Things Dealers tell Customers

We call it "building value" in the car business. If flat rate says it's a two-hour job, and your ace tech can get it done in 1:15, you don't wheel it out front as soon as he's done. Park it out back for a while, so the customer doesn't get the perception that it was "too easy" and he should get a refund. The length of time it takes is directly proportional to the customer's perception of what it's worth.
Simple solution to your tire guy: close the shop door. I used to work at a small rural moto shop for room and board. I got my cash spending money from tire mounting and got pretty fast at it. After the first guy bitched about the price because it took me ten minutes to mount two new tires, I'd hang around the shop and BS with the tech, or work on one of my bikes, mount other tires, take a crap.... You get the idea. Wander out front 25-30 minutes later and everybody's happy.
Me personally, if I'm paying you $XXX to do YYY, and you get it done in 15 minutes, I don't care. I'm here because I don't want to, or can't, do it myself. I'm paying you for a job well done either way, I know how flat rate works, and if I'm outta there sooner that's fine.


1911fan

Been reading/following this thread and I think there is some interesting info here. However, I do have to say I completely disagree with the above logic (as a consumer) and I find it to be a total bs. No wonder most people hate "stealerships."

Ducati techs charge $45/hr for labor. Fine. If the work required takes 2hrs to complete, then I would expect to pay $90 (+ tax). Fine. However, you CANNOT expect me to pay you $90 if it took you 1:15! If you, as the owner, do think that this is fair, I would LOVE to work for you and would fully expect you to pay me for the full 8hr day, even though, I only have worked 6hrs (I mean, I got my shit done on time and bs'ed with the reception ladies up front).

I ordered 4 tires for my car this fall after checking prices at all the shops around. Got them for about $40 less each. Well duh, here internets, take my money!

Then came the search for mount and balance. One place, after the did you buy them here? question, wanted 75$ per wheel to mount and balance.

I laughed all the way out the door, then sat in my car until I had composed myself enough to drive away from those fucktards.

You might not like it, but that's the way it is. However, not all of the jobs are gravy licks. Some can turn into money losing horror stories through nobody's fault. Bear in mind that part of the price is for actual labor and part is for the technician's expertise. Sometimes labor is charged by the actual time worked, things like electrical weirdness and intermittent problem diagnosis. Incidentally, $45 an hour flat rate is NOT expensive in this day and age, especially for work on an exotic make. Go to your local Ferrari or Lambo dealer and ask what THEIR hourly rate is.

Sounds like you are not up to speed on how dealership labor costs work.

Typically, a job is in "the book" at a certain number of hours. Let's say a timing belt change, and assume that it specs 2.5 hours.

You pay 2.5 * (labor rate) for labor on that job. If you get a super experienced tech who can do the job in 1.5 hours, or if you get a newer tech who takes 3.5 hours to do the work, you still pay for only 2.5 hours of labor. That way, the customer knows up front what the costs will be and does not get dinged if the job takes longer than the book specifies.

Most "book" times are pretty low for any given job. A tech needs to have some experience to keep up, and it's more often than not that the tech takes more time than the book time for work.

I don't mind at all paying more hourly labor for a job than it takes; that typically means that I got an experienced tech, who knows what (s)he's doing, and the job got done right. Plus, my work got done faster than specified. Why should I complain if it took less time?

Walmart will mount anything you bring in. Paid $65 last week for 4 mount and balance with old tire disposal. They even do my stiff side wall Hoosier race tires for the same price.

That is exactly how the entire auto industry works. They look up how long the repair will take in the book, and you pay that price. Assuming the tech is paid by the job, if the repair takes less time, or more time, the tech gets paid the same.
Many years ago I saw a sign that said "We charge what the job is worth, not the speed of the tech."

I specialize in electrical and have $$$$ invested in diagnostic tools. I can tell you if your stator, CDI or charging system is bad in a very short time. Because I spent more money on the tools, should I be making less money?
Or should I just use a test light and have you, the customer replace the CDI and stator because we have "no spark" and I can't tell what is wrong?

Then you better be proficient at working on your own vehicles. See below...

Its not just dealerships that go by the flat rate. Its any automotive shop...well except maybe for JimBob who has a garage out behind the house.

