Chavyboy

Well feed up with work and want a change in career.

Been thinking about becoming an instructor for a few years now but never really thought about. Now I am in the position of working in London and living in Peterborough which is some 90-100 miles from London so I am doing a 200 mile round trip everyday on the train and car and I am seeing my 2 month old baby girl maybe 1 hour max every night so I need to make the move now really.

Gonna need about £3k for training so that means selling the Fabia vRS as this is an impractical car due to it having alloys/130bhp engine plus it would fund me for a more practical car plus the money to take the course.

Am initially looking at a Fiesta 1.4 TDCI not the most thrilling car but very practical for teaching as it is extremely economical and reliable also maybe looking at a PD100 fabia like Andy Ellis has as he says it's great for teaching.

Anyone else made the transition and also what cars do people suggest ? I might even consider a Clio DCI but really no more than £7K worth of car.

Also where do people suggest I do my training as I have been to the "Instructor College" but I have since heard bad reports ?

Ivan

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2004 '54' Citroen Picasso 1.6 16v Desire HDI in Wicked Red
2004 '54' Vauxhall Corsa 1.3 CDTI Energy

Ex Skoda owner

ncarring

An ex-colleague of mine started the training but failed his Level 2 assessment exam twice. At that point he gave up. It'd be a hell of a life change, and you needn't necessarily expect to be working any less hours than you are now - strangely enough quite a lot of people like their driving lessons in the evening when they've finished work, as well as at weekends.

Do you have the temperament to be patient with stroppy teenagers and nervous new drivers?

Are you proposing to go solo and run your own car, or become a franchisee to one of the big schools? Running your own car can be pretty expensive, I imagine.

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Nick

North Wiltshire RoADAR

robmawer

Suspect you'll be working as long, if not longer hours to match your existing pay, and there's usually a lot of evening and weekend work too. Also, if you're self-employed, no work=no pay, hence you tend to grab as much work as you can.


It's probably cheaper to run your own car than as a franchise, as you have to pay the franchise on top of your own running costs. That said, being in a franchise will be a good place to learn the ropes before going out on your own...the Instructor College cover all this sort of stuff as part of the course, and they used to guarantee you a place at a school upon qualification...


Rob.

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Dr Zoidberg

I'd advise working for a chain of driving schools to start with before going it alone. That way you have a guaranteed income and supplied car. Once you have more experience you can then go it alone.

A lot of the "earn 30k a year" adverts are pretty misleading about the potential earnings just as they are for IT jobs.

What's a reasonable rate for driving lessons now? About 14 quid for an independant school?
Do 40 lessons a week (which will be over 50 hours of actual working time spread over 6 or 7 days) and thats £560 a week. Do that for 48 weeks a year and you will take in £26880 assuming that you can get that much work. From that you will need to pay for the car , very expensive insurance and a lot of servicing. Don't know how that compares to what you earn now but it's something you need to consider carefully.

Yes , you can work more and take more money but how much time do you want to have left for yourself. No offence to any of the driving instructors here , but there are better ways to earn a living (and plenty worse)

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Alex

"I laugh in the face of danger, then I hide until it goes away"

www.drzoidberg.co.uk

Mort

At least 3 vRS's as instructor cars up here. Granted went past one yesterday on the drive out of Uni and the student had run it down the side of the Unibus. Looked like it needed new panels all down one side and two new alloys.

The girl was practically laughing though. So couldn't have been that bad.

So maybe not the best choice after all...

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Fabia v/RS, in Red.
Green filter & Cupra Intake, TT brakes, Josh's Sumpguard, Jabba ARB, MOMO strut brace, Powdercoated alloys. KW v1's next...

robmawer

The insurance is usually pretty cheap - the companies take the view that a fully-qualified ADI with a set of pedals in front of them is probably going to have a lot of control over the car...probably more so than a lot of the cretins on the road who are actually sat behind the wheel!


Rob.

