Installing a passenger side mirror?

[Hootie]

some dipshit kicked/punched my side mirror off and I had to go to ebay to buy a replacement...

I am not savvy enough (I'm a dipshit) to install it myself and I am getting a little bit of work done tomorrow at an auto shop and I'm going to bring the mirror with me and ask them to install it for me...

how much should I be expecting them to charge me for that labor since I have already bought the part?

[The Franchise]

So as a shop owner....would you be pissed if I sat there and timed you working on my car?

[Hootie]

No I wouldn't because this is America and everyone wants to make more money while doing less work...

Which is why you hire Mexicans

[Exoter175]

Originally Posted by Pestilence

If I quote someone 8 hours to work on a website....it's because worst case scenario....it should only take me 8 hours to do it. If I complete it in 5 hours.....I charge them 5 hours because that's the ACTUAL amount of time that it took me to do it.

There is a huge difference between your business and mine there, but that being said, if they signed off on a contract for 8 hours, you have every right to charge for 8 hours. If you feel you need to charge only 5, go for it. In my world, more often than not, it takes longer than the quote to get the job done right, and my mechanics probably spend twice that amount actually working on the car, not even just the job.

Originally Posted by Saul Good

You are charging for hours of labor that weren't performed and shouldn't have been needed knowing fully well that you weren't going to spend that long on the job.

No I'm not.

[Bugeater]

This thread.

[Exoter175]

Originally Posted by Pestilence

So as a shop owner....would you be pissed if I sat there and timed you working on my car?

Not at all, we had complimentary coffee, TV, and some nice, comfy chairs for you to sit in while you waited.

I encourage you to time us on our job.

[Hootie]

This post serves as an official death threat to the next poster in this thread after me.

[Bugeater]

Me!

[Exoter175]

Originally Posted by Peyton's Princess

This post serves as an official death threat to the next poster in this thread after me.

You might not want to do that with Mechanics afoot.

[Frosty]

Originally Posted by Exoter175

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.

I almost never have non-warranty work done at a dealer. I only went there because I thought GM might have a hidden warranty on it because it was a known problem. Also, when I bought my (new) pickup from them, I was told one of the reasons I should "buy local" (i.e. from them) was because they took care of their customers once the warranty was done.

If they charged more reasonable prices, maybe they would get more business and make more money to pay all of those expenses. However, maybe they don't want non-warranty work. Dunno.

[Hootie]

Originally Posted by Bugeater

Me!

Hope you enjoy urine as a last meal.

[SAUTO]

Originally Posted by Exoter175

Then every mechanic you know, including Sauto is a crook.


Also, it shows to me that you know nothing about the business.

let me give you a hypothetical of how this works.

My labor hour is $80 an hour
My labor hour markup is 10%
You Car is booking at 2.2 Hours to fix (2.0 standard)
It takes me 45 minutes to fix.

Every business is going to charge you that 2.2 Hours to fix, unless they are the 1% of business out there that don't mark their labor hour up. In which case you get charged for 2.0 hours.

It still took us 45 minutes to fix, and you get charged 2 hours.

Are we crooks then?

If you say yes, then it appears to me that you haven't read a god damned thing in this thread, and are only trying to troll at this point, because your lack of business sense or reading comprehension are low or non existent.

No one i have ever worked for has a mark up on the labor hours above what the book says.

thats not right IMO.

[Exoter175]

Originally Posted by Frosty

I almost never have non-warranty work done at a dealer. I only went there because I thought GM might have a hidden warranty on it because it was a known problem. Also, when I bought my (new) pickup from them, I was told one of the reasons I should "buy local" (i.e. from them) was because they took care of their customers once the warranty was done.

If they charged more reasonable prices, maybe they would get more business and make more money to pay all of those expenses. However, maybe they don't want non-warranty work. Dunno.

Honestly, check the service bulletins on your car anytime you have a weird problem with it like that, a lot of times there will be a recall or an extended warranty replacement on an issue, and it will be fixed free of charge.

However, unless you specifically walk up to the service writer and tell him about the TSB you found, they aren't going to offer it unless it falls under an emergency recall, in which case you should have received a letter in the mail about it at some point. Dealerships do not like to do work for free, so they generally won't tell you about it unless it is a serious emergency. If it falls under a non emergency category, they might just charge you to replace it if you don't know better.

[Saul Good]

Originally Posted by Exoter175

You sit here and say you didn't expect it, but you call it unreasonable and call them crooks for not doing it for 20 dollars or less.

You still do not UNDERSTAND the point everyone is driving across to you. This is a business, not a charity, kid. You might have a shitty car you don't appreciate, knowing that it'll cost a ton to fix later on, but in the eyes of a mechanic, your car is just like the next Mercedes that pulls up. Its going to cost you the same labor hour that it'll cost on the Mercedes. Why in the actual **** would you ever assume that the state of your car has anything to do with how much I'm going to charge you?

Which brings me to my second point.

Labor Hour. If you don't understand what Labor Hour is, or what it means, you shouldn't be dictating price.

Simply put, Labor Hour is what I'm going to charge you PER HOUR to fix your car. IT doesn't stop there though, because I'm probably going to pull up something like Mitchell or Alldata to find out how long it is going to take me to fix it, when you come in and ask for a quote, and I'm probably going to mark up the base labor hour by 10-25% on top of that.

Why? Because its going to cost me 400+ per day to have this building with these tools, with these employees, with the insurance to cover all of them, just to be in business. I have to make my money somewhere, and where I make it is labor hour, and parts.

Since you are bringing in a part I can't mark up, I ONLY make money on the labor hour, where I'm less likely to discount you on.

If you don't like the costs associated with running a business and having work done by professionals, use your mexicans, but understand there is nothing Constitutional or Patriotic about what you are doing, and you are only hurting the economy because you are a cheap ****.



And this is why you're a moron. Entitled? No. Lawful and helpful to the economy? Yes.

You say reasonable to a Mexican for 20 bucks, I see liability, economic downturn, and a cheapskate.

You're all full of negativity but understand this, when they **** up something on your car, you have no ability to go after them for damages, and they won't be paying you back for their mistakes. If you did it at my shop, you'd be taken care of because you get what you pay for, and with a business, by law, I'm supposed to take care of you if I **** up.



This. But, as I've said, labor hour is labor hour. It doesn't go up or down depending on the condition of the car being worked on.

In case anyone missed it, here's the post where you showed your ass and admitted that you knowingly bill for more hours than the job takes.

[Exoter175]

Originally Posted by JASONSAUTO

No one i have ever worked for has a mark up on the labor hours above what the book says.

thats not right IMO.

Then you haven't worked anywhere worth a shit, or live in some kind of small town backwoods rural area, which I know you do.

Furthermore, you wouldn't know what you were looking for even if you saw it.

[chiefforlife]

This is getting out of hand.

Actual book time on that mirror is 1 hour. If you called my shop and asked, we would quote you 1 hour. Period.

We do install bulbs on most vehicles at no charge other than the bulb itself. If you are a good customer, we probably wouldnt charge you at all for that. I have made many a customer by doing this for someone in the parking lot and saying, there you go its on me.

I think exort is getting hammered here, a lot of shops do what he is saying.