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The conversation was about the time it takes to make the repair. Part of your claim was that it didn't take any extra time to drain the coolant because it spills out when you remove the pump, and he was pointing out that you didn't account for the time it takes to replace the coolant after the repair is complete.
I agree that it could have been worded better but I didn't take it to mean he was advocating putting THE SAME coolant in that came out.
1. Letting the used coolant pour into a drain pan is not letting it "spill out." It's doing it the right way which, on the model car I cited, does NOT include removing radiator hoses. The used coolant, having been collected, is then disposed of properly.
2. The person I responded to specifically said that what comes out of the engine goes back in. It's called comprehension, buddy. He said, specifically and explicitly, that what comes out of the engine has to be put back in.
3. And yeah, you "got me" on not mentioning the time required to put coolant back into the system. So let's add 3 minutes for hosing in the coolant, and massaging the radiator hoses to get out any air. Been doing it for years. Have you?
The bottom line is this: Too many shops double-bill and over-charge customers. They use a lot of fancy terms, and employ slight of hand. But those of us in the business - who aren't doing that - know what's going on. I've simply called somebody out on it.
Before letting ANY shop or mechanic touch your car, ALWAYS get several quotes/estimates. You will be dumbfounded by what you find.
It can be new, recycled, or the old coolant from the car.
Some of us use a test kit or tester to ascertain the qualities of removed coolant from a vehicle and the additive pack in it. There's more than a few times where the removed coolant is in excellent condition and has a significant remaining service life remaining. I've been using a visual tester for over 30 years, have you?
While the Audi doesn't have a huge coolant system volume, I travel into the realm of shops with engines that have 20-40 gallon cooling systems capacity. Changing coolant that is clean and serviceable just because you're a "real mechanic" just ain't justified if it's in good condition and it's a significant unnecessary expense to just throw it away.
Fact is, I'll bet that you don't even have test strips, a coolant test kit, or a visual tester for your toolbox ... so you don't even know what it is you're changing out. Today's long life coolants are fit for a lot longer service then may be encountered between the interval from the last coolant change-out to the time when a WP is replaced at a routine timing belt change.
That's one of the things that our shop management system tracks, vehicle service history. A competent service writer/shop manager will check into this, where he/she might note that a repeat customer on a good maintenance schedule replaced coolant in a timely manner in a recent time frame, but when now presented with a timing belt/WP job, now has coolant that has a modest amount of service life used up.
IMO, as a shop manager/owner, it would be doing a disservice for that customer to replace coolant that has a lot of time and mileage left on it in normal service just because the system was opened up to replace the water pump.
You sure are defensive. You must work for Firestone. Or Meineke.
So tell me... When you dump used coolant back into the car you took it out of, how much do you charge the customer for the coolant?
Now before you answer that question, I already know what the "industry answer" is. And it's a lie.
Alright fellas, I don't normally jump in between posters. But I don't want to see the mods close this post down. Can we get back on topic about billable hours?
I don't mean to offend anyone, its just that this thread has skewed a little.
Everyone has different ideals and work ethics. People use new, reman and used parts. Some people reuse fluids, myself included depending on the situation. Try working for an automaker when they tell you that you have to reuse certain fluids when in for warranty repairs.
Alright fellas, I don't normally jump in between posters. But I don't want to see the mods close this post down. Can we get back on topic about billable hours?
I don't mean to offend anyone, its just that this thread has skewed a little.
Everyone has different ideals and work ethics. People use new, reman and used parts. Some people reuse fluids, myself included depending on the situation. Try working for an automaker when they tell you that you have to reuse certain fluids when in for warranty repairs.
Lets just get back to billable hours.
This thread is going on a year old. The OP has undoubtedly long-since moved on to other things.
The discussion being about billing hours needs to include an honest discussion of the fact that some mechanics/shops (obviously not all, and probably not a majority) over-charge and double-bill customers. That is a simple fact.
There are shops that are in it for the most money they can make today, and those that are in it for the customer, while still making an honest living. Those in the former category keep us in the latter category very busy. I may not "net" as much - this year - as the BrakeMasters, or Meineke across the street. But next year, their pissed-off former customers will be thanking me for a job done right, at a reasonable price. And I make a good living doing it.
Your extreme defensiveness is evidence that your shop is screwing people over.
Your alleged confidence in your reading comprehension has completely and totally missed my repeated statements that I am now a consultant in the automotive service industry management side. As repeatedly disclosed, I don't operate a retail trade shop anymore, haven't for several years, and I don't work on transportation cars except for my own.