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Fluffmeister

My Dad is a driving instructor in Telford (ATL School of Motoring), he started off after being made redundant from the mines years ago.

He went to BSM first of all and worked with them, and got some extra training in as well, then set up on his own about 10 years ago.

He makes steady money, he is 62 now and has got to the stage where he just does enough to pay the bills and enjoy life. Costs to get qualified would have changed I am sure, but am more than happy to aks him any questions about how he "got going"

Cheers

Fluff

Chris GB

Hi Ivan

Right then, from the top. AVOID THE INSRUCTOR COLLEGE. They are interested in removing your money and wasting a lot of your time. I have heard very senoir DSA staff comments about them that were less than tactful. Without the swearing, it is felt that they are just ripping off people. Also, avoid things like the BSM training scheme. When I started, I went to BSM and to be honest the training preparation for part 1 of the ADI exams was very poor indeed. Training for part two was good (Ray if you are reading this, thanks) but that was because it was one to one tuition. It is not always one to one though. The training for the part three exams was very poor indeed and the coursework and practical gave almost no help whatsoever. Get your part one stuff bulletproof and you will find parts 2 and 3 a lot easier. Alans part 1 training was superb, BSM only equipped you to learn enough to scrape through the exam.

I eventually went to Alans Driving School www.alansdrivingschool.com . Training here was excellent and also topped up with seperate sessions from a local independent trainer with a good record and recommendations. 3K for training is realistic if your driving is already reasonable, your knowledge of road procedures and law is OK and you get the right organisation. I would suggest you wnader in to the nearest test centre and ask the ADIs there who is good for training. Remember there is also the cost of exams and registration, that can total near £500.

The pass rates are a bit scary. I believe that the part 1 has a pass rate of 75% after 3 attempts. Remaining 75% then pass at 50% for the part 2 and 30% of the remainder for part 3. You are allowed only 3 attempts at each exam. Should you fail to pass on the third go at any of the exams, you cannot apply to go on the register for two years from the date of your initial application.

So what do you need to do?

For part 1, the theory and hazard perception element, you need to learn the aspects of the law and procedures relating to driving a car. You will need to acheive an 85% score on the 100 theory questions to pass, with not less than 80% score in any of the four areas (cannot remember exactly what they were, but I think vehicle knowledge, law, road procedure and documentation). The hazard perception test will require a pass mark of 58 ex 75. The more you are good at real world hazard spotting, the morer difficult you will find this. My pupils, especially ones who do the HP before driving, pass with mid to high 60s, ADIs often struggle to get much above 40s.

For part 2, you will be required to answer (I think as this is newly introduced) 5 simple questions on basic vehicle maintenance and safety. you will then have to drive for one hour demonstrating your abilities to implement the system of car control as advocated in the DSA publication "Driving the Essential Skills". You will be permitted to make 6 driving faults in this time. Should you commit one serious or dangerous driving fault, or exceed 6 faults, you will not pass.

For part 3, you will need to demonstrate your ability to teach in a role play exam with your examiner taking the role of a pupil. The test consists of a selection of one of 10 pre set tests (PST). Each of these has two sections, one to teach a new skill to a new or partially trained driver (a phase one lesson), the second to deal with driving faults and knowledge failings in a more experienced learner (a phase two lesson). You must adequately cover all the required elements by demonstration, evaluation and correction to acheive transfer of learning to the examiner of all the elements of both phases or the PST.

If you are still reading and have not hidden under the duvet in a little ball:

You need to begin by registering, via your chosen training organisation, to join the register of ADIs (Approved Driving Instructors). Once you have done this, you hit the books to get your part 1 training underway. I would suggest 30-40 hours of structured training would suffice. There are over 900 questions on the part 1 test (you get 100 of them) and you should go when you can consistently answer all of them easily. The book of questiosn and answers is sent to you when you apply to go on the register. A good trainer may well keep these back to force you to learn by understanding as opposed to parrot fashion answering. Fr the hazard perception element, get as many different interactive HP disks as you can lay hands on and get good with all of them.

