I should have charged him $41 so that I'd have an official first dollar, instead of breaking one of the twenties at the store. But still, it feels great!
JazzMan
Hopefully if I hang out here long enough, and keep learning, I'll be knowledgeble enough to charge people to fix their cars :)
Aaron
Jazz,
If you haven't already-get yer mitts on a flat rate manual-if for no other reason to compare yer rates/hours and adjust accordingly to yer whims. ;-) Respectfully submitted,
Loren Knighton Woodland, CA.
Under the hood since 1964 Member TRNI IATN
"BACKNCARDR" wrote
Hear, hear...but we already went thru that. Jazz is trying to be a nice guy (grin)......but he will learn soon enough. I say, phone the most expensive dealer in town, see what they would charge, and adjust your rate to about 66% of that.
Ian
Congrats there. Do make sure your rate is competitive in your area. By the way this is a tech newsgroup so why not share the diagnosis and solution?
Eric Fernandes
-------------------------- | Eric Fernandes | | Aurora, Illinois | | snipped-for-privacy@racemail.com |
--------------------------
The "competetive rate" around here varies from $75 to $300 depending on who you go to. I felt like charging $40. As far as diagnosis and repair goes, I thought everyone knew about the classic GM wobbly column problem. On GM tilt colums there are four torx-headed bolts that hold the lower basket to the top of the steering shaft. They come loose, allowing the column to wobble. In some cases they can fall out and jam the column, as happened to me once. Luckily I was just backing the car off the trailer, otherwise I'd be posting this from the other side, so to speak. :(
The proper fix involves dismantling the column and tilt mechanism to get to and tighten the four offending bolts. My best time so far for this repair is an hour and five minutes. This particular one took about 2 hours as the customer was interested in the process so I talked about the techniques and pitfalls as I performed the repair.
JazzMan
Fort Worth, Texas area. For now I'll do the column repair in any non-airbag GM, most of the other repairs I'm comfortable with doing are pretty much Fiero related. It seems to me that it's best to start small and not to overcommit, since quality is what I'm after rather than quantity.
JazzMan
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