So you are no longer charging your customers for your professional services? Interesting business model if you can afford it.
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Just for completeness. The overall repair was just a bit north of $1,300 which I gladly paid knowing that software like Hunter was used to drum up what the cost should be and not the actual amount of time. I have done a lot shade tree mechanic work over the years and at 53, have had my share of triumphs and complete foobar projects.
Even if I knew it was the compressor, I would still have paid to have someone do it. After replacing the engine in my F350 6.0, and not being able to walk for days after completing certain tasks, I just have better things to do with my time. The $1,300 is indeed the probably upper end of what the job would normally cost, but I would rather pay more and have it done right then not.
As far as the sentiment on the forum regarding me being a boob and not knowing what I am doing so I should just stop, and that what I was doing was comical. Everyone needs to start somewhere, and I would have felt even more like a noob if it was the compressor clutch relay, bad connection or pressure valve and having taken it to a shop and spending hundreds to have them tell me this is the case. That is all I was attempting to do. I was not going to charge it and my intention of venting the refrigerant was to try and understand why the pressure was so high on the low side. I still contend that no refrigerant came out, and if it did I would have stopped immediately. Many may not agree with mrwqualls business model, but I also think there was a lot of wisdom in his response.
As someone who has a lot more experience of paying someone to do something to only having to go back and correct things or even find out years later it was done wrong, I have learned to try and do it myself if possible. If I was serious about really fixing a serious problem with the AC, I would have stuck to it but had every intention of taking it to a shop. Had someone suggested buying some gauges and check this or that, I would have done that, but the majority of the posters here seemed to build off of âTestersâ initial response which was utterly useless and really just insulting. As others joined in on the bashing, it made me sad in that the purpose of forums like this is to learn. The feedback about it being dangerous for one reason or another, or even the illegal aspects of what I might have done are well deserved. I get it, but for those that felt it necessary to build up your own egos without even knowing me, well, you probably get what my opinion of your help is. The truth of the matter is that replacing the timing belts on my two J35 engined vehicles, doing the shocks/struts on both and the work I do on my F350 should be considered more advanced then replacing a compressor. Also I donât own the equipment to work on AC nor have I researched all that would be needed. Hence why if the system needed to be opened up I would have taken it to the shop. Not to mention evading the pain and not being able to move for several days after doing the job. 
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I assume you have your EPA Section 609 Certification which states that you are properly trained in the handling and disposal of mobile hvac refrigerants. This is a requirement for anyone doing a/c work for hire.
A shop canât buy refrigerant without it.
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I would gladly pay $100/hr to someone who is able to do the things I am not able to do. I probably end up paying that amount to the guy who installs four new tires.
If I have gotten a problem that gets me to the point I donât know what to do next, the guy who DOES know what to do can be invaluable. And, I make sure that I let him/her know that I appreciate them for their help. I have a set of mechanics now who I trust, and that probably saves me far more per year than would be expected.
Bottom line here: unless you believe that your mechanic is truly cheating you with unnecessary work, donât blame them for charging appropriate shop rates. You want to find and reward the best ones.
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Nicely said. I am new to the area that I am in now and found the shop I went to by my wife using Next Door to for recommendations. The shop sent me a survey and I gave them kudos, but did suggest that using something like âHunterâ is great for estimates everything should not always cost that much, such as overlapping charges. For example, they wanted to charge me the labor for replacing the drive belt, which had to come off anyway to replace the compressor. When I told them to forget it then, they did agree to do it at no charge. I already had the OEM belt and was going to replace it at the next oil change. Since they were going to have it off, I brought it with me.
I will use this shop again, they were very good with communication and had me in and out in less than 24 hours. My Hunter comment was a private message back to them.
You seem to be under the impression that the guy who is fixing your carâs A/C system is pocketing that $100/hr. Thatâs not the case, and I donât see how any reasonable person could come to that conclusion. The person doing the labor (assuming itâs not an owner/operator) is likely making $20-$40 an hour. The remaining $80-$60/hr goes to the owner who has to pay for the shop, the equipment in shop, insurance for the shop, the businessâs responsibilities for their portion of their healthcare plan, possibly ongoing training for the employees, a person or people to run the shopâs front end, possibly an accountant to keep all the finances in order, and then some money for him/herself to live on.
Thereâs way more costs involved than just labor. And itâs disingenuous to say âWell I get paid $53/hr so they much be price gougingâ without taking into account the same expenses that your employer must pay as well. If youâre making $53/hr in wages, then I promise you, your company (assuming youâre not an independent contractor), charges way more than just the $53/hr they pay you.
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Totally agree. Even if they are an independent contractor working for a larger company and are indeed charging $53hr to the âcustomerâ (who is effectively the actual the employer) then their âeffective take home payâ after all associated costs and extra hours of simply being independent (levies, insurances, personal gear, training, accounts, etc, etc) will likely be approaching an equivalent of $35ph.
If in actual business for oneself, a double to triple (as mentioned in post above by Texases) charge of the hourly pay of the actual âperson on the coal faceâ is required to cover costs of being in business. So a 53hr worker pay means a client charge of 100-150hr.
Iâm in the property building, renovation & maintenance industry and those factors are true across the board. Drop below that rule of thumb and youâre not in business next year.