Once you have passed part 1, you then come to part 2. This is where the costs get variable. if your driving is close to the standard (say you have been doing an IAM drive for years), you may need only a few hours. If your driving is nowhere near the standard, you may need 20 or even 40+ hours depending on how quickly you learn.

Once you have passed the part 2, you then need to start your training for the part three exam. You are first required to complete a mandatory 40 hours of training. Youwant to train with an ORDIT registered trainer. The organisations like BSM and Intructor college start the serious rip off at this stage. The training consists of a little in car work and a lot of superflous rubbish in the classroom. Get a good trainer and you will do 40 hours one to one in the car. Dont be too perturbed if you have another student in the car as well. You should only pay for your training time, but being able to watch someone else screwing it up helps immensly and gets you used to being "on stage" when delivering your bit. A school like Alans or an independent like http://www.byiast.co.uk/ are excellent.

On completion of your 40 hours, you then have to decide what to do:

Option 1, you go out on a trainee licence. To do this, you have to be with a sponsoring school. You may elect to take a compulsory further 20 hours training in the first 3 months that you are on the trainee licence or have an accompanying ADI on a percentage (20% I think) of your lessons. A trainee licence is granted for 6 months. In this time, you must pass the ADI part 3 exam. Further licences are sometimes issued, but it is y no means certain you will get a second.

Option 2, keep training and do the exam before teaching. OK, but you done get the experience as you are not giving lessons.

The job then:

If you go out on a trainee licence, you will be with a school. This is not a bad thing. Franchise fees vary considerably. Generally, the higher the fee, the greater the hourly rate the school will charge. When signing up, be sure to watch the small print. One school round here has a contract that prevents you from working in competition with them for 4 years if you leave. Remember also that it is a franchise, so if you have to give your school 3 or 6 months notice, that could cost you over £7K. As for the car, using your own is fine. I use a Fiesta 1.4tdci and get 48mpg at best from it, so the vRS should not be much worse. Insurance: for me, the vRS is £477pa, the Fiesta £330, so again not much in it. Remember, this is your office and you will be in there most of the day. The Fiesa is hellishy noisy on the dual carriageway as well. What you lose on selling the vRS will possibly be much worse than what you will save on fuel and insurance. Consider the car a consumable. Fords generally are knackered around 60K, so the vRS is a financially sound move for me as I expect 150K or more from it. Half as much again, for twice or longer service life. GET AIR CONDITIONING.

The job itself is a real pleasure if you like people. One of the criticisms that said DSA employee was levelling at the Instructor College and one I would level at BSM from my experience, is that they will take the money from people who are clearly are not cut out to be good communicators. If you are doing the job well, you can expect it to feel mostly like teaching your matews to drive. If you are doing it badly, you will hate most of your customers.

In the car is not stressful if you are in control. Agian, if you are doing it right, it should be relaxed and easy going.

The hours are up to you, but teaching 40 hours is a long week. Consider that you will also get cancellations and sometimes need half an hour between appointments. 35 hours is realistic if you want a life as well. This should net you £20k to £25k depending on whose franchise you go with. Of course, if you do an extra 5 hours per week, you get weekend rates and can easily push this to £25-£30k My solution is 4 days instruction and 1 consultancy. I work weekends full days, and have Mon / Tue as days off (the missus ownes her own business too so it works out) I am more than comfortable. Owning your own car is worth maybe 2 - 3 K per year over a 5 year period if you pick the right car.

Going independent is good if you can generate enough customers. Many of the guys in local shaools here give it a go and then head back to the school. Most independents charge less per hour, however, you still ahve to find cash for a car and fuel.

