Sticker shock
So I got tasked with the job of taking care of a small fleet of vehicles at work. My boss tells that one of our vehicles (an 09 Ford Explorer) was making a funny noise and wanted me to check it out...
Forum Discussion
Just yesterday I was talking with my BF (known each other close to 50 years), he's a senor service adviser for a very large Mercedes-Benz Dealership in the North East. He started out swinging wenches and worked at both smaller and very big dealerships.
We were talking about how the dealerships charging "Book Time" for repairs has effected the quality of work. Some of the time "paid" does not even come close to the time that the "Tech" has to spend to complete the repair. This leads to the tech sometimes working on several different vehicles at the same time and billing hours on each one. When I called these "Techs" part changers and not real wrenches, I was surprised when he agreed with me. With all of the computers that all of these new vehicles have makes all these Techs part changers because, they can usually only change a part if the computer says to replace it! Now there are times where they do actually diagnosis something but when they do, it tends to really jack the cost way up!
We were talking about how the dealerships charging "Book Time" for repairs has effected the quality of work. Some of the time "paid" does not even come close to the time that the "Tech" has to spend to complete the repair. This leads to the tech sometimes working on several different vehicles at the same time and billing hours on each one. When I called these "Techs" part changers and not real wrenches, I was surprised when he agreed with me. With all of the computers that all of these new vehicles have makes all these Techs part changers because, they can usually only change a part if the computer says to replace it! Now there are times where they do actually diagnosis something but when they do, it tends to really jack the cost way up!
