Oops.....$600 b4 tax.
Highway robbery?
- Thread starter Brogy
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No, its not robbery. Isn't a thread like this posted every week?
Techs have a certain education level and ever growing tool box. You are paying for that. Cars are too complex for every shmuck to work on. Walmart economy of scaling doesn't work with auto-mechanics.
How many people here cry about what their lawyer, dentist, or doctor charges to have something fixed??
Most tech's aren't living the high life.
BTW, whatever you do for a living is paying you too much too. Maybe you should consider charging your employer less for your services. Ask your boss for a paycut. I'm sick of paying too much for 'insert your profession here'!
Techs have a certain education level and ever growing tool box. You are paying for that. Cars are too complex for every shmuck to work on. Walmart economy of scaling doesn't work with auto-mechanics.
How many people here cry about what their lawyer, dentist, or doctor charges to have something fixed??
Most tech's aren't living the high life.
BTW, whatever you do for a living is paying you too much too. Maybe you should consider charging your employer less for your services. Ask your boss for a paycut. I'm sick of paying too much for 'insert your profession here'!
Ya what he said. Considering the overhead It cost's our shop $2500 per day to break even. Anything over $2500 is profit.
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There's a lot of overhead (Chris, you're in one BIG and EXPENSIVE shop). Some things there are flat charges that reflect the investment in the equipment (turning rotors, alignments, cooling system service, AC service, etc.). Now if you've got a 5 minute job and the charge is $30-$40 (whatever) the "good" shop will poke around and check some things out ..fix whatever else he/she sees needing done in the time alloted for the minimum ante. Parts mark up used to be simple when ordering from an outside store. We used to go 50% over cost. Back in the ancient times, it was simple. List -25% trade 50% jobber - less 10% - less 10% - less 5% depending on distributor/warehouse volume. Stuff you kept on hand had a premium for the money extended in inventory (bulbs, filters, etc.).
The premium is usually commensurate with how close the outfit is to "state of the art" in advanced services ...and how many mouths it has to feed beyond the money producing employees. This is where dealers really lose since they have cashiers, service managers, parts managers, service writers, parts counter personnel, the owner, etc. Plus they have to maintain 100% serviceability for any new lick that the factory pukes out ..perpetually.
Now, sure, there are enough that have the notion that they "deserve" more for less. You learn quickly not to use those service providers. I was doing a friend a favor by letting another shop bid on putting my long block in. Now this guy had only two cars in the 12 bay shop. He came back with $1000 minimum for the job. I never looked back after his shop was in my rear view mirror. I got it done for under half of that. He's the type that doesn't appear to care how much work he does ..as long as he gets a big bang for each job. I think he'll have lots of first time customers. No one is going to ever have any trust and faith in someone like that.
The premium is usually commensurate with how close the outfit is to "state of the art" in advanced services ...and how many mouths it has to feed beyond the money producing employees. This is where dealers really lose since they have cashiers, service managers, parts managers, service writers, parts counter personnel, the owner, etc. Plus they have to maintain 100% serviceability for any new lick that the factory pukes out ..perpetually.
Now, sure, there are enough that have the notion that they "deserve" more for less. You learn quickly not to use those service providers. I was doing a friend a favor by letting another shop bid on putting my long block in. Now this guy had only two cars in the 12 bay shop. He came back with $1000 minimum for the job. I never looked back after his shop was in my rear view mirror. I got it done for under half of that. He's the type that doesn't appear to care how much work he does ..as long as he gets a big bang for each job. I think he'll have lots of first time customers. No one is going to ever have any trust and faith in someone like that.
I'm in a hole in the wall radiator shop. I'm the only employee. The major cost is disposal fees thanks to Ca and workmans comp.
When I see some of the prices people are charged for simple repair items, it makes me very grateful that I can work on my own vehicles. This weekend, I changed my front brake pads, rotors, and flushed out the fluid in the brake and clutch systems, all for around $125. I can imagine that if I had paid for it to be done, it would have cost me $300, and most likely more, and the workmanship would have been poor. When I read threads like this, I understand why people skimp on repairing their cars so much, endangering us all of course.
