Did I get ripped off for a brake cylinder job?

I looked to see if I could find a typical price for a new master cylinder at Napaoline. They showed only rebuilt units, and they were typically in the range of $100-250 for trucks. A new one would likely be considerably more.

If they allowed a flat rate of one hour, then the price you were quoted is certainly within reason.

Reply to
<HLS
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I'm not Ian, but... If I ever see a Camry ball joint fail I might just die. Failure from accident/impact doesn't count :)

Toyota MDT in MO

Reply to
Comboverfish

Things aren't always this good... 10-12 hours per day average is a goal I don't always achieve, but it happens often enough to make payday one of the better days of the week. You should get a bonus just for having to work exclusively on GM products ; )

Toyota MDT in MO

Reply to
Comboverfish

"Comboverfish" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:

On the subject of flat-rates, how does labor billing work if a customer comes in with something where time is difficult to estimate, such as a driveability problem?

Reply to
TeGGeR®

That one's gonna cost you a million dollars.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

We bill it as actual time spent during diagnosis to the nearest half hour. Usually we simply start off with a half hour and that is often enough time. If the problem seems like it will be tough to solve, we caution the customer beforehand that it could take several hours so they can make an educated decision whether or not to authorize the diagnosis.

Toyota MDT in MO

Reply to
Comboverfish

Yeah...I wonder about that. According to rumour (which might well be false, as are most things in this industry), the import techs seem to be able to make all sorts of extreme hours. And yet, they get paid 5-6 dollars an hour flat rate less then we do.

I'm now far more interested in getting a better dollar per hour, then "hoping" that some shop will be able to provide me enough good work to make 150 hrs a pay.

Ian

Reply to
shiden_kai

Comboverfish wrote:

As I'm sure you well know, hours made in the pay period is always something bantered about in the shop. Most of it bullshit, but it does make for a fun day in the shop. There are two things that techs do that always amuse me......one is to constantly punch on and off jobs and work orders in order to make their "hours worked" and "hours flagged" appear to be so far apart as to make them believe that they are somehow more efficient, and the other is to show me a 20 hr time ticket, but neglect to tell me that yesterday the time ticket showed .8 hrs.

Unless there is some sort of efficiency bonus based on your punch times (I actually had one of those at one dealership), I could care less when I punch on, and I certainly don't care about punching off during lunch or breaks. I tend to run as much time as I possibly can on warranty lines......and wish other tech's in GM dealerships would do the same. GM will evaluate these times and over a period of a couple of years, will start to bring times down or up. Of course, you always have the tech's who have to be the flat rate "hero", and wreck it for everyone else. I still remember something that happened in the 80's. I don't know if you are familiar with the old "Iron Duke" 2.5 4 cyl engines, but they were in all sorts of GM cars. One of the few engines that had timing "gears" instead of sprockets and chains. The crank gear was metal, the cam gear was fiber. The cam gear would wear out, and the engine would start sounding like a diesel engine. The service manual said you had to remove the engine ( FWD cars) and remove the camshaft and press the gear on and off the camshaft. I believe the warranty time was somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 hrs. In our dealership, we did things differently, we would remove the front cover, drop the subframe and engine a bit on that side, pull the gear off, tap the camshaft and pull the new gear on. Took all of about 2.0 hrs. Other dealerships were doing this too, and eventually word got back to GM, they came out with a "revised" procedure and cut the time in half. Still was good money, and we did hundreds of those suckers.

Running more time on warranty is also so much better when you have to "negotiate" with the shop foreman about how much time you are going to get on a specific job. I say this because our shop is actually quite progressive and will give you more time if you have your punch times in order and your straight time punches in order. So my favorite trick is to run extra time on the line.....and then tell my shop foreman that "yes, I have 4.0 hrs into it, but just give me 3.3 and I'll be happy".

Anyway, at this point in the game, I'm quite satisfied with anything over 50 hrs a week. I've had a few pay periods below 100 hrs recently, and it doesn't impress me. But it does seem to be picking up again. Now if only we could get a few more Northstar case half leaks in the door...they keep you inside out of the cold weather for a day and half.

Ian

Reply to
shiden_kai

We got real pot holes in Wisconsin... ;-)

Reply to
Neil Nelson

We do the same as "fish", but we've had some electrical stuff that has gotten way out of hand. In those cases, we prime the customer for a large bill, but the dealership rarely charges them as much as we actually spend. What are you going to do? Some guy comes in (actual story) and he's tried to hook up some trailer wiring harness to something like an SRX. He ends up frying everything in sight, plus some modules. They charged him for the parts, but they did not hit him for all of the 10 hrs that it took to repair the damage.