So, far contrary to your delusions in this thread ... which are laughable ... I'm not screwing anybody.
On the contrary, I teach shop operators how to operate an honest, profitable, and successful business and have repeatedly advocated good, honest, and ethical shop practices on these pages.
You're double charging, and you hate the fact that somebody is calling it to everyone's attention.
Again, you're so far off the mark that you don't even know what you don't know. I've never double charged anybody, never had a need to do so.
But by the same token, I do know as a competent and successful shop owner with a 98% retention rate for over 30 years and a CSI in the 98% + range for decades, I know that customer education and charging fairly and appropriately for the services rendered is essential to the financial health and survival of a shop.
I've been around long enough to have seen (and paid in my shop for years) the era when flat-rate pay was 50% of the labor charge. It isn't today because so many other costs have now entered into the automotive service profession. I'll not go into what all those costs are today, but they are unavoidable to the shop operator and must be passed on to the consumer via the only means of revenue available, which is parts profit margins and billable labor hours.
Try to not get your panties in a knot over that assertion; it is not a justification for overcharging anybody. It's a rationale for a successful business cash flow and ROI and compensation to the owner.
I travel into enough shops where the owner is surviving only by dint of working huge hours per week and doesn't even know what his true costs of overhead and operations are each day. I've watched more than 45 shops go out of business in my territory in the last 12 months alone because the guys didn't know how to be businessmen in spite of being competent automotive techs.
As well, I see many shops where the owner has a huge ROI in tooling and equipment which is returning him nothing. Add in other fixed costs and the drain on the cash flow is substantial. The only way the owner survives is by capturing a small portion of the cash flow to compensate him for his time on the job. And out of their cash flow, they support a lot of non revenue producing facets of their business before the owner ever gets to take any money home. Given the volume of the business for some shops, automotive service is among the lowest compensating technical business in the business world today ... especially compared to other traditional trades that don't require anywhere near the capital investment, training, or skills levels. As an industry, we really need to change that ROI/compensation, and consumer perception of what it is we do.
1. I have not advocated charging somebody 5 minutes' labor for replacing a water pump. Your claim that I have is a lie.
2. I have not advocated charging a customer 15 minutes' labor for replacing a water pump. Your claim that I have is a lie.
3. I am saying that, on the model I cited, the WP can be changed in 15 minutes or less. If YOU cannot do that, it's because YOU are a ****-poor mechanic. I've also said - repeatedly - that not all WPs are able to be changed so easily.
LOL. I agreed that the total time of the WP replacement as part of the overall job could be in that time frame. It's been pointed out to you by others on this thread that that was what I was saying. Apparently, you still have low reading comprehension skills ... and are defensive about it. The loss is yours.
What you are doing is coming up with all kinds of excuses why it's okay for you to over-charge and double-charge and customers. I'm calling you out, and making it clear that it is NOT okay to do that. THAT is why "mechanics" have such a horrible reputation - akin to used car salesmen.
No, what I'm doing is coming up with all of the reasons why the automotive service business must pursue a model of professional charges for the services rendered. And on these pages, I've advocated charging fairly, reasonably, and competitively; most certainly not "over-charge" or "double-charge" which aren't ethical, fair, or reasonable.
You apparently are blind to the total overhead expense of running a professional automotive shop which involves many non-revenue producing mandatory costs which can only be offset by the billable hours and the parts margin income. Again, this is an educational process to become a businessman which takes awhile for most shop operations; although in your case I'll wager that it's something beyond the education skill level of the pro's in the business that are the industry training leaders.
Do you even read and understand the management articles published in idustry sources such as Motor's or Motor Age or similar? Have you ever attended any of the management forums run by the independents in the biz, or maybe your local ASE chapters?
(blah blah blah blah)
LOL. OK, I'll play it your way. You've got the only ethical, honest, competent shop West or East of the Mississippi, and everybody else is a screw job out to give you a bad reputation.
My real bet is that you make a living in this business only in spite of, not as a result of, your best efforts.
LOL. OK, I'll play it your way. You've got the only ethical, honest, competent shop West or East of the Mississippi, and everybody else is a screw job out to give you a bad reputation.
My real bet is that you make a living in this business only in spite of, not as a result of, your best efforts.
...and your insatiable arrogance would land you in the land of complete wrongness. Again. You are nowhere near as brilliant as you're trying to convince people you are, and everyone else is not as stupid as you'd like to believe.