Lastly, you are stepping off the treadmill of your employer and onto your self employed one. If you get a call offering work, you will take it. If you dont, you will regret it intensely. If you dont regret it, you are maybe not cut out for self employment. It is either liberating or crushing. You are your own boss and motivator. I do 9am-8pm 4 days a week and the office job on Fridays. If I did not go to the office, I would do at least half day Friday. After work / college / school are the prime earning times.

If you go for it, good luck! Feel free to ask anytime if there are any questions.

Chris

Dr Zoidberg

I think that has to win an award for the longest and most comprehenisve answer ever given on Briskoda

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Alex

"I laugh in the face of danger, then I hide until it goes away"

www.drzoidberg.co.uk

Chavyboy

Cheers Chris most of the stuff you have posted is what was explained at the School and I will be going for the green badge, I am speaking to someone very soon about independent training so hopefully won't need to go with the INSRUCTOR COLLEGE

And Dr Zoidberg I understand what you are saying about the money but I have come to the point in my life where money isn't everything and my happiness and my familes happiness comes first from now on

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2004 '54' Citroen Picasso 1.6 16v Desire HDI in Wicked Red
2004 '54' Vauxhall Corsa 1.3 CDTI Energy

Ex Skoda owner

Chris GB

There are quite a few training options, so be sure to get the low down from your local instructors. Have the front to just go in the test centre a coule of times and ask. Make sure they are ORDIT registered. Not too sure that TIC are.

Chris

sharkrider

I'm an instructor, and I'm an ORDIT registered instructor trainer, and I use a fabia vRS I'd love to help you out if I lived anywhere near you, but I'm up in Sheffield

edit: the vRS is a great car for instructing, easy to drive, pupils love it, 50 mpg, (you should never worry about the alloys, you just don't let them hit the kerb!) and I'm paying £490 for my insurance.......

edit: oh and Hi Chris! nice consise answer!

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Fiat Grande Punto Sporting (158 bhp 314 lbs/ft) in Red....

Furby vRS , black magic,passenger airbag de-activation switch, (now gone, but not forgotten!)

Chris GB

Hi

I am looking forward to picking up the Fabia vRS on Friday morning (the car is ready but I am too busy to go and collect it sooner). 58 hours and 38 mins and counting. I use the Fiesta 1.4tdci and achieve just 48mpg, so if the vRS does 50 I will be very happy. Strange how Fords never seem to meet the quoted fuel and performance figures.

£490 for the insurance sounds good. Where was that from?

Chris

sharkrider

just had a look on my certificate to get you the number, and I'm actually paying £469.62 !! all the usual perks, (professional indemnity , other cars, 16 yearolds off road ect) from C.A.R call:08456001300 e-mail:insurance@instructorcoverplus.com they were best by far, I was with the DIA and their renewal quote was £950 !! needless to say I changed companies

I'm not sure about ford mpg either, I remember teaching in a 1.25 petrol fiesta from which I only managed 35mpg, then had a 100bhp saxo VTR and managed 40mpg!? strange but true.....

vRS does 50 on a general lesson (approaching test standard) with a mix of driving, as the pupils never cane it, goes down to about 47 mpg when I take the roof sign off and drive home

edit: you wont regret the choice of car, it's great..... it wont run in-gear below 1,000 revs though, (like most petrols), make sure they get the clutch down AT 1000 revs, or it will stall! (with a big bang due to high compression ratio...) and it really doesn't run in until about 10,000 miles, when new, the drive is less easy, and the mpg noticably less! when run in, really is a joy, I love to get in it when i go to work!

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Fiat Grande Punto Sporting (158 bhp 314 lbs/ft) in Red....

Furby vRS , black magic,passenger airbag de-activation switch, (now gone, but not forgotten!)

lozgti

Good luck Ivan.I'm tryig to ensure I see our two grow up so I know how you feel!

Surely a tweaked Furby would have the punters flocking in Keep it

Chris GB

Hi

£470, even better. I got £477 from drivingschoolinsurance.com however, that is with no no claims bonus (I am keeping that on the modified Omega), and they did a bonus mirroring deal which clinched it for me.

