Many years ago I totalled the fixed cost of my small shop’s operating expense and found that when I opened the door I was $200+ dollars in the hole not counting depreciation.
Oh, to only be $200 in the hole every morning! What a relief that would be. Haha.
This profession involves skill, physical labor and 10-12 hour days to earn $50,000 per year.
And a sizeable personal investment. It’s not unusual for a top-flight mechanic to have $50-$100K invested in personal tools, equipment, and training to maintain his income.
Back in the mid 80s one of dealers I worked for was a comparatively small one with a couple of new car lines. Both the lot and building was small with a 14 bay service area and one of those bays occupied by an alignment rack.
By chance I found out the dealer was leasing this building (and keeping in mind this was mid 80s) for 120k dollars a year.
Imagine opening the doors every morning knowing that you’re starting the month 10 grand in the hole just for the roof over your head and have not even begun to factor in utilities, insurance, employee costs, service tools, shop supplies, and a 100 other items that go on the debit side of the ledger.
I wholeheartedly agree, people really don’t understand how much it costs to run an automotive repair shop… and that includes many people opening one!
I’ve never owned an auto repair shop, but I have been a principal in a manufacturing concern for many years, and I can imagine and appreciate the cost of operating an auto shop.
If you go to the bank to capitalize a new business (or, in my case, an LBO), they’re going to require a business plan before they’ll consider lending you any money… and it had better be extremely comprehensive and backed by actual data, including the backgrounds of all the piincipal managers in the organization… AND you’d better have a big hunk of your own “skin in the game” (a big hunk of personal financial risk). Most businesses fail young simply because they were undercapitalized to begin with.
Having said all that, I’d STILL like my brake job done for $20!
In no way was I insinuating that a real mechanic / automotive technician was anything but an intelligent , highly skilled , hard working individual that deserves every penny he or she earns & more . That’s why I come here & ask questions .
On the other hand it hasn’t been my experience that these type people are the people that change oil & tires & such at Walmart & Jiffy Lube & other such places .
My background is in business management & electrical engineering which by the way had nothing to do with automotive electronics .
That being said , I wasn’t slamming the professionals among the people here but I do have my doubts about the expertise of the employees at the quick lube places .
The problem with mechanics who are at the top of their game is that they make the work look so easy. And as a result many people think that means the bill should be less.
You hire a painter for your house. He bids the job at $1500 and tells you it will take 3 days. If his crew gets the job done in 2 days and the quality is just as good, you offer to pay him $1000, right? But I have had someone ask if I could take some money off the bill because a repair that should have taken half a day was done in 2 1/2 hours.
The city hires a construction crew to build an overpass. The price is agreed upon, as is a schedule, and the city also offers a bonus of $X for every day the job is finished ahead of schedule. I have yet to have someone offer me extra money for finishing a car on Tuesday instead of Wednesday.
“But I have had someone ask if I could take some money off the bill because a repair that should have taken half a day was done in 2 1/2 hours.”
When I was still working at the dealership, the service manager was complaining that guys wanted to get paid the book time of 8hrs, and it only took them 3hrs actual time to do the job, for example. He felt we didn’t deserve the 8hrs.
You should have heard what we told him
It wasn’t fit to be repeated here
The idea of punishing somebody, just because they’re fast and efficient is outrageous
On the flip side, the service manager had no trouble with the idea of only paying the guy the book time of 8hrs, when it took him 10hrs actual time to do the job
The POS wanted to have it both ways. He wanted everything to be in the dealership’s favor
Flat-rate only works if you always adhere to it. It doesn’t work if you only stick to it when you feel like it.
This POS also had his own ideas concerning warranty repairs. The factory bulletins always clearly stated what paper work was required before the part could be replaced/repaired. And this POS always wanted us to go way above and beyond what the factory required. To this day, I don’t know why. One day, factory reps dropped by and said “Why are the guys turning in all this extra paperwork. We don’t need it, and you know that. We throw that extra paperwork in the trash. You’re wasting everybody’s time.” But it didn’t stop.
A thread like this makes me appreciate the fact that I have an excellent Toyota dealer who is both honest and fair with his repairs, explanations, and prices. When a big repair rolls in they work hard to ease the sting with some careful discounting on labor and parts. When they make a mistake (which they have not done often) they make good on it and compensate me for the inconvenience. Most importantly, they don’t recommend irregular items such as wallet…ahem…coolant flushes, etc.
Back to the original topic now. My Toyota dealer recommended not replacing any Toyota fuel filter that was on the vehicle for over 100,000 miles. His experience was that old filters usually had corrosion of the fuel lines near the fitting to the filter. Many fuel filter replacements turned into expensive fuel line replacements as well. His advice was to replace the filter every 60,000 miles or just leave it alone. All of my Toyota’s (including my current Sienna at 202,000 miles) have never had a fuel filter replaced and, knock on wood, it has never been an issue.
