Date:         Tue, 25 Apr 2006 22:46:56 -0600
Reply-To:     Tom Boldway <jboldway@COMCAST.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Tom Boldway <jboldway@COMCAST.NET>
Subject:      Shop rate.
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Shop rates vary wildly - the highest I paid was in Bryn Mawr PA to a shop
that worked on foreign cars - like Maserati, Ferrari, etc. Close to
$150/hour. The other extreme was a tiny shop devoted to Volkswagens (and
renault dauphines). Did work that was better than the one in Bryn Mawr
(after "repair" by bryn mawr mechanics the clutch linkage fell off on drive
home after replacing clutch - bolts never tightened down). Here's an invoice
from 2002 from the small town shop out in the midwest - I'm guessing he
worked about 3-4 hours - and he didn't charge me for the new window hand
crank he installed: 
Parts  Labor
20.00 30.00     Tune Up - compression #1 116 #3 79 #2 147 #4 150. Adjust air
flow box mixture. 
5.00  15.00     replace all small vacuum hose
15.00 10.00     oil and filter change (10-30 Castrol)
2.50  10.00     rewire power steering sensor and top off fluid
          5.00  check front end pack upper ball joint with grease
-----------------------------
42.50 70.00  6.64 tax - total 119.14

I don't even have that 85 Westy anymore - but I kept that receipt - knowing
I'd never ever EVER pay prices that low - and get work done that well. Oh,
and he even cleaned my tape deck as it flipped from one side to the other
over and over (must have been a strip of sensor stuck inside) - saw one of
my tapes sticking out of the deck (empty before) and pushed it in. Dang
thing worked fine from then on.