours, you can pretty much figure out what you are looking for. Spent time each week unloading the tire truck, which is a pain, since the store I was at, stocked all tires UPSTAIRS! So, that was a hassle.
Was sent to Chicago for a three day training program. Everything was going great, until we started the hands on part. The training teacher called a woman up front, and using a program that mimicked our service computer, had her draw up a ticket for a customer repair. It was a simple tune up. Long story short, she gets walked thru the whole process (I was the only one of about 10 people in the class, who had been working in a store already), and the trainer uses a whole different way than I was taught, to enter a tune up in the computer. The way he showed us, was as easy as I had been taught, the only difference? He made it model specific. When I was taught, I was taught to use a standard tune up, which was like 100.00 more than the one that is specific to the actual car model in the shop. During our dinner that night, the training person came down to the bar with us, and I brought this up. He seemed really concerned, and told me I should bring i
ProsFree trip to Chicago
ConsTeach you to scam customers, they hate when you disagree
Before I begin this. Of all the service industries in the world I firmly believe in tipping your technician doing the work back there. They’re in charge of your life when they work on your vehicle. Appreciate the knowledge, skill, proffeciency of getting your car back to you safely, correctly fixed, and in a timely matter. If you believe servers deserve tipping think about the people that actually bust their butts for you. The service system isn’t what it used to be back in the 70’sand 80’s. Techs don’t make enough money to take care of a family, afford tools, and work a ratio work/life job. Treat them with well and with respect. It’s a truly thankless job.
Worked for firestone a number of years as a technician and gained 6 ASE’s there before leaving for a MUCH better place.
Making ends meat as a technician is cut throat. They’ll start you out as low as possibly as a flat rate technician 10.00 p/hr where you’ll work 50 hours a week to make the bare minimum of wage a company would have to pay you legally. I constantly had to be there for 60 some weeks to make enough to live and pay bills without saving anything. They have more techs there so that they don’t have to turn away walk in customers, which typically ends up with a couple techs working and a couple always sitting on their hands trying to keep warm. When a job comes by and it pays decently I’ve called guys out to the back parking lot to fight them out for it. It’s no joke the ruthlessness among the te
ProsIt’s a foot in the door, a realization that you don’t ever want to work for anyone except mom pop shops.
ConsDealerships, tire shops, etc are all a cancer to the industry.
Good experience, but a company that has unrealistic expectations and no time to get things done the right way
Firestone as a whole is a successful company with good benefits that a lot of people know of and most of the time have no problem taking their cars for routine maintenance. Now, management has no problem selling tires to a customer with 6/32 or 7/32 left on their tires. They seem to pick on the people that will believe anything when they're told their car is broken. On the employment part of it, it takes forever to get hired. HR screws up pay, bonuses, loses paperwork and says it was never received, etc. at least with my experience.
Manager bought lunch pretty much everyday to try and keep technicians around which was nice, but expected them not to take a break and work a shift something like 8am-7pm everyday due to always being understaffed. When it comes to pay since technicians are paid flat rate, they start you at a low hourly rate and say "oh but if you move quick you can make lots of hours and good money!" Only downside to that is when it's slow they give you a guarantee of 75% of your clock hours when it's slow! They also will never say no to a waiting customer when the shop is piled with work as it is (stressing out techs even more by adding work to the load), they LOVE bringing in oil changes and tires so most customers only think Firestone does oil changes and tires and when it comes to repairs they normally go somewhere else cause they're told they need all this other stuff along with the repair and scare the customer by the estimate they give them.
F
ProsManager bought lunch, good learning experience, good benefits, cool coworkers
ConsNo breaks, no weekends off, 10-13 hour days at minimum, Always understaffed
I worked for Firestone for 3 years. Advancement in my specific geographic area was very limited, as Store Managers all have been with the company for over 10 years. Most district staff had unobtainable goals set by men that haven't worked in a shop for 30 years. Being open on Sundays (and obviously Saturday) meant zero real family time.
In store management training classes, we were told to not hire people based on the fact they were single parents, as they would not be dependable enough. This was the very first time I thought of getting out of the company.
The technicians that were hired were extremely young and inexperienced and it was the service managers job to teach them everything and/or do it for them for a very small hourly rate. Firestone does not pay any technician enough money to obtain or retain a REAL mechanic.
Firestone does have good policies and procedures to follow, although these were rarely enforced. There is no accountability, as you could make mistakes multiple times without any repercussions. I guess that's good for job security, but bad for the customer.