Oh and P.S., I understand that garage owners need to charge high hourly rates to customers, in order to be profitable. But forcing unneeded repairs on people because they are ignorant of the mechanical aspects of cars? Now that is stealing.
wouldve cost you way more than $300. you wouldve paid just that in parts, plus another 250-500 in labor. at $100 an hour, my work is one of the cheapest dealers in town. the mercedes dealer across the street charges $125 an hour.
also in CA a shop is not allowed to do a repair unless the customer authorizes it. so you cant do a "o while we were in there" thing. you can fix little stuff as long as you dont charge for it.
I don't know where you got this info; must be a state by state thing or something. There's no federal law saying automotive repair shops can't mark up parts! They go to Napa, or where ever (actually, it's usually the parts store that drops parts off to the repair shops) all day long for parts and then mark them up 100 or more %. It's standard operating procedure.
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Yeah, but at your labor rate ..even if 50% of the tab was parts (assume 60% of that is profit), you would have to work around 16-18 hours a day to break even. Are you sure you don't mean "a week"??
Boss said a day
When I became a shop foreman I was privy to the books as my pay was based upon the "net" profits. Our Fixed Cost of Operations+non commision payroll (mortgage payments, taxes, utilities, hourly personnel, equipment lease costs, insurance, repair bills etc) was right at $65K/month. Shop gross was $450-$500K/month.
It takes a deceptively large amount of money to run a legit shop.
It takes a deceptively large amount of money to run a legit shop.
thats the key there, legit. you have a ton of expenses that the average person does not even consider.
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Any business that grosses 6 million annually isn't any small shop. The numbers I see quoted have to have some unusual circumstance. They either have to be supporting some inordinate social/environmental program (as Chris said disposal fees of some unholy amount), be in some ultra high cost of living area (way too much money to spread around), or are unusually large (some larger service center).
You guys have me wanting to lean the other way on this. I'm not that out of touch with the trade, and I don't live in a cheap area. The Mainline isn't that far away. Although there are surely enough cars to support the shops in the area ...there isn't enough available cash for every car to be assigned a $300-400 ticket per event that allows the average shop to process that many cars in a day/week/year to accrue that much revenue. For one mechanic to process 10 cars @ $250 each would be a real stretch ..again ..unless they live in an area where nature says that you make too much money.
At the shop I used to work at as a kid, we bought parts from some major suppliers (how does $0.009 per L194-type bulb sound to you when we charged $7.99 to fix most exterior mini-bulbs??)and we also bought stuff from Napa. They charged us a 'jobber rate' which was usually at least 30% off the street price. Then we would mark the parts up to the street price or a little higher. There was no robbery being done. Most auto parts stores do this all day long for mechanics. That's how they earn the mechanics' business!
FWIW, i've never paid less than $100 for an R134a recharge.
Anyone who thinks it should only cost $15 has no idea what is involved.
Andy
FWIW, i've never paid less than $100 for an R134a recharge.
Anyone who thinks it should only cost $15 has no idea what is involved.
Andy
a little off topic, but I recently got a new phone number when I changed to digital voice service. the phone number I got used to be an auto repair shop near a big university in town. 99% of the phone calls on my answering machine were from young girls saying their "my engine is making funny noises" "my car won't start" "how much is it going to cost to fix engine?"
I'd be all over that.
Aside from having a repair bay tied up for 2 hours, you don't have to spend two hours watching the AC machine. The machine will evacuate, and hold a vacuum automatically. Not sure why you would have to weigh the refrigerant when MFGs publish this info and you can just input this into the machine and it will automatically put in the correct amount. 15 minutes of work tops.
MOST of the garbage in this thread doesn't deserve a reply, much less the anger that it started to build up. Those who can repair their own are most welcome to do so. Those who can't can pay me well enough to stay off the welfare line.
Bob
Bob
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