How do I know what's causing my oil leak?

Maintenance/Repairs
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50

Prove it. I’m sure you’re wrong.

Wrong again.

If your car is leaking oil, and the issue is as simple as the oil cap is loose, then you should fix it yourself. If your level of technical ability is so low that you can’t spot a loose cap by yourself, it’s only fair that you pay the going rate for someone who can.

You just don’t get it, do you? If I can run a repair shop with prices equal to or sometimes higher than the dealer, and consistently be booked 2 weeks out, I would be stupid to do anything for free or to lower my prices. A well run, properly equipped, and professionally staffed shop will use price to control the work flow.

Maybe you go to work to make friends. I go to work to make money.

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51

Funny thing is I did a lot of roofing and some remodeling when I was 17 - early 20’s while trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up (still haven’t figured it out and now disabled lol)…

A basic roofer needs a about $20,000 worth of tools, equipment, transportation, professional liability insurance premiums, registration fees and a few other things… And you now own your own basic roofing company ready to pay roofer wages…

A basic C tech mechanic needs about that much just in tools to start off in the business just doing steering and suspension, brakes, basic external engine work some electrical and a few other minor stuff, without having to always be borrowing tools from other guys in the shop… That includes quality tools but a cheap box, some boxes alone are over $20,000 with NO tools…

One of the last shops I was working at if you took all 5 of the B & C tech guys tools they still didn’t have half of what I have sitting in my home shop… Now a A tech has to have wayyyy more tools with all the specialty stuff out there… My buddy is an basic A tech and his scanner alone is over $6,000, doesn’t include updates… And BTW this is all just to work for someone else… Hell an alignment rack and machine and everything needed to do alignments NOT including tools to do the work is $40,000 and up, I signed for an alignment machine and new rack back in 2005 that was $65,000 and it was still in boxes, still had to pay for the rack install and stuff…

If I had to replace all my tools today, it would be close to $100,000 or more (stuff is expensive now) in tools alone…

A shop has to have very large oil (& coolant depending) recovery tanks plus have them pumped once a week or so, coolant flush machines, AC equipment, not just the recovery/vacuum etc, diagnostic equipment, lifts for the bays, transmission jacks, a few floor jacks and a lot of jack stands of different sizes, heck I got 2 floor jacks and 8 jack stands plus 4 custom built tall jack stands and 4 ramps, plus a shop will need all kinds of specialty tools not to mention large high volume/pressure air compressors/tanks, welders, oxy-acetylene torches and the list goes on and on… I’m sure some of the other pros can add a few things I forgot…

The start up cost for an automotive repair shop is around $60,000 to over $250,000 depending on how big the shop is and the tools you need, depending on what services you offer (remember the $1,000,000 shops with out of date alignment machines lol)…

Yes you can have a few cheap tools and do some work on cars a little, but I can also tear off a roof and install a new one with a hammer, ladder and shovel to remove the old roof and use a pick up truck to haul off the old roofing…

Now what were you saying about roofing vs being a mechanic??? Remember, I have done both, and I have been on a roof with snow on it and also when it was 130F on it… If a roof is high or steep enough, you tie yourself off with a safety harness incase of a fall, so not MANY dangers… You have a radiator hose blow on you under pressure at full operating temp and you are at minimum going to the ER with 3rd degree burns, seen it a few times, not to mention working on a running engine looking for noises and or looking for leaks etc, cars can fall off lifts, jacks can break, cars can slip off jacks, brakes can fail, slip in oil, etc etc etc…

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52

You make some good points. But the thread of similarity here between roofing and mechanics(and the point I’m trying to make) is that it comes down to how you choose to do things.

53

If you only have a few thousand $$$$ worth of tools, you are more out and able to do cheap and sometimes free work, but when you have more money invested in your tools then a high end Lexus, you tend to charge for everything… Difference is in the amount you have invested in your line of work, and one day when/if you invest more money then a very nice NEW vehicle in your job then you will understand that point, but until you have, you may never understand the cost of doing business… Heck, ALL my tools have been paid for for years now, but if you want me to work on your vehicle then it will cost you $75-$100 an hour for my experience…

Remember, you can not buy experience, but it sure does cost you a lot…

Wisdom comes from experience, and experience comes from mistakes, and learning from mistakes takes time and wisdom… That is why you never see a very old wise guy that everyone goes to for advise that is only 20 years old… lol

I was very lucky that at a very young age, early 20’s to late 20’s to have a retired master tech as a teacher (2 year automotive technology) that mentored me more then the rest of the class for a few reasons, and then I met my best friend who was old enough to be my dad and later on my business partner that with out me realizing it at the time, all mentored me with there already 20+ years of experience and I learned very early on to watch, pay close attention and asked question’s to what they did right or wrong… Both were master mechanics also… At the time I taught them a lot about the new at the time tech stuff and they taught me old school stuff… We are still friends to this day and from time to time pick each others brains and they are both about 75 and I am 53… I now am passing some knowledge to a couple of guys younger then my son… And sadly they are better then me at all this new 20+ computer bus interface stuff, but I can still teach them a lot of the other stuff…

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54

If diy’er me only had one major auto repair job taking a month to do, or one roof to install taking the same amount of time, I’d prefer to do the roofing job. Lots of sunshine, fresh air, and good views of what’s going on in the neighborhood up on the roof. The biggest problem with being a pro-roofer, as soon as you are done with the current job, you’re scheduled to do another starting the next work day. Intense, exhausting work. Especially the tear-off crews, they work so hard I don’t see how they can do that day after day.

