Automotive technicians train to work on the complex automobiles on the road today. Some automotive technology schools, like Lincoln Technical Institute (LTI), with more than 40 locations across the country, have specific courses designed for today's mechanics. Students learn the fuel and emissions systems, electrical system, diagnosis equipment, troubleshooting automobile problems and many other automotive technologies.
Courses like the one at LTI qualify the student for an automotive certification or degree in automotive technology. The student can also qualify for one of the manufacturers specialty schools where she concentrates solely on the models of a particular manufacturer.
Many schools that have automotive technology provide training in collision repair. This type of automotive technology school offers the student certificates or an associate's degree in automotive technologies.
Schools such as LTI and Universal Technology Institute (UTI), which has 10 locations across the country as of 2010, have specific courses for collision repair technicians. The schools teach the student in structural materials, the technological advances in today's automobile design, surface preparation, welding and other techniques used to repair a damaged automobile.
Automotive engineering technology is an area that trains the student to assist in designing, developing and testing the automobiles of the future. This is generally a bachelor's degree or graduate degree program accomplished at the four-year college or university.
Ferris State University has an automotive engineering technology program that offers students advanced studies in automotive technologies. Students receive a lot of classroom instruction, as well as on-the-job training and hands-on training in the universities laboratory.
This type of automotive technology school educates students in all aspects of the automobile, including, but not limited to, fuels and emissions including alternative fuels, kinematics of mechanisms and prototype development.
One automotive technology school rarely mentioned is the racing industry automotive technology schools. NASCAR has a specific training program through UTI in Mooresville, North Carolina, that trains students in the automotive technologies used in today's race car. This schools offers a 48-week automotive technology course that concentrates on NASCAR technologies.
Other racing industry schools exist for each type of race car, such as open-wheel racing cars and Formula racing cars. The schools teach troubleshooting, repairing, servicing, building and testing techniques for a NASCAR automobile or specific race car.