honest mechanic - oxymoron

just had a mechanic charge me $350 for a commonly available $130 dollar bearing. when confronted he claimed he had to put food on his table. This is over and above his $75/hr + $75 per visit travel. Am I justified to be outraged?

Thats why I fix my own stuff. Did you authorize him ahead of time to screw you over or was it a suprise?

You will be even more outraged if it took him 30 minutes and the flat rate manual indicates 2 hrs.

Clutch

I work as a mechanic for some years, I suppose I didnt make enough because I just cant rip people off, personal flaw I guess.

Jbm said:

just had a mechanic charge me $350 for a commonly available $130 dollar bearing. when confronted he claimed he had to put food on his table. This is over and above his $75/hr + $75 per visit travel. Am I justified to be outraged?

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He paid 130, you didn't, he probably even paid less depending on the volume of business he does with his parts supplier.
This is a common practice among the mechanics trade. Next time you go to the auto parts store, look at your receipt. What you buy over the counter is probably going to be jobber price but in the next column you will see list price, this is what the garage is going to charge you for the same part, it will in most cases be a substantial increase in price. That way, everyone makes money off the parts. I'm supprised they didn't charge you a 25 dollar flat rate for "supplies"
I've been fixin my own stuff since before I could drive, I refuse to pay a garage to fix my vehicles. I even hate taking them in for front end alignments but I'm always looking for an alignment system, one just hasn't presented itself,,,,,,,, yet.
Dave

3 cheers for 'fix yer own stuff'....

Then there is the machinist that charges you $300. for a $2.00 piece of steel just because he did some cutting on it.
Next time go to Walmart and get it fixed.
I charge list price for parts. If a customer dosen't like it they can buy them cheaper, install them themselves, then pay me extra to repair their screw ups and then pay retail for my part.
I sell and repair construction equipment. A lot of my business is from customer abuse. I don't hesitate to show them the $300. or more in extra parts they tore up trying to save money.

Time for a new mechanic. That kind of markup is legalized theft. Unfortunately it's more the rule than the exception. The deal with the flat rate manual is you charge for the average time not your time. If you are a good, fast mechanic, you will make more per hour than the slow, inexperienced mechanic who will make less. At least that is the theory. Most slow mechanics charge for the time they spend.

That is why I try to fix my own stuff, but sometimes you have no other choice, than to hire it out. I had a water leak under the cement floor in my house. water was leaking out from the foundation. The yellow pages are full of leak dector services, which all have about the same price to locate the leak. The guy comes out and finds the leak, for $200.00 He said he will repair the leak for $1200.00 I could start tearing up my walls trying to locate where to bypass the leak, or have him do it with his pipe locating equip. When he finished I was out $1600.00 The extra 200.00 was because he had to do work in the attic. He was there 4 hrs. So don't feel too bad about your bearing. Stan

SchneiderMachine said:

I've been fixin my own stuff since before I could drive, I refuse to pay a garage to fix my vehicles. I even hate taking them in for front end alignments but I'm always looking for an alignment system, one just hasn't presented itself,,,,,,,, yet.
Dave

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A good tape measure, some chalk and a couple framing squares will get you as close as most shops will, if you're willing to make up some fixtures to measure off the rim, not the tire and throw weight in the seat equal to your own, you can do better than many are capable of.

I don't pay for auto work either, for too many years I ran a working garage and had more work then I could do because I charged clock hours, not book hours.

Ken.

What Donnie said above, is one reason I no longer have an engine shop, if your honest you dont screw other people, you dont make it.
As to the markup on parts in the trade, A lot of the mark ups come from the complexity of replacing the part. If I put that part you ordered on your car and it fails, who pays for it? Not you, not the part supplier anymore, The mechanic eats it. THe days of the parts store reimbursing the mechanic for replacing faulty parts are long gone. Sure, they'll sell you a part with a lifetime warranty, but not on the labor. The harder it is to replace, the higher the markup. I never charged full list on anything I sold, but I got hosed as a honest shop owner more than the average vehicle owner. Some shops charged for replacing faulty parts, I didnt, & I never spent a second in a court room defending my self either

Jim

If you know what part you need beforehand, buy it yourself, else it's retail to you...
Ive found an auto mechanic that doesn't charge unless you ask him to fix something.
Home repair costs can get out of hand real quick.

Charge up is not atypical for various trades, cost out the plumbers parts and time
versus charges, ditto HVAC. Most HVAC guys around here get $12-16/hr but the
company charges $90/hr for their time and triples the cost of parts (I have done
a few of these jobs myself). I don't do much auto work: oil/filter ($10 for semi
synth oil plus $4 for motorcraft filter) and brakes (big cost saver there as pads are
about 10% of the charge.). Had a quote of $550 for 4 struts on my lamented
Ford Focus, priced struts at $110 and store would loan a spring compressor no
charge. First one took 90min, second 60min, third 30min and fourth less than 20min.
Pretty shallow learning curve there. Still good for over $75/hour.

As others noted, coming with some background in the transmission repair business I can tell you you can either screw people and be rich, or be honest and poor. You can't be honest and make any money.

Oh man, that's so TYPICAL of EVERYTHING now!

