lbooyd garage.

Why did you get them to do it in the first place rather than doing it yourself?

On or around Wed, 16 Mar 2005 00:15:06 +0000, Tom Woods enlightened us thusly:

I was busy, the weather was crap, and I've not got enough space to work on it undercover. Plus I had no idea they were going to take that long or charge that much.

Either the garage bloke is taking the piss, or his mechanic is. Either way, I'm the one with the bill, which I can ill afford on top of the price of a recon box. I wouldn't mind so much if the job had been done quickly, but they took over a day to refit the bloody box.

It all sounds pretty reasonable to me, most main dealers will charge £60 -£80 hour, Mercedes now charge £100 hour or thereabouts.

I'm a stone fitter (limestone, marble tiles, that sort of thing), I charge £250 a day + vat (that's over £30 an hour)

To be frank, I'm surprised they are still in business charging only £16 an hour.

They probably charged this much as they don't want you coming back, they want customers that give them a vehicle, tell them to supply and fix whatever is wrong and pay the bill at the end.

It's more hassle for them having you tooing a froing with various bits, trying to save money whilst all the time your vehicle is cluttering up their garage. A lot of this is to do with money, money supplying parts, earning per hour, getting the job in and out.

This is on a par with someone asking me to go and repair a job another company hasn't done very well, I'm just asking for trouble, the customer probably still won't be happy, and once I've started it becomes my problem, I either charge a shed load of money or walk away depending on how I feel about the customer.

It's not a rip off, it's nothing personal, it's just business.

Alan M.

In message , Austin Shackles writes

Austin

If their hourly rate really is £16 then in theory you have been done..

But the total price is about right for what a garage would charge, as I said I charge 200 quid plus parts to do that job and there is a small amount of profit attached to the parts. So I earn more than just the £200. I know for a fact that my hourly rate is by far the cheapest in the area.

I have only had a ramp in my workshop for the past year (makes a huge difference) before that I used two axle stands and a trolley jack to change gearboxes, It is a bit of a sod but it can be done alone and in less time than you have allowed in your calculations.

Next time make your self feel better in mind and pocket and do it yourself.

Then you know you have done it right ;-)

On or around Wed, 16 Mar 2005 23:05:52 +0000, Marc Draper enlightened us thusly:

I hope there isn't a next time...

and normally I would have. but see other post for why not.

Thing is, I know this bloke and hitherto he's been reasonable. maybe his rate per hour is too low, but I'd rather see him charge more per hour and bill for the right sort of number of hours - if he'd said that the rate was

Also, his initial rough price for the job was a lot lower; I didn't ask for nor did I expect a firm quote, I'm not that daft, but I do expect people to be able to give a rough idea, within say 25% or so. It's not as if they've never seen a disco before.

ach well, maybe as "muddy" says, he's trying to get rid of me, if so, he's succeeded. Guess where I won't be going for the next lot of tyres in a few weeks.

Yup I've only ever had one job done by a garage, before I worked in a garage myself. I had a mini (in 1986) and it needed a clutch, before that I'd done all the work myself. The guy quoted a cheep price (he was recommended by a work mate who didn't realise he was a buffoon) so I thought it's not worth messing about so I let him do it.

He had it a week he couldn't get the clutch to clear, when I picked it up it was still dragging a bit. I sussed it in less than an hour, slackened off the two big nuts on the end of the clutch housing and it was perfect. And that was the last time I had any work done to my cars by anyone other than me.

-- Jon