Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 23:11:37 -0400
Reply-To: Dennis Haynes <dhaynes@OPTONLINE.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Dennis Haynes <dhaynes@OPTONLINE.NET>
Subject: Re: The Thing About Shop Time (Long But Good)
In-Reply-To: <BAY103-F9017E668FFFD9F5EB5B9AC7BC0@phx.gbl>
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Other considerations would include combination work and when does the
clock start to tick. An example is upper and lower ball joints. Say the
book gives ~ 1 hour each, if you are doing the lowers, the uppers are
only an extra step. Lowers are also different depending on the cast arms
or the arms with removable ball joint mounts. Rarely can you get the old
joints pressed out and new ones pressed in without getting the control
arm or adapter to a real press. As for the clock start, do you start
when the mechanic brings the car in or after it is set up on the lift?
Does the time include putting tools away and paper work? These are all
variables but the reality is someone has to pay for it. Here labor rates
are getting close to $100/hour or more. The Caterpillar Dealer for my
motor home engine is $113/man hour. If a helper is needed, pay 2X. The
local Freightliner dealer is $105. Think of this for those Sprinter
vans.
Dennis
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf
Of Bruce Nadig
Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 9:47 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: The Thing About Shop Time (Long But Good)
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
