Default Pay scale for Diesel Mechanics (Anchorage, Fairbanks: home, school, college) - Alaska (AK) - City-Data Forum

MeridithJill · 11-06-2009, 11:31 AM

This may be an odd question...
My husband is a diesel mechanic at CAT and his friend/co-worker (also a diesel mechanic) told him he turned down a job in Alaska for $100,000 a year. When he refused they offered $150,000.
Do mechanics have high salaries out there? That seems like a lot of money.
thanks!

MeridithJill · 11-06-2009, 11:33 AM

uhhhh...the "default" was not part of the title for this thread. I accidentally copied and pasted it from something else.whoops.

roadfamily6now · 11-06-2009, 12:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MeridithJill

This may be an odd question...
My husband is a diesel mechanic at CAT and his friend/co-worker (also a diesel mechanic) told him he turned down a job in Alaska for $100,000 a year. When he refused they offered $150,000.
Do mechanics have high salaries out there? That seems like a lot of money.
thanks!

That seems pretty generous! Where in ALaska would this work take place? Cuz there are only a few places that I can see wages that high coming from. I'm pretty sure the mechanics in Delta, Fairbanks and the like are not bringing home $150K!

MeridithJill · 11-06-2009, 12:11 PM

i agree...sounds like an exaggeration. have to find details.

Alaskapat528 · 11-06-2009, 01:29 PM

My reply to you is on your same thread on the Anchorage forum.

usafracer · 11-06-2009, 04:31 PM

He is out of his mind. I am cummins and cat cert. as well as ASE cert on the light duty side and have 10 years expirence. I was looking for a job and the best pay I could find was up in the bay and that was only $75,000 a year.

starlite9 · 11-07-2009, 12:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MeridithJill

This may be an odd question...
My husband is a diesel mechanic at CAT and his friend/co-worker (also a diesel mechanic) told him he turned down a job in Alaska for $100,000 a year. When he refused they offered $150,000.
Do mechanics have high salaries out there? That seems like a lot of money.
thanks!

I would bet the guy was pretty full of himself.

The starting pay for a good mechanic is about $14.00 and up. The upper scales for a guy that has proven himself could be in the $30.00+ or better.

But $150,000.00 is in the realm of the guy pretending he is a legend in his own mind.

There may be a few that make that much, but it is after being in a spot for years and knows so much about that one operation, he would be all but impossible to replace.

Moose Whisperer · 11-07-2009, 12:48 PM

Sounds like the guy was using Obama math!

starlite9 · 11-07-2009, 02:01 PM

I had a guy that came to Alaska fully expecting to be paid that much because he was told that he could by a similar wacko. He worked for me at $25.00 an hour and wasn't worth $6.00....

Cost more to fix what he worked on than any good that he did.

shellie_belle87 · 02-15-2011, 08:14 PM

My husband is going to school to be a diesel mechanic. One day the school had a guest/lecturer/recruiter come in and talk to the class. The man worked for Cummins Northwest in it's Alaska location. They have 15 locations. The man made $145 an hour, with starting wage $100 an hour. However, this starting wage is available only in Alaska, reason being that nobody wants to live out there, and has a very high turn over rate. Other Cummins locations do not pay as much, however, I understand you can very easily make over 100k your first year at the Anchorage, Alaska location. I believe they only hire people with a bachelors degree in diesel mechanics, and recruit these 4 year candidates at college. You can google Cummins Northwest for contact information and locations.