I, of course, disagree with your assessment. Of the credible responses, I was particularly impressed with the response of Tester. On the basis of his response, I suspect that he has a highly respected and very busy and profitable shop. Whitey, on the other hand, based on the amount of time he seems to be spending on Car Talk, I suspect he is enjoying retirement. Also, I must say, Whitey appears to have excellent typing skills.
aaaaa,
While I can understand that frugalness is sometimes a virtue, bringing your own parts, be they NEW, USED or REBUILT does create a problem for a legit shop.
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Part of the markup on new OEM parts, which must cover the part, and time they spend procuring the part ( time on phone calling 1-4 suppliers to see who has one )
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Diagnosis and labor is partially PROFIT. These SHOULD be charged seperately, so you know EXACTLY what they determined was needed, and how much was labor for the repair.
A little profit on parts, and a bit more on labor, which pays for professional mechanic, the shop equipment and facility, overhead, etc.
A good shop makes enough to keep staff employed and living well, and the owner makes a profit for his investment and for his time running the business.
Such a shop can afford to give a rock-solid written warranty on all their parts and labor.
This does not mean the car gets a 3 year bumper to bumper warranty; it provides that the shop found the problem that the symptoms stem from, and repaired those problems correctly.
A good shop OWES you this, not a “we’ll work with you” vague warranty… anytime someone wants to work with you, they want to work you over.
So, what you REALLY were looking for, was not a professional mechanic, but a parts-switcheroo person that has no insurance, no shop, no overhead, no diagnostic equipment, training or much beyond ability to swap a part.
Somehow, a dealership was smart. They used this opportunity to gain a new customer. By takign this in, and assuming some risk of it blowing up on them, they may have educated you as to what the whole thing would have cost, had they supplied the part, and the warranty you would have gotten.
Doing this ONCE per prospective customer, is a smart MARKETING move, for a shop that maybe is running below par on volume.
These days, that is quite possible, even for a dealership.
I went this route myself… found a Chevy master brake cylinder/ABS unit online, it was a TERRIFIC deal, with a 30 day warranty. Shop next door installed it, seemed to work fine for a few months.
Then I was driving along, and no brakes… luckily that 1’ deep furrow of snow in center of road made for a PERFECT braking system !
I towed to dealership, and shelled out the 850.00 to have it done right.
How could I expect the swap-shop to redo their labor for free, whereas they undercharged me for the labor, and made no profit on the part ?
I suggest people shop for the mechanics that have the latest equipment, as diagnosis is more accurate with PROPERLY equipped shops… and diagnosis is often an hourly fee, not flat-rate.
My guess is you have had AutoZone do your diagnostics… :}
That is merely plug n tell, not diagnostics… it results in lots of “throwing parts at the problem, and seeing if it sticks”
You can try to tear apart this response, but it is an honest one, that is based on experience on both ends of the story.
As a locksmith, I get people bring in their E-Bay chip keys and remotes…
“The instructions say take it to a locksmith, and they can program it for 10.00”
Uh, not THIS locksmith!
Had this yesterday, on an Audi. Client is a repair shop. Their client bought the remotes and dropped car off with them. The shop brought it over… with their client’s EBAY “super deal” flip keys… but the chip was already programmed, and on VW and AUDI, that is a one shot deal. The chip can not then be used ion a different car.
When we determined these keys would not program, I cut one of mine ( NEW NOT USED ) and it programmed right in, as it should.
Car owner calls me up, telling me how the instructions say how to do it.
Now the car owner is telling the expert how to do it.
I can not argue it, I can only tell them what is and what is not.
So, you MIGHT get a deal doing this sort of thing, but it RARELY saves any money, and it gets the PARTSWAPPER off the hook when things do NOT work.
I charge to program keys and remotes, whether it works or not, if client supplies the parts. No guarantees.
But I offer to supply mine, if the others do not work, so at least the client has the option to complete the job and have something to show for it.
Jeff… A Super Locksmith Shop in Boulder Colorado that I can not name, for The Car Talk Police are on patrol, so I must abide by their wishes not to advertise my service center by name.
. Also of course make sure you tell all of your “high maintenance” customers to never come back.
It perfectly acceptable to “fire” certain customers for the correct reasons.
When I said you cannot determine what is greedy what I was referring to was that you are not the determining factor or lets say “the judge” of what is greedy. This is because when you are quoted a price, for example, a headlamp for $400.00 you have no idea what it costs the shop. If you do not know what the shop paid for the part then logically you cannot determine if they are overcharging. Your accusing the shop of overcharging most likely is nothing more than you being a cheapskate.
This is a analogy that auto mechanics came up with,they are doing the best they can. This type of deep thinking is not what they are trained for. Whitey and VDC didn’t think the restaurant analogy up themselves,mechanics have been using it to explain to their customers for years why they won’t let customers supply their own parts,most customers buy it and relent.
We do have a shop here in Tucson that advertises “Bring your own parts” I have always wanted to stop and ask how its working. I bet mant people come thinking they will bring their own parts and end up getting talked out of it when they have the pitfalls explained.
When I ran my shop I always allowed customer supplied parts. In fact I recommended them at times. As part of a franchise I was required to markup parts a certain percentage and some brands I was not allowed to order. If the part was better I would suggest ordering it elsewhere and bringing it in. I did have stipulations to this agreement.
- No part warranty - not my part not my problem
- Two week labor warranty for poor installation
- Labor was book time if things went well or actual time if things go bad
- If the replacement part didn’t work and the car was stuck in shop - I could install my brand of part for a prearranged price at that point in time. (Such as a bad CV Axle).
- If the install goes according to plan but the part is bad it is book time twice.
These would all be agreed on before the job started on documented on the work order. My part markup requirement would be prohibitive for performance parts and sometimes the CSK two blocks away had great add prices that I couldn’t beat. I did a fair amount of work this way and never got burned over 3 years.
Both of the mechanics I go too warranty their labor for one year. If they are going to install your part, they would have to ascertain that your diagnosis is correct , the part is the right one, and the part is of good quality, all for free. Why would they do that? Garage owners have a huge overhead, all of their time has to be used to pay their overhead, and hopefully make a profit that they get instead of wages. They don’t have any " free " time to give away.
I don’t consider myself high maintence. And I do bring my mechanic parts that I want to be used. I’m fine with him not warrantying the parts I bring, Of course the parts I do bring are almost always of high quality (and often price) that what most garages generally offer. I was bringing cheap parts for him to install I can see where he might be apprehensive. But when the brakes on my Mustang need to be replaced and I showed up with a Brembo big brake kit for him to install, he had no qualms about installing those.
And you’ve used this mechanic for a while, right? I wonder if Aaaaa knew the mechanics he contacted. I imagine your mechanic might say no to a cold call like that from a stranger.