Chevy's Blazer named deadliest vehicle

in article IdL%d.732$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net, MDT Tech® at liberals_are@lying_sax_shit.com wrote on 3/21/05 6:16 PM:

So your CV joint install is that much better, to compensate for the "much less" that the independant shop charges?

I love my mechanic. He lets me out of there cheap when it was easy for him, does good clean work, and stands behind it. I could never even afford to own a Volvo or Toyota if I had to pay dealership prices on fixit stuff! In fact the only time I ever got royally reamed was at a dealership (Nissan in this case)...

-jeff

That would be why MDT Tech can make a decent and honest living working on cars and most of the other posters in this group an not. Unfortunately for MDT Tech, his tool expenses never seem to go away because new technology often requires new tools and since he can't wait for the price of the tools to come down, he has to invest right away.

I am not a pro, and even with air tools and experience, it still takes me almost 30 minutes just to R&R front brake pads, add another 15 minutes to take the car for a test drive and clean up.

As far as CV boots go, having access to a lift is a lot easier than crawling underneath a car supported by jackstands and using a parts washer definitely speeds things up.

Yadda yadda. Lots of us have years of training and much $$$ invested in our career. That doesn't make our time worth $200 an hour. Mechanic services are simply not that valuable. It's not like it's brain surgery.

You're right, I dont make 200 an hour, much less. As for brain surgery, I bet you'd have the deer in the headlights look trying to fix a simple problem on a new model car. A brain surgeon can not do my job! Lwet alone someone with the name Dizzy. I could give you a scenario and I'd be willing ot bet you'd never fix it, even if you had all the resources. You can talk a mean game, but when it comes right down to fixing it, you are not worth a s*it.

Never claimed you did. "Mechanic services" encompasses the entire operation that the consumer is paying for. It's not worth what we're paying for it.

I'm sure I could stump you plenty easy in my field of expertise as well. Big deal. Doesn't mean people should pay $200 an hour to have me do stuff for them.

in article snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, dizzy at snipped-for-privacy@nospam.invalid wrote on 3/22/05 8:11 PM:

I charge $40/hr for my area of expertise, and I have... gosh... probably $80K invested in a facility and equipment. The rate for my service caps out at about $80/hr in my market, and two guys have that pretty well locked up; I'm a ways from being able to charge that.

The shop rate at my mechanic's place is $60/hr; he's probbly only seeing $25-$35/hr of that. . I think $40-80/hr is a good reasonable rate for professionals to charge. And by that I mean the total per-hour rate charged to the customer. When it gets to crazy dealership $200/hr stuff I agree; it's simply not worth it. He is not changing your CV joint using any magical knowledge or tools.

OTOH, if someone WANTS to buy the peace of mind of taking it to the dealer, then whatever... it's a more or less free country, the Conservative Right's efforts to the contrary.

-jeff

Nobody's an expert at everything yet everybody's an expert at something.

Apparently, it is, I'm still doing it daily with plenty of work for myself and plenty of other techs. Knocked out over 17 hours today! The way I figure it, as long as someone is willing to pay for it, its worth it.

Never claimed to know it all, that was you, calling everyone else an idiot or moron, remember? And shop labor rate at our store is $82 an hour, not $200.

Jeff, he was exaggerating a bit, we charge $82 and are competitive. I have probably $45K invested in tools. They pay for all my schooling, gas, give me a car toi attend schooling plus my days wages.

Keeping in mind, I bet I can pinpoint a problem is 1/4th the time an independent shop can. I have plenty of co-workers, TSB's, tech line, all repair manuals etc. I cant tell you how many times I've went in behind an independent on a runnability issue and had is handled in no time, while the privateer never did find it and spent hours on it. I dont know how much the customer was charged. In reality, I can probably tell you what the trouble is just by hearing you explain the symptoms.

This is coming from your admission that you do jobs in less of an amount of time that you charge the costumer for. Thus, the $200/hour estimate.

Then why did you make your foolish boost about your car-mechanic skilz?

Wrong again.

"You are an idiot" does not equal "I know everything", Mr Logic.

But you often charge for much more time than it actually took you, right? This means the customer is paying MUCH more than $82/hour for the service. Duh.

He's hoping no one will call his bluff.

He thinks that's ok. He also thinks $82.00 an hour for car repair is ok. (it isn't). He probably makes 15 or 20 of it, the dealer gets the rest. He's happy to steal that extra $20 bucks by billing someone for the hour of time he didn't spend while he's working on the next suckers car. No matter how he tries to justify it, he's a thief.

No, we charge $82 an hour and CV boot job is "X" amount, We dont even speak hours, we just tell them its "X" amount of money to change CV boots. The flat rate manuals is used by us only for "reference only" and isnt the "law" or binding. We can just guess how much it cost to replace a part, we need a refernce we can use to determine total labor cost. I can charge more, or even less if I please. The customer has the final say on the bid. I may ask for more if its a midwest state with lots of rust. These are usually a pain in the but. I may bid lower if I like the guy, a good customer. I'm like a sub sonctrator, I tell them what I want to charge, they get the up or down from the customer. Nothing is misleading. The know exactly what their bill is going to be before we start work and by law, its binding! So please get over the envy because I average $34 an hour if I figured my days wages for an 8 hour day! Not bad for someone who is an idiot, huh?

I wasn't speaking of automotive, I'm speaking of other things like physics, space travel, time travel, nuclear energy etc. All that fits under everything, ss for automotive, its pretty close to everything. I have forgotten more than you'll ever know in your lifetime.

MDT Tech® wrote in news:O7L0e.3254$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net:

I'd say rust probably triples the time needed to do any particular job.

Rust sucks. Big time. Rust is my life. I live with rust every minute I'm involved with either of our vehicles.

Sharp, well-made drill bits are worth their weight in gold up here.

And aluminum, bronze, and brass corrode, too. Did you know that?

In your dreams, grease monkey. One of us here is a degreed engineer, and it ain't you.

S*it, I have plenty of freinds with degrees, and they all make less. Your point?

MDT my degree is in Metallurgy, not English, but even I know it should be "isn't you," not "ain't you."

Did they offer Dizzy an engineering degree as a "Sanitary Engineer?" That is what we call OUR janitors ;)

Liberals=M>

Your degree is obviously a BS

dizzy wrote: