Holy Fruitcake Batman - Quote for flat towing

D.E.Bishop wrote:
Just remember you can't do everything on the cheap. Sometimes you have to bite the bullet and pay the piper. A fabricator that charges a fair price is a fabricator that will be in business when you buy your next vehicle and need the baseplates installed.

I don't do all the work I could do 10 or 20 years ago and it galls me to pay over a hundred bucks an hour to have work done almost as much as the job schedule estimates that shops use.

An example is my wife's car was at her dealers shop for the scheduled maintenance and they recommended a new serpentine belt. $50 for the belt, $375 for fifteen minutes work. Because the job schedule book said that was the average time to do the job.

Today it is a fact of life and sometimes that is the cost of living and RVing.

I think some are missing the point. It wasn't the cost of labor for the baseplate and the like. Heck CW said 3.5 hours at $89/hour. I'm good with that. The main issue were two things. What the one company wanted to charge me to install a ready brute elite (labor at twice what the manufacturer says) and the cost of flat tow parts (base plate, tow bar, patriot braking system, etc). They wanted to charge me nearly $700-1000 more than what I can get the parts for myself. Then they wanted me to pay $125 for shipping of the parts also. Whereas I can get free shipping. Long story short, CW said they would install the products if I got them and would keep the labor charges the same (total of about $760).