Flat rate manual

So we’ll let Rodac actually PAY for the six hours the car was in the shop…all six of them…and THEN we’ll see what the opinion is then !

Off topic but regarding warranty work I’d like to add this:

A few cars ago when I had warranty work done on a recently bought new car, they must have given the work to a newby. The work involved replacing the heater core with disassembly of the dashboard needed. When I got the car back the mechanic at least had the courtesy to put the leftover screws in the gadget tray.

I get it now, some warranty work is delegated to new mechanics. For that I will either do it myself if possible, ignore the needed work if safe to do so, permit a new mechanic to do the work if failure of the repair appears inconsequential or else take a chance on a new mechanic. Before I take a chance on a new mechanic with an important warranty repair I will ask to talk to the person who will do the work.

There are times when a shop will take a financial bath by charging the flat rate too. I had the brake lines in my '96 Plymouth (remember those?) and while it took a couple of days I only got charged the 1.5 or whatever the book says. Probably his first time; maybe a little more rust than the manual anticipates- but no way no how could I have done the job for what they charged.

One day I replaced 3 clutches before lunch and an engine that afternoon on Ford 1/2 tons while doing the usual duties related to managing the shop with 2 employees. The flat rate was well over 16 hours. But I don’t need to remove the drive shaft or transmission from a 3 speed ford to replace the clutch or remove the hood to replace the engine because I have replaced so many and learned safe short cuts and fabricated special tools to speed up the work. More often than not my customers got more than they paid for, though.

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If this is all about charging actual time spent, then I’m sure most mechanics would not have a problem stretching an oil change into a full day long job and charging 8 hours for it. Goodbye stress… :wink:

The HVAC business is going the same flat rate system. In our shop, we charged $110 an hour, time and material plus markup on parts. We averaged 15- 20 complaints per month about costs and were going broke. After going flat rate and increasing our rate to $210 per hour with upfront pricing our complaints about price dropped to 0. We did lose bottom feeders like Rodac but good riddance. We now actually make a profit, are able to pay better benefits and now do a better job because our techs are not under pressure to finish in a certain time. Plus they are not overbilling if he is given a price out of the book. He pays what he agrees to and not a penny more. Why would a price be OK before starting a job and not OK after. It makes my blood boil when some numbskull who has never run a business thinks he’s got all the answers and sees a crook behind every shadow.
P.S. Doesn’t the auto flat rate book give the mechanic the hours the book says? If it’s a two hour job and he does it in 45 minutes or 8 hours, doesn’t he get the same amount of money? Should Rodac get money back if the mechanic finishes quickly? Should he pay more if it takes longer?

The same point could be made about a dentist or roofer. The dentist is essentially working on flat rate when they quote a price for a cap and the same applies to a roofer reshingles a house at X dollars per square.

My brothers in law are in the masonry business and I think they quote their brick jobs per 1000.
They get the same amount of money no matter how slow or how fast the job goes.

Mechanics also spend a godawful lot of time (for free) test driving cars, waiting on parts, doing the paperwork shuffle, or waiting on an authorization to fix the car because no one is answering the phone at the customer’s house or they “want to think about it”. The latter effectively ties up a rack and shop space; especially irritating when a car had to be pushed in or is partially torn down.
The latter often leads to rounding the crew up and pushing it back outside while someone makes up their mind which means the other flat rate mechanics are earning zero while pushing.

It’s good that our industry has a flat rate manual. It’s a good business practice to have job equality. Customers should not want every shop to determine the time it takes to do a job. It’s great for local labor prices to be adjusted but time to do the job should not be messed with. Flat rate manuals will also stand up in court, which stops a lot of customer caused trouble.

I have heard lots of complaints from people who do not understand the benefit of a fair process. Flat rates work for customer and shop owner. They eliminate a lot of lies and excuses.

Without a flat rate manual, I don’t know how a shop could quote a price on a repair. If an experienced mechanic can do the job in less time than the manual says, he wins. However, I also win, because I get my car back in service faster. I like knowing the cost of a job when I leave the car at the shop for repairs.

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I wish there was a flat rate manual to give the time it should take a husband to do a job around the house. I don’t think it includes the time for a beer break that Triedaq always takes in the middle of a job.

Mrs. Triedaq

Most shops use the flat rate manmuals. However, years ago I had the starter replaced on my 1976 Ford Granada with the troublesome 351 Windsor engine (originally used in pickup trucks). The dealer charged me nearly twice the standard flat rate (I had a manual at that time). They argued that the flat rate was for the straight 6, and the large V8 was a real dog to work on.

I paid the bill and never went back there.

Well, Rodac, you’re certainly welcome to do your own work. It might even be a good learning experience for you. You might appreciate a good shop more.

@Rodac you may appreciate this study/case https://digitalcommons.law.msu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1015&context=jbsl

What you are not entering into your equation, is that many (if not most) also pay their mechanics on the flat rate system. If a job has a flat rate time of 1.2 hours, I as a shop owner pay the mechanic for 1.2 hours even if he completed the job in under an hour.

I would suspect that Rodac and others have never actually worked under the flat rate system. It’s not a bed of roses as sometimes portrayed by those not in the know.

If the shop manager considers the strengths of his mechanics in assigning work everyone from the customer to the shop owner benefits.

And who could argue with paying a man more relative to his expertise due to his talent and experience. Should an NFL rookie earn as much as a 5 year winning veteran? And a truck driver with years of safe, successful service who knows every customer and can accomplish more in 8 hours than a rookie could in 12 should certainly make more in 8 hours than the rookie. A lot more.

One of my summer jobs was grinding the excess rubber off cast wheels that the tire had been vulcanized on. The plant manager (and I still like and respect the guy) made the machine and engineered the production rate on it. I generally work pretty fast and efficient, but try as I might, I could not ever get higher than about 70% of what he thought should be produced. Then later on in another plant, we easily made 110-120% production. Of course I have also studied time studies and they are often not realistic for a variety of reasons. I could spend all day replacing a couple struts, not including the time to go get a new set of spring compressors. Some of these people coming up with the rates need to actually do the work for a while and maybe after 2:00 in the afternoon. Just in my humble opinion.

FYI–Something I’ve not seen in this thread: All flat rate manuals have 3 categories of mechanics, which only makes sense: Expert, Intermediate and Beginner (specific names might vary). Roughly, a job that takes an expert an hour would take an intermediate an hour-and-a-half, and a beginner, two hours. Their shop is usually filled with expert mechanics, but they look under “Beginner” to calculate the estimated time. Result? You end up paying for twice the time the job actually took. You might as well take their advertised labor rate and double it. I’ve found this happening everywhere the flat rate manual is used. I’m sure there are those who don’t abuse the system like this, but I’ve not yet encountered one.

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Don’t know what kind of manual you’re looking at . . .

There are warranty labor times, normal labor times (for an out-of-warranty repair at your typical independent shop) and extreme labor times (hardware seized in place, every single bolt has to be torched off, for example)

And the labor times also vary, depending on if you use chilton, motor, oem, or what have you

This would be news to me. I’ve never seen a flat manual with varying stages of expertise on getting the job done. None of the manuals I have or ever seen (customer pay or warranty) are worded like that.

Care to provide an example?

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