Quote:
Originally Posted by Frosty
The thing that is annoying about this to me is that there are mechanics out there that treat "the book" like gospel and now I find out that the numbers are likely pulled out of their ass.
For example, when I had my '05 Silverado, I had an issue with the intermediate steering shaft clunking. GM used a shitty part in the '99 - '06 Pickups that would run dry of grease and make clunking noises at low speed turns. It's a known issue and GM put out an updated replacement part.
Anyway, I took it to the local dealer and they insisted that they had to charge me for labor and that "the book" said 2 hours. So it was around $150 labor plus parts to fix GMs screw-up.
I ended up hiring a Mexican to do it.
Actually, I didn't. I bought a replacement shaft from NAPA and did it myself. Despite being an all-thumbs mechanic, I did it in less than a half hour. I don't mind paying a fair price and I care more for the bottom line price than the number of hours or whatever, but hiding behind the book to justify exorbitant prices is uncool.
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And those prices are exorbitantly high because they have to run a business. At 110 dollars per labor hour, they are going to make a killing, but it costs them money to run that business with all of the people they have to pay.
Despite that, there are people out there that want their cars worked on ONLY by trained professionals backed by insurance and a warranty, that is what you pay for at a dealership.
Smaller ships like my previous two shops, can give you that same quality of work, insurance, and warranty, at about 60% of the cost, by lowering my labor rate and not scaling my book time nearly as much as a dealership does. Not to mention, I have the ability to "haggle" my own prices down to make a sale if I need to, that doesn't happen at the dealership.
If I told you what the dealership marks its parts costs up by, and how much they inflate their book numbers, you guys would shit yourselves.