Sticker shock

[Turtle_n_Peeps]

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. I took it for a test driver and sure enough, it was making a very strange almost like turbo noise. It almost sounded like a set of planetaries going out in the tranny.

I take it to a local shop that a friend owns and he checks it out but he can't find out where the noise was coming from so my boss said take it to the dealer.

So I make an appointment at the dealer and they can't reproduce the noise. Super nice tech. He took me for a ride to see if I could hear it again. Nope, gone. All well.

Anyway I haven't been to a dealer in a long time and when I looked at their labor board I about had myself a heart attack! $158.00/ hour!! $158.00/ hour!!

I'm out of touch!

Is this what some of you outside of Kalifornia are seeing at your Ford dealer?

Just wondered.

[BenK]

The only optional costs for my customers when I owned small motor control company's were on their site training

Included in the quoted price were spare parts, instruction manuals (if they wanted more, yes additional cost), on site instalation till certified, basic training and 1st yearly inspection

Industrial, so they knew more about the product than general public...but Turtle, Grit & others are so NOT 'general public'...

Some of our competitors did charge for some of these basics...why we were awarded

Plus, we did NOT try to tell the customer what they wanted...

[BarabooBob]

I gladly take my F150 to the local Ford dealership. They properly service my truck and get it back to me when promised. They are not the cheapest here in town, but, I had problems with a couple of other shops getting the work done. One other shop had one of my vehicles for 3 weeks because they kept doing other jobs while my truck sat on the lift. The Ford shop gets my work done and the vehicle back to me asap.
They beat all of the other tires shops when I needed new tires. Great service.

[BB_TX]

JALLEN4 wrote:
Here is an idea. Why don't you guys who obviously know everything about how these service shops should be run, start your own. You will obviously be rich nearly overnight and us dummies will never have to wait to make an appointment again while we enjoy your cheap prices!:R

Exactly. Unless you have owned a business you have no idea the multitude of overhead costs that must be covered by means of the income you collect before you can even think about a profit for yourself.

[JALLEN4]

Here is an idea. Why don't you guys who obviously know everything about how these service shops should be run, start your own. You will obviously be rich nearly overnight and us dummies will never have to wait to make an appointment again while we enjoy your cheap prices!:R

[monkey44]

In most repair shops, the hourly rate is jacked up to cover this as an overhead cost, just like insurance, rent, etc. Since the advent of computers, it's become a method to itemize such supplies, and add it automatically. Just because you can categorize it now, it becomes a charge.

I can't imagine adding nails, screws, saw blades, drill bits when I was building homes years ago, nor a fee for 'forms' and stamps when I sent an invoice. That stuff was all in my cost projections.

It's like buying tires - we get a 'quote', then when the invoice arrives, a tire disposal fee, a shop fee, state tax, fed tax, town road fee all adds to the 'original out-the-door' charge. I always look at the OTD price once I arrive, and if so, THEN compare it to the size of the check I will write, not the phone quote. Sometimes, it makes it worth leaving and buy the tires elsewhere.

OTD quote should be dollars we write on the check amount lines.

[pianotuna]

my most recent bill:

1,736.45 for parts
560 for labor (8 hours)
56 for shop materials
126.18 federal sales tax
151.42 provincial sales tax

2801.24 total.

new leaf springs, with extra leaf on both sides, new monro shocks, timbrens, various small parts such as u bolts and nuts. I'm exceedingly happy with this.

[fj12ryder]

The idea that you get charged for shop supplies, towels, clean rags, etc. is crazy. That's part of the cost of doing the business you do. It would be like Walmart adding a charge on the receipt for aisle sweeping, toilet paper, shelf restocking.

[ItsyRV]

Maybe I'm out of the loop, but I thought the hourly labor rate was based on a combined cost of service, not what the mechanic gets paid. Since they are not billing based on the time the service adviser spent, the time the parts dept spent pulling the parts, the time the cashiers spent, the cost of the service bay rental, the cost of the electricity to run the compressor and lights, the"free" car wash, the paper mats and plastic seat covers, etc., etc., etc., they use a generic labor rate which was designed to be all inclusive. It's the "shop supplies" charges that is the real profit center as those generic items were already calculated in the generic labor rate.

[BenK]

Boils down to managing ONLY their bottom line...cheapest at any cost to make the most MONEY


Any cost in their products/service and to their customers...

Too many of their customers demand the cheapest...not understanding how they've driven this metric in a circular cycle

Lost is that if they had the better product/service...their bottom line would follow...

[valhalla360]

pianotuna wrote:
I believe the mechanic should get the lions share of the service fee. Unfortunately the opposite is a fact of life.

Problem is the lion's share of the cost to the owner is not the hourly rate that is paid.

[Hondavalk]

patnchris wrote:
Midnightsadie....Don't know where you're from but around here you can make $15 stocking shelves in a department store. I was making $28/hr. back in 1995...plus 401k match, 75% of healthcare, paid holidays, and 3 weeks paid vacation...

See what RV dealers are charging per hour compared to what they pay their mechanics.

[patnchris]

Midnightsadie....Don't know where you're from but around here you can make $15 stocking shelves in a department store. I was making $28/hr. back in 1995...plus 401k match, 75% of healthcare, paid holidays, and 3 weeks paid vacation...

[Terryallan]

colliehauler wrote:

Terryallan wrote:
Don't be all tore up. they want $130.00 just to plug in, and tell me which seat sensor is bad. Not to fix it. Just tell which one is bad. so. it is still bad, and probably won't be fixed. she said the air bag won't work with it on. Truthfully. that ain't a bad thing for me. I sit pretty close to the steering wheel, and it isn't good for a airbag to go off when you sit close to it.

Why do I sit so close. I found I have better control while sitting close, as opposed to having my arm stretched out.

O'Reilly Auto Parts will let you use their code reader for free.

thanks. will it read the seat sensors as well? that little guy that sit in the seat with a belt on. lights up on the cluster. But not all the time.

[opnspaces]

I haven't taken a vehicle to a dealer for quite a while now. But at the time they would charge a diagnostic fee. If you had them fix the issue they would apply the cost of the diagnostic fee to the price of the repair. I always assumed that was how it was done across the board. Apparently times have changed, or maybe it's a state or region thing.

[colliehauler]

Terryallan wrote:
Don't be all tore up. they want $130.00 just to plug in, and tell me which seat sensor is bad. Not to fix it. Just tell which one is bad. so. it is still bad, and probably won't be fixed. she said the air bag won't work with it on. Truthfully. that ain't a bad thing for me. I sit pretty close to the steering wheel, and it isn't good for a airbag to go off when you sit close to it.

Why do I sit so close. I found I have better control while sitting close, as opposed to having my arm stretched out.

O'Reilly Auto Parts will let you use their code reader for free.