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Mr. Qualls, if you had to sit down and cut the checks every month for an auto shop you would see very quickly why rates are what they are. Until you do cut checks for a business like that you have no idea how it works or what it takes to keep the doors open financially.
You obviously do not understand the irritating process of non-stop tool buying either; a process that never ends. Iâve got 3 rollarounds, a top chest, and still have tools for which there is no storage. And like cockroaches they continue to accumulateâŠ
A 100 an hour may sound a bit much on the surface to some but that 100 dollar pie in a shop setting gets sliced up into many thin pieces.
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One Christmas decades ago my Snap-On distributor made his weekly stop and gave me a nice monogrammed jacket which I hung behind my desk. Late that afternoon a customer came to pick up his car and asked how much the jacket cost and since I had just stuffed my final tool receipt into the drawer and posted the total expense for that years taxes I read him the truth, $6,000. He was flabbergasted. And thatâs a 2 man shop in the poorest state in the nation in the 90s.
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Most people, including some shop owners, have no idea how much you actually pay to have an employee earning, say $25/hr.
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I do not own a business, and have never owned or managed a business, but I have looked into what it actually costs to keep a company afloat. Based upon my calculations, I would say that if an employee is being paid an hourly wage of $20/hr, assuming that 100% of their âon the clockâ time is productive, and that the employee properly declares lunch and break times, the âloaded costâ to have this employee working is about $35 an hour. Of course, if the employee is inefficient, or fails to honestly account for âoff the clockâ time, then the cost will be much higher.
Therefore, if a professional mechanic is paid $25 to $30 an hour, the shop has to charge a price which properly accounts for the âloaded costâ of employee labor, while contributing enough toward the monthly overhead and the ownerâs desired personal profit. A labor rate of $100/hr or even $150/hr is reasonable, again assuming that this is a shop which does good work and uses quality parts.
As an office manager I was in charge of payroll, benefits administration, accounts receivable, accounts payable, etc. Most people arenât aware that the wage or salary of an employee is only about one-quarter to one-third the cost to the employer of having that person on the payroll.
In addition to the employeeâs pay, the employer has such direct costs as:
- Matching Social Security payments to the federal government; the Social Security deductions the employee pays is not the full amount, the employer pays the rest.
- The employee pays only part of the insurance benefits, the employer typically pays a larger premium portion than are the deductions from the employeeâs pay check.
- Labor costs for managing employee benefits.
- Hiring costs such as advertising posting a job opening, paying significant costs to an employment agency for pre-screening candidates, paying costs for background checks.
- Labor costs for the considerable time and work involved in payroll preparation and pay issuance whether done entirely in house or via a contracted payroll agency.
- Labor and materials costs of meeting EEOC mandates, postings, training, and documentation.
- Providing paid holidays, paid personal and/or sick days off.
- Paying a temp agency for a temp worker if an permanent employee uses federally mandated unpaid family leave or paying overtime to other employees if a temp worker is not brought in.
- Paying 100% of unemployment insurance premiums.
Add in all the many other costs of running a business such as building, utilities, business license fees, business insurance, equipment and supplies, software licensing, software update fees, phone and internet, employee training, tax preparation and taxes, taxes, taxes.
Only after all these and other frequent costs are covered does the business owner hopefully have sufficient profit from which to have a living. Many small business owners actually have a smaller personal income than their employees do from their employee take home net pay.
So as a customer being charged $100+ an hour for labor may seem expen$ive it really isnât.
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At one point, I did a cost study for my employer which determined that the fully loaded cost of an employee was 138% of their hourly pay rate. This included all employees from the CEO to general shop labor, and included FICA tax, Federal and State Unemployment tax, workers comp insurance, health insurance, PTO, 401K match, training, uniforms, and a couple of miscellaneous items.
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But to be clear, a shop would lose money charging only 138% of the mechanicâs hourly wage. Lots of other costs need to be added.
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As a chef, 33% food cost, 33% labor and the rest to cover overhead was our standard. It was amazing to me if we did $3000 a day in sales we were managing A million dollar a year budget! Now we had $750 a day breakfast sales, $900 a day lunch sales a$1500 a day dinner sales on average for a month. Boggled my mind! Still had to call people in or send them home based on day to day.
Correct. Class âAâ techs for example, earn $50.00 per hour at my employerâs shops. That translates to a fully loaded cost of $69.00 per hour. I then calculated that we needed to bill a labor rate of $104.00 per hour to account for overhead and profit, which turned out to be right in the middle of the local average.
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When I watch Wheeler Dealers, I multiply Antâs hours by $100 to come up with a labor cost.
Regarding rewards for a good mechanic: I have a friend who was a top Toyota tech. He eventually quit, and now rehabs and rents houses. For him, it was the constant lack of appreciation of his customers that weighed on him.
If your mechanic is your friend, you will find that your car-care costs go down. The mechanic will do their best job for YOU, such as diagnose it right from the beginning, or cover you if they didnât. I was embarassed on a recent Miata repair at how little I was charged. The mechanic owned an RX-8, and he knew that I was knowledgeable, and that I had never complained at anything he ever did. Just bring out the best in your guy/gal.