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55

A month to do a roof, better hope it don’t rain… lol

We used to have fun tearing off roofs, demo is way more fun then installing most of the time on a roof… I always worked 3 man crews and we still had to carry the 75 pound bundles up the latter…

The hardest day we ever had was when we did a roof on a small church (no tear off, 2nd roof of the church, ins allows 2 layers in Tn), I think it was about 52 squares, 3 bundles to a square IIRC, it took us about a 1/2 day or more taking turns running up the latter, it was around a 100 degrees and we all 3 about passed out afterwards… Just sat in the floor of the A/C’d church by the cold water fountain… lol

But most of the houses took about 3 days to a week to do a tear off and install as long as no wood damage was found, but we normally walked all the roofs checking for weakness before the bid…

With todays crews and tools, it only takes a 1/2 day for a tear off and install, so a crew can do 2 roofs a day… (in my area of the world anyway)…

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56

This discussion reminds me of the retired machine repairman called back to fix a stamping press in his former plant. The guy walks to the $2M machine and says he can fix it for $20,000. The general manager says OK and the guy picks up a hammer and gives the machine a big smack. The press starts running again.

The general manager is astounded and asks for an itemized bill.

On the bill… $10 for the hammer hit. $19,990 for knowing where to hit the machine.

You pay for that valuable experience.

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57

Can’t say I fully agree with that.

You pay someone for the result that they can produce, it being a by product of experience.

If you are just paying for their experience(which is what some of you are arguing), with no end product, I got bad news.

You can be more selective and charge more for your service if you are really good/better at what you do, but you can’t charge someone a dollar amount simply for being more “experienced”. That’s rediculous.

58

Are you sure that it isn’t bluediculous or greendiculous?

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59

Missed the point of the story, didn’t you. The machine ran after the hit. It was a success because of the experienced machine repairman.

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60

Part of the point that Mustangman was making is that if you have a machine that is down and stopping production, not only do you have product not being made/moved, but you have employees standing around getting paid not doing any work, not there fault the machine broke… It can cost a company thousands of dollars and up… It is cheaper to pay an experienced expert on that machine that knows it inside out $20,000 for a few minute of work then to pay some guy that is not very failure with the machine much less but it could take him a week to get it up and running again… If you are loosing $5,000 an hour every hour that the machine is down it is cheaper to pay someone $20,000 for a quick repair then to pay someone much less and it take them 48 hours for the same repair while loosing $5,000 an hour…
That would be $240,000 loss over a $40,000 loss if it took him 4 hours for the repair that he charged $20,000 for, which one would you use???
Me, I’m paying the guy the $20,000 to hit it with a hammer… lol

About 21 years ago when I was working for a Commercial and Industrial Masonry company, I worked by myself and had a fleet of 9 forklifts, mostly Lull’s, as well as everything from extension cords to mixers to concrete saws (gas and electric) and the fleet of work trucks and anything you can imagine to do that type of work, including lots of fabrication…
It was nothing for me to go out to a job site 200 miles away to repair some equipment that broke down, all while having $2000 an hour worth of our workers watching me work… lol
But on a job site that big, time is everything, you can’t run electrical if the wall isn’t built yet, so if the wall held up the next inline of workers, then the wall people paid the wages of the electricians for time lost and that goes on for everyone down the line, so yeah, it could end up costing the company big money if not taken care of on a timely manner…
It just something called the price of doing business…

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61

You also missed the point. Charging a company 20k to fix something that takes 2 mins to fix raises some ethical and questionable business practice issues.

My point still stands. If you can’t give out 5-10 minutes of “free” diagnostic time for a potential client, its not a good business practice on your part.

62

Not at all…as it very well explained already below. It is Econ 101, the scarcity of the item being purchased against the costs of NOT purchasing it. The parable is that exact example.

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63

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14a0428fa11c69ea6a24582212f19db2ce1250c74dcb4fe5ec02364e1fca37f7_1540×626 35.6 KB

Tester

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64

I mean that makes sense. The way I see it, in some situations you don’t need to be charging people money right off the bat.

65

Clearly, you’ve never done roofing :grinning:
It’s hot as hades up there in most weather unless you’re in the northern states after fall. During the hot times, the shingles stick together and when it’s cold, they are brittle. Standing on a pitch all day is tough on ankles and back. It’s extremely hard work for young backs…

They have ladders with lifts now. Stack one or two bundles on it and buzz it up to the top. Watched one guy up on the roof teaching a newby to run it. He was complaining the new guy runs it too slow. If they buzz all the way to the top and hit the stop, it lofts the bundle off the platform and into the waiting arms of the guy up top.

When I was young, we did friend’s roofs to save money. Worst I contributed on was a white shingle roof. It was 60 degrees out but the shingles got so hot from the sun and you couldn’t walk on them without leaving scuff marks from your boots. PITA.

66

I suspect everyone will agree to that. Managed by exception…

What you may find is that newer businesses trying to build up are more likely to do something like this. Unfortunately, with success and more business than they can handle, more mature companies won’t allow the distraction. Looking at it from a different perspective, it’s doing a disservice to the customers already waiting to have their cars serviced. I knew this old boy that ran his own shop and was constantly in demand and backed up with work waiting. Part of the reason is he would drop everything to “go have a look”. While this made the prospective customer happy, the rest of those waiting inordinate times to get their work done were not as happy with his propensity to do that.

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67

Yes and they are very nice to use, but expansive back in the day… Google ladder hoist… Still not cheap… lol… But well worth it for a roofing only company…

68

Hoist salesperson: You can’t put a price on the health of your employee’s backs.
Roofing co mgr: I didn’t think so either but here we are
:grinning:

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69

Then would it also be fair to say that when you are working you don’t need to be earning money right off the bat? I mean, how much time and effort would you spend working on a roof before you expected to start getting paid?

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