Again, your attitude exemplifies why the general public has such a horrible view of "mechanics." But hey, if you can sleep at night, that's all that matters to you.
It's an industry dictated billing practices that essentially creates price fixing and a collusion under the euphemism of adherence to "industry standard". It artificially keeps auto repair prices high. It even makes the shade tree type excessively expensive as their pricing isn't based on true competition but referenced to arbitrary high prices. Since it has little to do with time, I think it's misleading to express it in hours.
In free competition, reduction in cost of rendering service should result in a lower price to compete, but this system creates a system where basically everyone charge the same and increase in efficiency is entirely kept by the shops. If you were to replace a wheel bearing and suspension at the same time and they bill the labor the same as the sum of combined hours by the book, you maybe be billed the same as if you were to have these work on two separate occasions. Either process requires lifting/lowering the vehicle, removing/installing the tire, road testing and several other duplicate steps. Some billable processes may have mostly entirely duplicate process.
Someone else already mentioned that there are only two or so "shop books" in use where the multiplication factors are sourced. From this book, a twist is added, but the calculation is not always shown and it is almost always designed to up charge. "nearest half hour" means 2.6 hours = 2.5, 2.8 = 3.0, but the added twist usually favors 2.6 = 3.0; 3.1 = 3.5 and so on. Add more BS fees like shop supply as percentage of bill, environmental fee, disposal fee. Basically anything under the sun that they can get away with in the "customary charge in industry" suit. "estimate" is a round about way of saying "upcharge clause" where additional charge can incur for additional issues, but reduction from original estimate is far and few in between.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fordlover
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?
Not true. Please stop appealing to emotion to paint a false illusion. Mechanic means two different things. You conveniently left the situation of that same job taking four hours. If he is the business owner, he bid on the job even though the calculation is by the price fixing manual. He keeps the gain, but eats the loss too.
If the mechanic is an employee he gets paid for 8 hours no matter what if he's an hourly employee. The labor law states that he will be paid 8 hours according to his employment contract. For those complaining about how much the techs are paid per hour relative to what the employer charge, keep in mind that they're paid their hourly wage while they're clocked in even for those times when there's no cars in shop. They're also paid for the hours things they have to redo, but don't have to pay a dime out of their own pocket for things they break, cars they crash, people they run over on the job, rent, etc but many are too ignorant to realize that these cost are coming from the prices charged to customer.
keep in mind that they're paid their hourly wage while they're clocked in even for those times when there's no cars in shop.
I have been the auto repair industry for 15 year and have never known a tech that was paid a base pay plus flag hours. If a tech is sitting around doing nothing, they are not getting paid. States have different labor laws and every company has their own policy when it comes to wages but I'm willing to bet 95% of automotive tech's across the country are paid 100% off of flag hours.
I have been the auto repair industry for 15 year and have never known a tech that was paid a base pay plus flag hours. If a tech is sitting around doing nothing, they are not getting paid. States have different labor laws and every company has their own policy when it comes to wages but I'm willing to bet 95% of automotive tech's across the country are paid 100% off of flag hours.
"
Not necessarily true. Put it this way. It can never cost less than head count x on-clock presence no matter what weighed week by week. This is the minimum standard under federal law. Some states are more strict so it seems.
"The court based its decision on the argument that federal wage law is far less strict than California wage law. Although employers may pay their workers based only on flag rates as long as they ensure that the workers earn minimum wage averaged over all hours in the work week under the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act; California law requires employees performing non-flag rate tasks to be paid at the minimum wage regardless of the total amount paid to them in the work week. employers may pay their workers based only on flag rates as long as they ensure that the workers earn minimum wage averaged over all hours in the work week under the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act;"
Hello,i have a 2007 chevy malibu,and im having a problem,geting it started. It has a 2.2L Ecotec engine,I figured out why it want start,when i pulled out the spark plugs to change them,i noticed alot of gas in the cylinders/on top of pistons,for some reason,the car is pushing to much gas,to the motor,through the fuel injectors,Its geting fire,is this a bad fuel pump,usually a bad pump,will get no gas.I was wondering if i have a faulty fuel pressure regulator,but i cant seem to find It,on top of the motor.Someone told me,that Its inside the fuel pump,but i dont want to switch this exspensive part,if this isnt the prob.I could use some advice,as im fixing this prob myself,any advice,will be greately appretiated, thank you much,Mike! (HELP)
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