Tire Repairers and Changers

Tire Repairers and Changers pays $37,710 where the typical American job pays $50,020 — $12,310 a year short, or $5.91 an hour. That is a liveable wage in a cheap state and a difficult one in an expensive city, and nothing about the national figure tells you which you would be in.

With 108,410 in the occupation, Tire Repairers and Changers is a big field with a visible internal market. Big fields reward moving: the pay you can negotiate on arrival usually beats what the annual review will give you for staying.

Vehicle and equipment mechanics suit people who like diagnosis with an immediate test — the machine either runs afterwards or it does not, and there is no arguing with it.

We carry no verified training length for Tire Repairers and Changers — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.

A quarter of Tire Repairers and Changers earn under $34,690 and a quarter over $45,300: 1.3x, and $10,610 between the ends. That is a narrow band — enough room to be paid better than average, not enough for the occupation to be a route to a materially different income.

Under $34,690 is where a quarter of this field sits, $15,330 beneath the $50,020 a typical American job pays. The risk in Tire Repairers and Changers is not the average outcome, it is how long you might spend in the bottom quarter before leaving it.

Avoid it if you would resent buying your own tools, which in this trade is a real and recurring cost.

There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 108,410 people employed as Tire Repairers and Changers; it did not count the people who trained for it and are doing something else, and a rate built without that denominator would be a number we made up.

A 1.3x spread means the top quarter of Tire Repairers and Changers is not doing a different job from the bottom quarter, just a slightly better-paid version of the same one. Between $34,690 and $45,300 is the whole of the negotiation.

Put in money rather than ratios: $34,690 at the 25th percentile, $37,710 at the midpoint, $45,300 at the 75th. $10,610 separates the quarter of Tire Repairers and Changers at the bottom from the quarter at the top.

Getting to $45,300, the 75th percentile, is worth $7,590 a year more than the $37,710 midpoint and $10,610 more than the $34,690 a quarter of Tire Repairers and Changers settle for.

The upper half of the middle range — $37,710 to $45,300, or $7,590 — is far longer than the lower half at $3,020. In a shape like this an average would flatter Tire Repairers and Changers considerably, and would describe nobody.

Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $16.67 at the bottom quarter, $18.12 at the midpoint, $21.77 at the top quarter. The typical American job works out at $24.04 on the same basis.