Um when you’re a good tech you make more than 8hr a day. And you do get paid for all of it. That’s how flat rate works. If you have 5 jobs in a given day that the book says should take 12hr to complete and you have them done by quitting time you just got paid for 12hr but only worked 8. But then sometimes you could get those same five jobs and it take you 2 full days to complete them due to something, be it your lack of experience or something out of your control and you lose 4hr time. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>

It's false advertising. They don't really charge $45/hr for labor. They charge $45 x the published labor schedule. It's really a fixed charge per job, not really for labor. Most of the techs I know get paid 12 - 16 hours a day because they are getting paid based on billable hours, not their actual labor. They don't get all of the labor rate though, so it's not $45/hour for the 12 - 16 hours that they get paid. The crappy part though is most shops I know charge extra if the job takes longer than the published time, so they double-dip in a sense. They'll charge the 2 hour published rate if it only takes an hour, but they'll charge the extra hour if that 2 hour job takes 3 hours. The consumer is really in a losing situation if you want to pay what it takes to do the job, or the per hour labor rate would be much higher.

The "book" time allows techs to be rewarded/compensated for experience & efficiency.

If you're a kickass tech with 20 years of experience, you're more valuable than a kid just out of trade school. But if you both bill the same amount of money per hour, then how is an employer able to compensate you properly for your workload and experience?

Here's another example:

I start out in the lawn care business. I mow your lawn with a push mower. I charge you $20/hr and it takes me 2 hours. You happily pay me $40.
I get more accounts, and upgrade my equipment to a professional machine with an 80" mowing deck. (a $15K machine)
Now I can bang out your lawn in 30 minutes.
Isn't it still worth $40?

This I don't see often. Most techs I know can bill 12 hours in an 8 hour day, some closer to 16 hours.

I understand how it works. What I am saying is that is bs. It would make more sense (to me) if the rates were flat (i.e., $100 timing belt change vs. "the book says 2.5hrs"). Also, I'm not so sure about paying the same amount if it took them 3.5hrs and the job says 2.5hrs b/c there is almost some sort of excuse involved as to why it "took the tech so long so we have to charge you." Funny how the prices and labor involved changes if the insurance work is involved...

I know, I know... it is what it is. Oh, and just for the record, I have no problem paying for quality work.

It is a flat rate. A flat hourly rate, plus parts. Not too much difference except with the book you get that flat rate after the mechanic looks in his book/CD to see the average time to do the work. Then they tell you it will be X amount of dollars plus parts.
I see no difference in the way it's done verses the way you feel it should be done except you have given no clue as to how they would come up with that $100 flat rate.

I had a dealership try to charge me to replace my ignition, battery, and wiring harness, new set of keys for a burnt wiring harness on my DR650 for 1300 bucks. I said no thanks and replaced only the wiring harness myself in about 2 hours for 70 bucks, ignition and battery were both fine.

I see I managed to open a can of worms here... I suppose this is a good thing Plus, I definitely do not mind constructive feedback (or a lil' bit of bashing) :)

I do see and understand where you're coming from. But in your example, I honestly don't see how can you charge me $40 if you say that your hourly rate is $20 and you do the work in 30min? If you told me, it's $40 to do the job, sure, here's $40. The fact that you have more sophisticated and better equipment that allows you to the work faster and "better" justifies the cost of $40, but it does not logically, mathematically or common sense-wise justify $40 if the cost is time-based. What I would expect to see is that the rates went up (you had to invest into better equipment) and as a result, the time to do the job decreased.

If he was to change his hourly rate tho he'd be charging $80/hr in that example and you'd probably turn him down because it's too expensive and you can find someone else who'll do it for $20/hr. Or he tells you the job would've taken 2 hours but he's got a fancy machine that lets him do 2 hours of work in less time. Therefore the amount of work hasn't changed but how fast he can do it has. It's still 2 hours worth of work.

That's my point -- it's the average time and not the actual time.

I had to replace the flywheel on my Hyundai. I called four Hyundai dealerships within 25-30mi radius. The cost to do the job was around $1,000. When I asked them what is that $1,000 composed of, I got 3 or 4 different responses
-Dealer1: 4hr labor, $600 in parts
-Dealer2: 6hr labor, $400 in parts
-Dealer3/4: mixture of labor and parts that was somewhat similar to each other

How is this possible? They all came up to virtually the same total amount, yet all had different "charges" and all were authorized Hyundai dealerships.

He is charging per hour so he is ripping the customer off charging for 2 hours but only there for half, the right thing is charge 1 hour at a higher rate. I cut grass thru school and I charged 1 hour minimum and every half hour after that, sometimes it took longer and I'd eat that time.