diesel mechanic

diesel technician

parts driver

shop technician

service advisor

Rush Enterprises

First off, the company was great to me for some time. The opportunities for growth are in vast supply if you have a decent head on your shoulders. Lord knows if you can operate a calculator, you are special in this crowd.

However, do not expect not to feel taken advantage of at their whim. After being purchased by Rush, every manager that I recall in our dealer group took a pay cut. After several years, I transferred to another recently purchased location that was already tanking horribly. After a year, and several management changes, salaries were cut again. You would think I was exempt from adjustment as I was a previous employee who had moved 2k miles to save a dying service department and had negotiated a salary for that transfer. After year two, I took home over $15k less than year one while sales were up $1M and profit up by over $600k. Know what you are worth and get it in writing as this company is, or should be, known for its shady salary practices.

Culture also lacks extensively. Rush does great things with company picnics every few years and a preprinted card for your anniversary. The anniversary cards are so widely respected amongst employees that I did not even receive my ten year anniversary pin from my GM. However, there is a huge divide between corporate and the dealers out there making money to pay the bills. Dealers are left to their own devices with resources that are virtually nonexistent for employee functions. All the while, company wide emails are sent seemingly weekly about some award ceremony or luncheon given for the New Braunfels crowd. As an acquisition manager trainer on quite a few occasions, and an acquired employee myself, I know far too well how poorly Rush does in welcoming new dealerships into the fray. You must be able to forge relationships or you will feel forgotten almost immediately.

Also with culture, there will always be personnel changes. And it is reasonable to expect changes in management style, priorities, and soft expectations. However, high level dealer group management changes at least every 12 months made it extremely difficult and tiresome to keep up with what the boss du jour wants. This will settle down eventually but unfortunately there are many that have left simply due to the confusion on any given day. Also, the conflict between higher ups at corporate is evident. One VP will say turn left today, another VP will tell you to turn right tomorrow. While we all share a destination, the whiplash becomes numbing.

Lastly, Rush needs to find a way to grow into its shoes. Receiving a beat down regarding time management when much of my time was spent negotiating with local vendors to 'keep the lights on' because corporate payables was six months behind for years. And that dressing down was predicated on a demand that 14 hour days are to be considered normal. At one point being forced to juggle three trash vendors and storing multiple containers onsite because we couldn't get them paid to dump the trash. Know that employees were funding company events to some extent themselves because getting money for a planned holiday employee lunch was nearly impossible. The GM would set a date and expectation, but no follow through. What did that employee, who bought lunches with his own money for 80+ people on several occasions, get for his trouble? Laid off. Where was the GM at any point during the entire charade? Eh, he showed when the food arrived and a chance to wave to us peons presented itself.

As titled above, know when to walk away. Rush has some great people, many with which I am still friends. However, unless you are fast tracked out of the dealer group, your tenure will be limited to your tolerance.

They preach training, paccar/Cummins certificates, major advancements in your career during the phone and in Person interviews however the only “training” was the first 3 weeks after being hired on, sitting behind a computer. After that they just throw you into the shop with absolutely no clue how to clock into jobs, getting parts, proper procedures, etc. you ask management and they tell you to ask another tech. Doing this gets you nowhere as you ask 5 guys and get 5 different answers.

There’s a single foreman that hands out all the work. If he doesn’t like you or doesn’t know you, get used to doing services and hanging drivelines as I was there 4 months and that’s about 90% of all I did and was allowed to do despite the experience I had prior to coming here. Also you’ll realize quick that it’s about numbers and not about your job security. It’s a revolving door of technicians. Extremely stressful showing up to work. While being there that short period of time I witnessed 2 guys get escorted out for “low performance” and 3 guys quit, all the while more than a dozen new hire techs just sitting at the computer “training” unknowing to what nightmare they’re getting into.

