Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 18:47:21 -0700
Reply-To: Bruce Nadig <motorbruce@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Bruce Nadig <motorbruce@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: The Thing About Shop Time (Long But Good)
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
I only caught a bit of the thread about shop time for CV service. There
seems to be a great deal of misunderstanding about "shop time". Shop time is
more complicated than it appears on the surface.
The most important thing the consumer needs to be concerned with is what
procedures are being performed and what the total price is for those
services.
Different mechanics charge different labor rates. This is done for a variety
of reasons (different overhead costs, different labor costs in different
regions, different profit margins, etc.). A shop can charge an artificially
low shop time to do a particular job but recover that lost money by having a
higher than average hourly labor charge. The opposite is true. A shop can
have a low hourly rate and a higher than normal shop time for a particular
job. It is just games. What is important is the final price to the consumer.
In addition, it is important to understand where shop times come from.
Dealerships and many independent shops will charge shop time as published by
the vehicle manufacturer. Is this a good standard to refer to? Not
necessarily. Manufacturers publish shop times so that there is a standard to
be used for warranty work when the vehicles are still relatively new.
Of course the manufacturer has incentive to publish a time that might be
shorter than is actually necessary to do the job. Why? Because this dictates
how much the manufacturer will have to pay the dealership to perform
warranty work. If a manufacturer is generous in their shop times it will
cost them money in the long run.
Some manufacturers are better about publishing accurate times than others
are. When I worked in the dealership world, Porsche and BMW published rates
were usually pretty good (although putting a new rear window in a Porsche
993 Cabriolet would eat any mechanic's lunch). Saab, on the other hand, was
another story. Saab Master Techs are almost impossible to find. Why? No one
is interested in working on a make of car where the manufacturer, and
eventually the independents, short you on every job. You can't make a
living.
True, there are others that publish shop time guides, such as Mitchell.
Often times, however, you will find that those times are wildly calculated.
It seems that the folks that put those books together will either closely
follow (copy?) the manufacturer's published rates, have an inexperienced
mechanic performing the work (thus times will be very generous for a tech
that knows his job), or have a mechanic that seems to know some shortcut to
the job that nobody else knows (thus a tech can never come close to matching
the published time).
Published shop rates are also intended to reflect how long it will take an
experienced mechanic (that means one that has done this particular job
several times and has all the specialized tools) to perform a specific job
on a brand new vehicle with no other problems. The importance of this factor
can't be overlooked. A new vehicle is much easier to work on than a vehicle
with dirt, rusted or frozen fasteners, modifications, or other running
problems that make diagnosis, repair, and/or adjustment take much longer
than published. Remember that the newest Vanagons on the road are 15 years
old. Even the well maintained ones have frozen fasteners and other issues.
To compensate for the above factors (short time from manufacturers, older
vehicles, poorly maintained vehicles, etc.) many (dare I say most) shops
will use published time as a guide, but not gospel. Here is an example. I
worked at a dealership for a respected European car manufacturer. For all
warranty work we were allowed to charge the manufacturer their published
rates. For customer pay work on newer vehicles the customer was charged
something like 1.25 times the manufacturer's rate. For older cars it was
usually 1.5 times published rate. The cars that were real messes were
charged something closer to 2.0 time published rate (that is if the
dealership didn't just charge actual time, or turn the car away all
together).
The vast majority of shops are not out to cheat the consumer. Most of the
shops I am familiar with (both dealerships and independent shops) will say
that their times are, "... based upon published rates." That is true. The
published rate is used as a basis to determine the actual charge. It is
usually done in a fair and uniform manner.
So, like I said at the beginning, what the consumer needs to pay attention
to is the actual cost to perform a specific job. They shouldn't be so
concerned as to how that price was calculated. In addition, the consumer
should factor in the service level that the shop offers the customer
(convenient hours, courtesy transportation, loaner cars, special
consideration for regular customers, availability of service appointments,
etc.), as well as the skill level of the mechanics.
I'm not defending anyone's business practices here. I'm just trying to let
people know how it is out there. Remember, don't get mired down in the
details of how the price of the job is calculated. Just make sure you find a
mechanic that does quality work, uses quality parts, and charges a fair
price. When comparing prices, make sure you compare apples to apples. If
comparing apples to oranges, make sure you know what the trade-offs are.
One last word. Never nickel and dime your mechanic. Don't beat him down on
price. In the end, it isn't worth it to you. Find a qualified mechanic that
you can work with for the long term.
My 2¢.
Cheers,
Bruce
motorbruce
motorbruce@hotmail.com