42 stude brakes fixed-repair bill fair or ripoff?

Sheldon,

That is a lot of money, especially for someone like me (I'm a very cheap so-and-so!) that always does their own work. I rarely take cars to repair shops, but isn't repair shop labor up to about $65 per hour??

Let's assume $65 per hour, so that $858 comes to around 13 hours of labor, or one person working slightly less than two days. With an old car, this may not be too out of line, time wise, depending on how many stuck bolts there were, etc. I know that I sure could spend two days doing a brake job, but then I am quite anal about cleaning/painting parts, I would always clean and regrease the front wheel bearings unless I knew that they had been done recently, I take great pains to ensure my replacement brake lines are as perfect and as close to the original as I can get them, I clear coat the brakelines before reinstalling them, etc, etc. I know that I have had one or two problems with little things (like rusted/rounded off brake line fittings, or getting off the rusted clips that hold the flex hoses to the frame bracket) that have cost me a bunch of time on a brake job.

One point I will make, if they spent three (!) months doing this, they may have only worked a little here and a little there, and the startup (ie, 'get everything ready to start the task') and cleanup time for each of those little tasks may really adds.

I will let other people weigh in on this. I sure know that I have spent two days on a full brake job on an old car before............

Paul

Sheldon, you have me really interested in this now!

I pulled out a Studebaker Service Operation Time Guide, the oldest one I had for the mid-to-late fifties, and early sixties. This is what I came up with, from the time guide:

R&R brake linings, adjust front wheel bearings, bleed brakes = 2.9 hours Wheel cylinder rebuild including honing 0.7 each = 2.8 hours Install front brake hoses (subtracting the bleeding) = 0.2 hours Rear brake line (didn't have this specifically, but used other tasks to estimate) = 1 hour Wheel studs (not in guide, didn't know how many, guessed) = 0.5 hour

Note that these times did not include cutting the drums on a brake drum lathe, which would have been an extra 2.2 hours. Also, no time was added for messing around with the hill holder.

This total (without cutting the brake drums or messing with the hill holder) is 7.4 hours. Would there be extra time (based on problems with stuck fasteners, rust, unfamiliar tasks such as rear drum removal, etc) working on a 60 year old car versus a 1 or 3 or 6 year old car? Probably, but I don't know how to factor this in.

Interesting question.

Paul

Made me think about the cheap Avanti that I bought for 2K. I was worried about the bidding going too high since I only have 4K in the car with the new parts. If I added 150 hours of labor at even $50/hour the car should go for $11.500 I guess the labor charge is about right on the 42, but I never thought that kind of work should go for $50-$75/hour. Good thing N8 was not doing the work, it would have been 3K or better by the time he cleaned and detailed everything.

R1Lark wrote:

That *lowers* the repair bill the next time around, though :) nothing is nicer than working on a car where someone's already gotten rid of all the rust and grease...

nate

John Poulos wrote:

Sounds like the shop spent way too much time learning about Studebaker brakes on your time. If they were competent, the the going rate of $65.00 per hour would be acceptable for a 8-9 hour job. I think they should have kissed you afterwards.

Mark (that's why I do my own labor) Dunning