I’ve been in the industry for almost 10 years both in management and as a technician and this place opporates more like a mom and pop shop than it does a dealership. Day to day it blew my mind when I’d look around and remind myself this was a dealership. The equipment is low grade or in terrible condition, the shop is filthy, overrun by pigeons, pigeon feces everywhere. You have to supply your own airlines and air fittings, and speaking of air, might as well budget in new air tools as there’s so much water in their air supply you’re pretty much hooking your tools up to a garden hose. 

Then there’s the pay. The first 3 months you’ll be sitting pretty making your premium rate. But after that falls off, get used to being an hourly tech at 24 bucks. They don’t tell you about how they take hours away from you if you’re not productive either, or that the foreman handing out the work isn’t giving you any work that will keep you in your premium pay. Each RO lists how much the job pays, but don’t manage your time off of this as this isn’t actually what they pay you. If you don’t justify your time in your comments, when they close the work order they just won’t pay you. 

All in all if you enjoy your sanity than stay far away from this place

This company is the worse! Broken promises by management! Poor pay and even more poor benefits! Alot of brown nosing going around at this company. The parts driver position is runned by a two face unprofessional manager who don't know anything about being a manager and is only good at micro managing and sitting on his lazy butt and not doing anything all day unless he needs to just so that he can pretend to look busy. He claims to have years and years of manager experience but it doesn't show because he is very ignorant and treats his workers like poorly unless you kiss his butt. He goes around telling people your personal buisness like a female. He has all the time in the world to be on his computer checking to see where your at on the GPS tracking system instead of actually working. He's a very manipulate and sorry excuse of a man. If you do decide to get a job here and especially for the parts driver position I suggest you take notes and cover your butt all the time because he's the type of person who will deny everything when you bring it up to him and will say to you "I don't ever recall telling you that." He acts like he's your best friend just so that you can open up to him and tell him things about you and that's his way of using that against you and pretending that he's such a great boss but at the end he's not. He's always on his phone either playing Pokémon or on Facebook or all kinds of stuff while he's on the clock. He really has no clue of what he's doing and instead of doing his job duties and responsibilities he throws them to other employees to do and that's his way of making  him self look good.  Every person that he has hired is someone he knows on a personal level or he has worked with because that's his way of making him self look good and having employees dumb enough to make him look good and that's how he grows in a company. All he cares about is making his money and he don't care who he screws over to get it so don't trust him because all he is LIES  LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES 
Well I can go on and on telling you about this sorry excuse of man but it's up to you to experience it So you been warned.

The pay has changed after the minimum wage changed. It used to be a flat rate straight across. If you didn't work you didn't get paid. if you did you got paid the full hired rate. now that has all changed. you get $18 and hour until you hit %100 efficiency (40 hours billed in a week) then you get your hourly rate. in other words if you are diagnosing the most advanced code or rebuilding an engine your doing it for $18. same goes for the guy doing wheel seals which doesn't pay well. the hours to complete a job are dropping (1.25 hours to lift front of paccar engine and replace engine side motor mount brace?) the tech is in charge of finding parts prices and location for all repairs and opening/closing claims through engine manufacturers that are warranty. this process only pays .4 hour max. they installed security cameras and hired a third party business to monitor techs who are now getting threats of $1000 - $10000 fines for clocking in out of uniform, safety glasses, and wheels being chocked. They do NOT give raises, if you put your two weeks in its a 50% chance they tell you to get out right then and there. The shop supplies a 50' air hose and that's it, and its not even safe (hose clamps on brass and unregulated shop air). no 1" impact or anything like that. the only saving grace here is the opportunity to get a great resume. they will throw anyone on any job so you can get a lot under your belt fast. In three years i have NEVER seen a tech get fired based on misdiagnosis, poor performance, or damaging a truck. the other techs are really good people. no thieves, and everyone will stop and help even at their own paychecks expense. we all share each others tools with no problems. other than that its no good. I am currently putting my resume out and am really going to miss my fellow techs but the way this place is choking my check i cant afford to stay even if i want, even if i had $100000 in tools, even if i was the best tech out there. the money cannot be found.

