All the above.

Just out of curiosity on what level are you looking at doing training? Training anyone that wants it, for techs that are going to work for a OEM dealership or something other?

I doubt very much that TVHU gives dealers training for free. Looks like it's $1000 for fuel or hydraulics and $1500 for electric control. But it does drop to 1/2 price if 3 or more enroll.

We do not intend to be free for these exact reasons. Licensing from the brand sis expensive as well as legal aspects. Our proposed pricing is being touted as "too high". My question was if the manufacturers like TMHU give the dealers training for free? If so our charging technicians would not be feasible. Of course we could train new technicians before they ever arrived at the dealership level, but ideally we would train both. We've explored licensing the training information from several manufacturers but if dealers get the training free already they'd never pay out 1500 per course fees.

I also find the mention of "free" suspect which is the reason for the post. I could not believe the manufacturers are giving trianing away now.

well going off of what edward has touched on...
even if an outside independent training facility could do 'free' what is it they are giving for free that would benefit?
there are certain aspects of the training on brand's that only the factory can give that they simply will not share with the independent training companies. Or if they do allow it that would cost them to even be able to provide it, ie: paying the fees to the mfg to even be able to get their hands on the 'specific' information related to their machines. The only part of training i can think of they can provide for 'free' would be general maintenance which could be performed on any machine.
Any brand specific programs, software, cables, manuals would not be free imo if they even provided that.

I'm not intentionally trying to be a naysayer here but when someone mentions 'free' to me it raises an eyebrow and i take a long hard look at it because in todays world you just don't see companies giving away anything of any 'real value' for free anymore. There is always an angle they are taking to make money and it doesn't take a genius to figure out who pays for it.
:o)

I was talking about Flight systems and or/TVH training, [multi-brand, systems, not a manufacturer/brand] not Toyota Material handling. my bad for being confusing.

It has always been my observation that it is the "legal issues" you don't see (like the cops you don't see) that get you and bite you. Intellectual property can be a "sticky wicket" so to speak, 'the issue of what is actually trade secret and who owns what information/copyright/trademark' is one that gets a few high dollar man hours at the training and legal department levels at most factories, I am not sure if a smaller outfit could spend the effort.

I agree. If a company is an independent training only firm covering multiple brands I don't see where the legal issue comes in. However since there are fewer and fewer independent dealers out there, if TMHU give training to dealers for free and so do other manufacturers an independent training firm could not really compete with free.

you could , of course, see what TVHU charges, and maybe decide that re-inventing the wheel with all it's legal considerations, might not be a worth it kind of thing for a smaller (than TVH) company.

Thanks for all the feedback. I think the "free" statement from dealership owners was to discourage us perhaps. Our training would fall in the range of 700-1400 per student for a week long course. Range depends on complexity of course etc. Sounds like that pricing is competitive with what the factories charge dealers as well.

I like going on training courses, sitting in a training room / standing round a training truck is a nice change plus you get fed & there is the endless cups of tea & coffee.

Its also nice to chat to other tech's on the course & management you bump in to round the coffee machine.

You can normally end up with another service manual to add to the ever growing collection as well.

ok if you were talking to a dealership tech then i can see that statement being true.
Dealerships do not charge their techs for training and in most cases they get paid for the training time.
But this is only in-house employees.

If there would happen to be a rare (and i do mean rare) case of outsiders coming in for training then yep... fork out the dough cause THEN the outsiders would pay.

On the dealership's end of it yes it does cost the dealership to get the training from the factory per employee, always has. Your estimate of the cost is close, today it is probably a bit more because of changing times and inflated rates now.

I heard this from some dealerships. Basically I guess it is included in being a factory dealer? My experience at dealerships always had been 500-1000 per class to the factory plus expenses but I have been out of the dealerships for some time. In considering a "stand alone" forklift technician training company, the challenge may be to remain competitively priced if the dealer gets the training "free" or at no cost above being a dealer from the factory. I had never seen it this way in my 25 years in the dealerships.

don't know where you heard this "free" thing from but it does not exist in the forklift world or any other place that i know of.
One thing i've learned in today's market is if someone is throwing the word "free" into their sales marketing it is just a gimmick to attract consumers, they WILL get theirs on the back end i can promise you that.
Trainers time and classroom resources costs them money, they are not going to just throw money to the wind training people without making money off of it somehow.

So if your hearing the term "free" from someone i would take a long hard look at what they are trying to sell you on, ask alot of questions about every aspect of this training program they are offering.
I've spent my whole 30+ year carreer working for dealerships and trust me when i say... what may seem like a good deal up front probably isn't in the end, you will pay. ;o)

Just for curiosity, where did you hear this from? I'm sure many of us would like to know the source of this :o)

Basically my experience but I am hearing that the "major" brands offer free training just cover your expenses? I have never seen that and in trying to determine the feasibility of a stand alone technical training venture this is a huge question mark! Free is difficult to compete with.

yes there is a 'class fee' and it is usually considerable, a 3 day class with 15 students, at the factory, can be in the $750 to $1300 per student range when I last checked. It seems to me it runs about 35% to 70% of what it would cost to have the instructor and materials [often including shipping training trucks across country] come to the dealership location.