Firestone has turned into something more resembling a Kohl's or J.C. Penny's. You are told to hassle every customer to open a Firestone card just like the Kohl's and J.C. Penny's folk. They are more of a retail outlet based on high turn around rather then employee retention and loyalty.
I did not get fired or quit for any negative reason. I left Firestone because I relocated and decided to not pursu
Prosjob security, good employee tire prices
Consno breaks, no advancement, low pay, high turn over, unobtainable goals
A typical day would include the least desirable qualities expected from ANY company. Stores are poorly staffed, technicians are poorly qualified to perform any automotive repair beyond tire installation and oil changes, managers push technicians beyond permissable times for auto repair, Firestone claims their flat rate is based upon Mitchell and it is not so the technician gets screwed on pay, lunch breaks are about five minutes long(if you get the chance to take that long) and most of the shop equipment is broken and not calibrated. Customers who drop their car off usually get pushed back by "waiting" customers, so there really isn't a "first come first served" service being performed. District staff cares only about "the numbers"--how many tires sold, service sales and productivity of techs, etc. You can forget about "productivity" as a technician simply because you are scheduled more than 50+ hours a week and you will be lucky if you can "flag" anything above 30 hrs. Which means you will earn approximately $10 to 12 dollars an hour after worked hrs. and flag hrs. are divided. The manager will work you into the ground each and every day. You will work every saturday for 12hrs, you will work 11hrs each weekday, and you will work on sundays. They will threaten you with a "write up" for not being productive enough which means you did not make THEM enough money that day or week. Firestone makes up the "rules" as they see fit. There is no employee handbook. So there is no career
Consterrible work hours, varying work schedule, uncaring management
I heard that about 15-20 years ago this was a good company to work for. I had been there for almost 5 years before quitting. The company in my opinion is an absolute joke. Micromanagement is awful. They essentially have a monitor on you and watch everything you do. They track everything you do in the computer. They listen to phone calls on a daily basis. The area manager who has no life will sit down and listen to calls all day just so he can find one bad one so that he can talk down to you. In my 5 years the company has had 3 CEOs. Nobody wants that job apparently. I've had 2 store managers. The first one managed the store for 30 years. He then got hit by a car on his day off and was seriously injured. When he was ready to come back to work 5 months later Firestone screwed him and made him retire and then gave his job to a younger kid who really had no experience in automotive and still doesn't really. And it just so happens that he is a corporate guys son in law. It doesn't matter how well you do at Firestone, they just give jobs to people they like. There really isn't room for advancement unless you want to move to HQ in Tennessee. As far as work life goes, it sucks. They hire you for a 40 hour work week and then constantly schedule you for 48 hours or more even. They will drastically cut your hours twice a year usually when times are slow so you have to be ready to earn less money right when your home utility bills get more expensive. If you don't suck
Questions And Answers about Firestone Complete Auto Care
How are the working hours at Firestone Complete Auto Care?
Asked Jun 30, 2016
5 days 10 hours a day as a flat rate tech mandatory lunch breaks so 47.5 hour work week
Answered Nov 6, 2018
10 hour minimum. 5 days a week, little pay. Plan on working OT. You do not get time-and-a-half even if you work 70 hours as a technician.
Answered Sep 20, 2018
What is a typical day like for you at Firestone Complete Auto Care?
Asked Mar 14, 2020
Each day I hope to be better than the last but was quickly disappointed.
Answered Dec 8, 2020
As a GS or maintained tech
Clean The shop
Stock tires
Oil changes
Battery check/changes
Tire rotations
Wheel balance
Tpms resets
Receive trailer
Loading/unloading
Parts pick up
Tire pickup
Customer drop off/ pick up
Answered Oct 31, 2020
What is the best part of working at Firestone Complete Auto Care?
Asked Dec 3, 2019
Weekly pay.
Answered Oct 31, 2020
The employees and customers
Answered Oct 23, 2020
How long is the hiring process?
Asked Sep 5, 2017
Okay I went to a job fair gave my resume and did my interview around 11:30am Thursday . Went to class and had an email by 2pm with an offer. Did my drug test Friday cleared background Friday afternoon and started working Monday.
Answered Mar 19, 2019
A month easy
Answered Sep 20, 2018
Does firestone hire felons?
Asked Apr 6, 2017
I never could get a felon hired. Didn't matter what the crime was or how long ago it happened. Saw some very well qualified technicians slip through my fingers over things that happened decades prior.
Answered Jul 18, 2019
I worked as a store manager for 10 years. Never could get a felon hired, no matter how well qualified.