Rush is going through some growing pains. Large corporate mindset with a very small town feel amongst dealerships. Very poor communication from corporate to each location. If you like to travel, if you dip tobacco and if you are not a suit and tie kind of individual then this company is for you. They are a very large auto group and run on a good old boy system. You will get exposed to all executives if you prove yourself and work your tail off however that does not always mean you will get promoted. Must be willing to relocate to probably the worst areas in the country and put your time in at each location before you can move to the corporate office. There are a few genuine people who still exist at Rush. Those people are what make the company great. They believe in the company and that is what probably keeps the company together.

 If you plan on traveling for the company make sure you have a credit card with a very high credit limit and only use that for travel with rush. They don't pay expenses back on time and sometimes depending on your supervisor you have to foot the bill because Rush doesn't pay their bills on time with certain vendors. 

You will see parts of the U.S that you didn't think existed but remember it is a trucking industry. Benefits are not that great and work culture is not the greatest. Layoffs happen anytime of the year even around christmas. Until they clean house on top or are no longer publicly traded best to avoid this place. 

However they really know how to sell trucks and own the market. If you are looking to get in sales be ready to hit the ground running. Parts sales people do really well if they have former sales experience. Truck sales people need to really know the trucking industry many people with former sales experience  (i.e car, pharma, tractor) try to transition in and only last 6 months.

As a former mechanic here, I was treated like an outsider on numerous occasions. Started off great with previous foreman over the department I was in, start of the new year the entire department fell apart. There were several instances where I did not know if I was going to be able to pay my bills due to lack of consistent work and the lack of communication between management and admiration, there are good people who work at and for Rush Enterprises, but not enough to make it worthwhile for everything you have to deal with. If you bring up any issues regarding lack of work, feelings of uneasiness or overall being unhappy with the current state of your job you will be targeted. If you make any mistake at all (which is common in this field, it happens to the best of the best) then you will quickly become the scape goat for any and all problems ongoing with the current state of the shop and or mobile department. The management here does not care for the safety, well-being or livelihood of its employees and sees you as nothing more than an opportunity to take advantage of you and use you until you are no longer useful to them, they will hit you for jobs you did not clock on, manipulate your time sheet to make it where it seems like they're doing you a favor when in reality they will come back for that "favor" and then some. If you do travel work, you more than likely will not get paid your per-diem on time or at all, should you choose to leave the company on good terms or bad they will do everything they can to insure you do not receive a last paycheck or simply just hit you for enough time to make it where you don't get any pay at all. I will not and could not recommend this company at least in NC to any technicians that are looking to advance their career as a mechanic. This was the last stop for me, and I suggest to many other aspiring mechanics to switch fields or at the very least stay away from this company.

Got interviewed for a parts counter spot. They gave me a warehouse manager position because of my resume. Went in, completely fixed all their issues and helped give them solutions to issues they were having with shipping, receiving and inventory. The warehouse and everything I was “in charge” of was in order and completely efficient in my first 90 days. Got told what an amazing job i had been doing, even got nominated for a company award my first month for doing so well. So I was VERY excited for my 90 days after seeing the culture and how Rush was. They proceed to stick with how I have done amazing. Tell me I am gonna start managing the delivery drivers. I told them I felt they needed to pay this position more, It’s a one man show with no help from anyone, doing all the shipping/recieving, core and returns, cycle counts, staging parts for the whole place, stocking the showroom and warehouse and keeping everything organized and clean. They proceeded to tell me it’s an entry level position and they couldn’t give me more than the dollar an hour they gave me (entry level position managing people?) then they said I needed to sit down and write a complete job summary because they “didn’t know what i did everyday”. Walking out of the review I knew i was gonna quit. Hung around for a few weeks and not a word was said about it. So i started silently quitting. I really loved this job, the people I worked with and it was never a burden. The management at this location (not all of them)are clueless and push everything off on the next person to make their day easier. I get it but it’s just a shame a company with such rich culture runs people away because of local lazy bosses. Benefits were great and all that and the work life balance was amazing. I’ve considered trying another location because I DID love the company and the job so much, even in 90 days.


