Repair costs shop rate lookup

There is none. Most shops use the Chilton's book which tells you how many hours something is supposed to take. However, the assumptions made in the Chilton's book are not necessarily correct.

Sometimes mechanics don't have a special tool, so it takes them much longer. Sometimes there is rust, and it takes much longer. Sometimes it starts out with rust and gets much much worse. Sometimes everything just comes apart neatly.

Valve adjustment on my car is listed as a two-hour job in the Chilton's. My mechanic wants an hour to do it. I can do it dry to dry in 18 minutes, but I have done it many times over the years.

If you believe the Chilton's book, a brake job on the same car is five hours. It's not even an hour if everything is well-maintained and clean, maybe a bit more than an hour if you have to turn the rotors down.

The book isn't very detailed either. They'll have the same time on a U-joint whether the car has a manual or an automatic transmission, and the difference affects how much time you're going to be in there.

Nothing ever, ever goes to plan.

These three are particularly insidious because they all can be easy if everything goes well, and they can turn into hideous nightmares if there are deferred maintenance issues and things don't go well.

Cooling system seems a little sluggish, the pump is leaking, you replace the pump and then once the flow rate comes up, a hose blows out. You replace the hose and.... oh, now the heater isn't working because you stirred up junk in the ill-maintained system and clogged the heater core. Could have been an hour, could be a week.

Ask them to show you the number in the Chilton's book. But don't believe it.

You can look in the Chilton's guide and see where their numbers come from, but don't believe those numbers. Sometimes it takes much less time than the book says, sometimes it takes much longer. The dealer will charge you for the book time even if it takes much less, but a good independent shop will charge you for actual time spent.

However, the time spent on maintenance is definitely predictable, because if you do it properly, on time, and well, you won't have surprises. Change your automatic transmission fluid every 80,000 miles; it's a very quick job on most cars and the time is predictable. Whereas the time to rebuild a transmission is not.

--scott

I understood everything you said which is logical and sensible that the flat rate will vary but if it's the best we can do then it's the best we can do.

The current guide is for pros and is many hundreds of dollars in cost.

The cars I work on are all older so an older out of date guide is ok. Plus I only need a lookup a couple of times a year at most.

Anyone know of an old PDF for the Chilton flat rate reference lookup online?

Don't ever quote a flat rate on anything.

It is, but you can find an older version for much less. Note, however, that doing the brakes on an '82 Escort today is apt to run you into a lot more than than doing the brakes on the same car in '83.

Have you tried the usual suspects, namely alibris and amazon? Or bumming one off a local mechanic?

--scott