Re the Fords, I have been teaching the last week and a half in two older Fieasts, the schools spare cars, the 16v 1.25 at best 35mpg, the 8v 1.3 around 32. The 1.4 tdci is supposed to do 64Mpg. I cannot get this under any circumstances at all. Best I ever did was 49 across a tankful.

Re the vRS, I assume that the engine idle speed management pushes the car on a bit before it stalls so the newer pupils wont have to look at the revcounter? The petrol cars just fade out with a whimper. Also, second for left turns seemed OK when I test drove one, but do many of your pupils end up using 1st? 2nd seemed to go down to 10mph OK.

Chris

sharkrider

re:vRS the engine management will push it on once it's run in, this only works well after about 5,000 miles... for first few hundred , it would rather stop if its a bit uphill. yeah, second is fine for turning left slow, but if they find the speed tickover takes it is too fast, and then dab the break, this is when it will stall! if you just let it run at tickover speed its fine. first is quite short compaired to most petrols, don't really use it when turning major to minor unleless its an acute angle and the speed needs to be a crawl.... I teach in Sheffield , so have many big hills, some of them the car is happy to start in second (lots of big hills round here though!) the torque really helps in sheffield, the car simply does not notice hills, even mountains, sails up them as if they were flat

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Fiat Grande Punto Sporting (158 bhp 314 lbs/ft) in Red....

Furby vRS , black magic,passenger airbag de-activation switch, (now gone, but not forgotten!)

Chris GB

Hi

Yep, found that lot out today! The car seems to be lower geared in 1st and second than the Fiesta I just go rid of. It is actually a lot easier to drive round slower left and right turns than the Fiesta was because of this. I had a mostly manouvres and new drivers day today, so 43mpg. The engine is still very tight at the moment so expect an improvement. To put it in perspective, the Fiesta would have maybe done 44 today if lucky.

Chris

PS, todays pupils loved it!

sharkrider

still pretty impressive that it will match the fiesta when new and tight, and as a bonus you get all that extra power! glad your learners like it

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Fiat Grande Punto Sporting (158 bhp 314 lbs/ft) in Red....

Furby vRS , black magic,passenger airbag de-activation switch, (now gone, but not forgotten!)

andy ellis

Has to be said I'm tempted by the vrs with a set of steels, alloys and driving school dont mix! Having said that though DSA is getting a bit funny about exotics,things like electric handbrakes etc and have heard rummours about 6 speed boxes........ A PD100 plus cough gives you a vrs with a 5 speed and steel wheels....

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Fabia TDI PD100 "Q" and driving school car.
Citroen C4 Coupe 1.6hDi+EGS with disability adaptations.

WW_VRS

Must admit having alloys on an instructors car seems like a sure-fire way of paying out loads for refurbs on a regular basis

When you say the DSA is getting strange on things like 6 speed boxes, you mean they may not allow them for instructor's cars? I would find that a little surprising as a lot of the bigger diesel-powered cars now have them.

That said I can imagine it being a factor as the switch from 4-to-5 speed was a little interesting a (long?) time ago now, 6-speed seemed to be a very easy switch

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WW --->> Project Journal (pic links in first post there)
Lummox'/Ross thread on Unit18 Automotive progress on my car: here

andy ellis

DSA is getting very funny about what is aceptable for test purposes known issues are:-
1) rear vision, open tops and cc are just about barred under this
2) antiroll back devices ie electronic handbrakes

The grey areas

1) using abs in emergency stop
2) six speed boxes and using 6th gear
3) dsg/tiptronic boxes if left in drive you get an automatic only license if you use the manual mode just what do you get???? there is a largely forgotten class of semi-auto....
4) reversing sensors
5) auto wipers / lights

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Fabia TDI PD100 "Q" and driving school car.
Citroen C4 Coupe 1.6hDi+EGS with disability adaptations.

Chris GB