- No odd work hours/typical 9-5; good work-life balance is the norm and expectation

- Relatively high salary offering; typical (though not outstanding) benefits offered

- Recently renovated corporate office (end of 2022) with paid covered parking option available


- Generally disengaged leadership that places little tangible value on employee retention or even the company’s own bottom line; project undertakings and hiring/firing decisions rarely have undisputed, documentable logic behind them and instead are commonly based upon leaders’ personal affinities or dislikes. This is true even when leaders’ personal interests may clearly hurt the company from a financial, ethical, and/or practical standpoint.
- Low (corporate) employee trust in the company and sometimes in each other depending on the team (culture as a whole permits and even encourages backstabbing); very rarely will someone who doesn’t intentionally switch departments last longer than 5 years with the company.
- Decades behind the majority of companies in terms of diversity & inclusion (D&I) initiatives; many top-tier leaders within the company are unfamiliar with the term and/or openly deny that any such programs within the company even exist.
- Communication between higher and lower ranking positions, even within the same department, is rare and highly stilted/non-transparent when it does occur, to the point that office gossip almost always proceeds direct communication between ranks and is even more trustworthy.

Considering the management as a whole does not view my listed cons as notably problematic, I’m not sure that any advice I could give would be helpful as these issues must first be acknowledged in order for there to even be a desire to improve upon them.

I must say schedule wise Rush is a great company to work for M-F, 8-5pm. BUT my experience was a bit unpleasant. I’ve only work for Rush Accounts Payable for 3 months. I didn’t have a formal training, no back up guides, everything was on the spot training for me. I learned SAP my first day and I was already receiving emails my first week and responding. After two weeks at Rush, the two people whose supposed to be training me went back and forth working from home so I was left asking questions from other people who wasn’t in our department. I also had a change of management my first week at Rush. Then 3rd, 4th, 5th week I just got more and more profit centers assigned without formal training. And most of the time my main mentor/job trainer is either absent leaving early, coming in late etc so many excuses while my other trainer works from home every other day sometimes all week. I wasn’t happy with the way work flow was because as a new hire I still have questions. Even then as my trainers they also have questions but because of the new manager she also have questions. 

Anyways someone from work was scratching my car and after I’ve told security multiple times all they said was they didn’t see anyone in the video surveillance camera and that some homeless person probably scratched my car. But even then they would’ve seen it in the camera if they really even look at it. They show no compassion for me and because safety was an issue, I had to go. Someone at the office has some type of animosity against me and I have no idea who. 

Worked here for a good long while, never once did i ever find myself in a good mood while working here. the management have no idea on how to run a shop, the shop foreman, has the same mechanical inclination as a kid chewing on crayons. was put in that position as a half foreman to deal with the paper work side and the lead tech was supposed to be the mechanical side of the foreman position, after a while the know nothing foreman caused enough drama to get the mechanical foreman to get laid off and let him have it. after that the shop foreman get his best buddy as the triage tech and also the new "lead tech" and now gets under that techs desk every morning, and makes sure that tech is okay with how the foreman does his job. but wait theres more, if you know something about a truck, and the sorry lead tech does believe you they will spend a week arguing with you about it and if you do get to prove your point right they will continue to argue the point even though you were correct. now if you can handle all this, get ready for these know nothings to do everything in their power to make your job as rough as possible if you do not bow down to them and kiss their shoes. even then, you cannot get parts in a timely manner here, a truck sat torn apart for longer than a year for an overhaul bc they could not get the parts for it. then you will be expected to finish the job in an hour. over all a horrible place to work and even worse management. if they get rid of those people, and put the right people in the right position this probably wouldnt be a bad place to work, but its to far gone now to fix it.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Diesel mechanic 235 salaries reported	$33.31 per hour
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Shop technician 24 salaries reported	$28.27 per hour
Service advisor 1 salary reported	$48,000 per year

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