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The "flat rate" tables actually have tenth's of an hour times, so any shop that is billing in whole hour increments is not using the published tables.
Flat rate or "book" times are created at several sources: the manufacturers publish their own service labor guides (which include regular billing times and "warranty" labor times), and the aftermarket (Mitchell, Motors, etc) have their own. The aftermarket guides tend to be more realistic for work product as they factor in the realities of cars with some age/mileage/rusted fasteners, etc ... that a relatively new car at a dealership may not necessarily present.
All of the electronic flat rate guides are subject to an adjustment by the shop that is using the service. Some may use a fixed percentage to adjust the times to their shop operation and marketplace, some may only use them as a guideline and mark them up or down as they see fit.
Even though the billing on an invoice may be expressed in hours @ shop rate, it's billable hours for the work product in most shops as opposed to clock time hours to complete a job. And it works both ways for the customer; ie, I've seen shops post a diagnostic billable time of X hours for a job and spend many times those X hours to locate and diagnose a problem. Intermittent failures, such as in electrical systems, can be very difficult to locate. Case in point: I was at a shop yesterday where the A/C system was intermittently cutting out and the tech was having a very difficult time locating the problem with three return trips by the customer to the shop. Turned out to be the ignition switch had a bad contact in it and he was replacing the switch after having torn down the dash several times to locate the problem.
The "flat rate" tables actually have tenth's of an hour times, so any shop that is billing in whole hour increments is not using the published tables..
Never seen a shop that charges in increments smaller than half an hour...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gimme3steps
And proof of insurance.
I doubt many home-garage mechanics carry insurance sufficient for the task at hand -- homeowner policy might, but wouldn't count on it. That's part of the tradeoff for paying them quite a bit less...
Another reason to lease a car and have everything service under warranty. Car repairs are costly and a waste of time. When it needs new tires, get rid of it!
I find it interesting that all the hours are rounded off to the nearest hour, no mechanic has ever given me a time frame of 1 hour and 45 minutes or 50 minutes. Given the high rates they charge today, shouldn't we be more vigilant of them?
No mechanic is going to give you a per minute rate. If it takes 1 hour and 5 minutes, your paying for 2 hours. If you feel that strongly about it, learn how to do your own maintenance on your car. While it certainly true you need computerized equipment to work on some parts of the car, most can be done without a computer. Breaks, Struts, oil change, changing fluids, air filters, headlights etc can all be done yourself. Things like replace spark plugs, timing belt, wheel alignments, are better left to mechanics.
Depends on the car. If you have something like a 4 cyl honda, or a 6 cyl jeep, and everything is easily accessible, there is no reason to take it to any one else
Depends on the car. If you have something like a 4 cyl honda, or a 6 cyl jeep, and everything is easily accessible, there is no reason to take it to any one else
I've replaced spark plugs on my cars in the past, but this was before cars became so computerized. I really don't know what kind of calibrations they run when performing a tune up, but I wager there's a shop computer involved.
Never seen a shop that charges in increments smaller than half an hour...
(snip_)...
So be it in your marketplace.
I travel 4 Western states calling on shops for management systems software and every one I've ever called on that uses the published flat rate tables bills in one tenth hour increments as transferred from the tables to the estimator software.
The only way I've ever seen a "half hour" increment is posted as a minimum shop labor billing time.
No mechanic is going to give you a per minute rate. If it takes 1 hour and 5 minutes, your paying for 2 hours. If you feel that strongly about it, learn how to do your own maintenance on your car. While it certainly true you need computerized equipment to work on some parts of the car, most can be done without a computer. Breaks, Struts, oil change, changing fluids, air filters, headlights etc can all be done yourself. Things like replace spark plugs, timing belt, wheel alignments, are better left to mechanics.
Depends upon the shop billing practices.
If the shop is strictly going by the flat rate tables, that would be the prevailing charge.
So it's possible that a half hour flat rate item that takes 1.1 hours clock time in the shop would still bill at the .5. Similarly, if it takes ten minutes clock time to do the task ... then the billing would still be .5.
Few are the "pro" shops in the biz today who bill by clock time. There's such a huge variance in tooling, skills, diagnostic abilities, mechanical hand skills, and so forth that a customer is at the disadvantage if the slower less capable tech is working on their car rather than the faster tech. I usually find shops working on clock time are one-two man operations of older guys.
I've recently been in shops where the (alleged) "techs" had taken 4 hours with 3 guying tracing out a minor electrical problem in an F-350. I casually asked if they'd even checked the power source, and it turned out they hadn't. The flaw was a cracked fuse which was delivering intermittent power to the circuit. I found the problem in a matter of a minute that had been baffling the shop to the tune of 12 paid hours. Billable Time: 1.0 hour.
When I walk into shops that are working without appropriate information and diagnostic strategies, a loss of time and overhead expense like this makes my sale for me by establishing the value of having the professional stuff to work with.
Mechanics that can't perform the repair and roadtest in the alloted time, will not make good money.
Sometimes a job might pay 6 hours labor, but actually take them 8 hours to complete the work because of a stubborn bolt, or perhaps they aren't familiar with the particular vehicle. In these cases, usually the Mechanic eats the lost time.
How would you like getting paid for 6 hours when you were working for 8?
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