You just shake your head when you see some of the stuff that comes in the shop. It's gotten to the point now where we will simply refuse to look at a driveability/electrical problem if the customer has gone somewhere else and had a security system installed, different radio installed, trailer wiring...etc. The first thing they have to do if they want warranty repairs done is to go have the system removed completely. You wouldn't believe what some aftermarket radio installations will do to the electronics on something like a loaded Escalade. Everything is "too" integrated these days, the radio is actually one of the modules on the bus.

Ian

Reply to
shiden_kai

Not sure what the parity between a GM, Ford Chrysler shop is versus a Toyota, Nissan, Subaru shop.

I guess that would depend on how badly the ESO is hammering the help over the efficiency percentages.

Reply to
aarcuda69062

"shiden_kai" wrote in news:Csx0h.196542$5R2.159439 @pd7urf3no:

As the tech that actually had to spend the time, did they make you soak it up? Wouldn't be fair if they did.

I have come to this sort of conclusion myself based on anecdotal and personal evidence. Mess with the factory setup and all bets are off.

ANYthing aftermarket is very highly suspect. ANY intrusion into the OEM setup is highly suspect.

I *DO* believe. For this reason my '91 Integra and my wife's '99 Tercel are completely unmolested. I do not consider myself qualified to mess with the decisions made by the company I've just given $20,000 to.

Reply to
TeGGeR®

It wasn't me...domestic dealerships in our neck of the woods tend to be quite segregated when it comes to different types of mechanical skills, ie: I do mainly "general" mechanical work and as a result, do not get into much heavy electrical diagnosis unless it pertains to the mechanical systems I work on. So I do electrical diagnosis when I encounter ABS work, the automatic transfer cases...etc. But I do not get involved with body electrical issues. In any case, to answer your question, no....the dealership pays the mechanic, it's the dealer who eats it. At least in our particular dealership. But I can tell you that if a dealer made a mechanic eat that kind of labour these days, they would have no mechanics left.

True, though this tends to upset customers who are used to installing some outrageous soundsystem in their "new" vehicle.

While I applaud your decision, I'm not sure that your 91 Integra would have the same problems as a 2006 Escalade....but who knows.

Ian

Reply to
shiden_kai

I remember that job well. I'd love to find out who spilled the beans.

Sounds like a well (or realistically) managed shop.

Reply to
aarcuda69062

Probably some dumb ass who got paid $25 from tips and tricks or some such.

Reply to
Bob

Everything is "too" integrated these

Do you think that this sort of integration is a logical and necessary part of design and construction, or might it have deeper implications, Ian?

Reply to
<HLS

I pretty much know what everyone makes, but luckily noone trys to "show off" around our dealership. I'm on the low end of the hours race, but I have the least comebacks (IMO) and never ask for diagnostic help. Of course I have to hold hands, so that goes into the whole 'work harder, get paid less' strategy that doesn't seem to bother management one bit... We do have a guy who is also a quality oriented, lower production type who used to lay his time sheets around in conspicuous areas, but only the sheets that, like you pointed out, were unusually high hour days. A few of us called him on it and mocked him enough that he stopped doing it. The final straw was when we noticed a developing habit of his to slam impressive sheets down on the lunch table in a faux casual way as if to *not* bring attention to them. We started slamming our sheets down whenever in his presence for dramatic mockery. One day several of us pinned sheets to our shirt backs and then stood in plain sight to drive the point home.

For some reason we don't have to keep continuous flag sheets for our daily production. I had to do that at one domestic dealer, while another domestic had the dispatch guy take care of our flags. It really sucks to get used to running your own flags on everything. We punch flags for all warranty work but that's it.

That worn timing gear sound is burned into my mind. God, I hated that engine design as much as the Ford 1.6/1.9. I did like the nickname, as if to indicate that they were as indestructible as John Wayne or whatever.

That's cool!

Never fear, I'm confident that your product line will continue to fail in many ways, mostly of the time-consuming big ticket variety! ; )

Toyota MDT in MO

Reply to
Comboverfish

Absolutely. Only "we" in the dealership will be able to touch your car.....heh heh!

Ian

Reply to
shiden_kai

Naw... "We" making the buying decisions will avoid those vehicles.

Reply to
Noozer

Oh yeah.....what are you going to buy? You don't really think that GM is the only one that makes vehicles like this do you? If so, you are living in the past.

Ian

Reply to
shiden_kai

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