Appliance repair, plumbing, electrical, anything that requires more than a few brain cells to do. It's outrageous, ESPECIALLY computer repair! I'm just waiting for them to make it illegal for you to work on your own car so they can make sure the crooked mechanics get your $$$. It's the same garbage they keep putting on the news and drilling into people's heads about getting a licensed contractor, and electrician so they can be sure they're getting "quality" work. The ONLY things those pieces of paper assure is you're going to pay too much for their work, too much for parts, and it's harder to win in court when they screw up!!! At least the guys working on the side are actually AFRAID of getting sued because the judge will automatically rule against them for no piece of paper. Sometimes you get decent people, but it's been my experience it's better to do EVERYTHING yourself. At least you KNOW if it's done right, or half assed!

don't even get me started on this one

an example

about 1983 i had a canadian group come in on the hook of a wrecker in a winabago
with a blown engine,,
now mind you we were a big truck shop, semi's and trailers , class 8 and all that
not some pissing motorhome repair place.
but they were stranded and we took it on.
it took nearly 40 hours to remove the blown engine, build up a long block and reinstall it in the chassis and finish it up.

it ran for 30 minutes before a rod brg failed.

the engine supplier offered 4 hrs labor!!
and we never even got that,, we did however get another pos engine from them that thank god worked.

oh yes,, i think we made about 200 dollars markup on the first long block.

another thing to keep in mind
you state a common available 130 dollar brg?
how common? did he bring it? or did he have to take the time to source it locally?

the rub is there are a jillion different suppliers of brgs as with all parts and pricing is all over
the place.

he may have paid 130 bucks, and then again he might have paid 250 bucks for it as well.

i get this all the time, "hey i can buy that starter for 169 dollars"
and i reply "yes and i can too, but i refuse to sell that cheap part because of high failure rates"

all i am saying is there might very well be other circumstances envolved,

the bottom line is,, did he get the machine fixed? in a timely fashion? is he a guy that will stand in front of a truck for you and your company? come out any time? day or night?
weekends and holidays?

if so then buck up and pay the guy, you got a gem and an allie that will make or save you far more money than your perceived overcharge on that brg.

btw,, i have been screwed, blued and tattoo'd by more than one machinist in my time as a mechanic as well, trust me you don't wanna go there.

bob g

I try to avoid begrudging anyone their living. If you think the mechanic was out of line consider a lawyer...
...in the old days it cost $150 just to have one just write a letter.
Much the same point as the value added to a piece of steel in machining it. A legitimate mechanic has a variety of liabilties and expenses, and the special tools and equipment they need to buy every year to work on new models (that keep you and I from doing it ourselves) usually is nowhere near the costs of the liability insurances against his work as well as his property, various taxes, and what-all else, including the repairs that are approved, performed, but never picked up and paid for.
Its all part of the same circle, and why some guys own the business and others just 'brown-bag it' for a living depends on their personal disposition. The guy with the brown bag, however, makes a false presumption that the owner will have any forseeable idea how much money will come in the door (let alone find his wallet) next week.

This is presuming we are dealing with a person who does as he says and does indeed solve the problem he was hired to solve in the first place.
Tell him to replace the left sprocket bearing or tell him there is a funny noise and let him figure it out?
His knowledge is his stock-in-trade.

There is a different issue about shops that charge for parts they never install (fraud) or charge for sparkplugs when you brought it in for the bearing, if they put them in or not. All bets are off, there.

I can go on and on over this...
...and dont ask me about the bearing it cost ME $30 to press in, back in 1968 dollars...

Regards
JD2

i have had more problems with mechanics doing poor work, not completing the job, or making things worse.

my personal opinion is flat rate + no/ poor QC = bad

needless to say i bought a set of craftsman wrenches and spin them myself.

I had the Chevy garage in Hays, KS charge me $650 to put a new starter in the Caprice. I was driving from PA to CA so I had no tools or jacks to do the job myself. Friends had their Ford Focus to the Ford garage, they wanted over $400 to fix the brakes & such for state inspection, all they needed was $100 strut job. The rest of the bill was BS, breaks were almost new. Same BS with a local garage and my mother, $500 for belts, brakes, calipers when all that was needed was a brake job. The same all round, unless you know where to go garages rob you blind when they can.

Ted

JayDee2 said:

A legitimate mechanic has a variety of liabilties and expenses, and the special tools and equipment they need to buy every year to work on new models (that keep you and I from doing it ourselves) usually is nowhere near the costs of the liability insurances against his work as well as his property, various taxes, and what-all else, including the repairs that are approved, performed, but never picked up and paid for.

Tell him to replace the left sprocket bearing or tell him there is a funny noise and let him figure it out?
His knowledge is his stock-in-trade.

There is a different issue about shops that charge for parts they never install (fraud) or charge for sparkplugs when you brought it in for the bearing, if they put them in or not. All bets are off, there.

Regards
JD2

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well said, JD2.....back when I was getting qoutes for my place, you shoulda seen the gleam in my insurance agent's eye when I mentioned I would be doing a 'little' auto and motorcycle work as part of my shop's work (even after I stated I would be working on parts ONLY, and not whole vehicles)....the liability quote was so high, I quickly learned to not mention it when asking for a quote.....