I think $400 for a new alternator, installed and tested, is a perfectly fair & reasonable bill for this job. Mechanics have to earn a living, and earn it both on the parts and the labor. Otherwise, they’d be doing something else for a living. They too have house payments to make every month .
And remember, sometimes new alternators don’t work, right out of the box. If the alternator the mechanic installed didn’t work for you, he’d have to do it all over again, for free. He has to bill you a little more for the times when that happens to other of his customers. If he didn’t, he’d not make enough money to make it worth his time to go to work every morning.
You're kidding yourself if you think your business isn't doing it too.
Since I’m the directory of engineering…I know for a FACT we do NOT mark up the components we buy. I’m very familiar with the cost of every component that goes into our systems. I’m involved in the process from beginning to end. Even when we have to service our systems in the field…we are NOT inflating the price of the component. We had to upgrade a system for our of our customers just last week. Part of the upgrade was 5 new disks. We sell them to our customers for the exact same price as what we buy them for. Now some components we’ll mark up because we buy then wholesale. Then we’ll mark them up to retail price. But disks we can’t buy wholesale…so we just sell it for what we buy it for. But the customer did have to pay for the labor and software upgrade costs.
In the end, all that matters is the final cost. Was it reasonable? It doesn't matter if the part is priced at $1000 and the labor is $1 or visa-versa.
EXACTLY…And that’s the point I made earlier. It’s the final cost that really matters.
What I don’t like about the price increase in parts is it has the potential for deception. Unless your customer knows the prices of all the parts you are providing you can charge what ever you want. I’ve seen mechanics who only charge $40/hr rate (far less then the average here in NH). A good number of people think they are getting a better deal if they have their vehicle fixed there. But he marks up his parts prices over 100%. So that $200 alternator you can buy at NAPA…he sells to you for $400. If it takes him 1 hour to do the job…he’s making a LOT more money then the mechanic I use who charges me $95/hr. He buys that Alternator from NAPA for $175…sells it to me for $200 (which is the price I would have to pay if I went to NAPA). My final cost is $295. The other mechanic is charging $440. And many of his customers think they’re getting a deal because his labor rates are so low. When in fact the overall price is drastically inflated.
BTW…I don’t buy from NAPA…we both use a local parts supplier. I only mentioned NAPA because it’s nation wide. People outside of NH/MA probably never heard of the car-parts store I use.
Our customers are engineers. They know the price of components we use. They have the same suppliers.
The other thing mentioned here was parts from an electrician and plumber.
Last year I had a generator panel added to my house. My neighbor did it for me. He just charged me what he bought the components for. I knew the panel he used. So I decided last night to head over to Home Depot to see what that panel costs. It was about $40 more then what my neighbor charged me. He doesn’t buy his products from Home Depot. He uses a electronic wholesaler that I can’t buy from. Wholesale only. For his normal customers he’ll sell it to them at full retail (which is what Home Depot sells them for).
Same with plumbers. There are several wholesale only plumbing supply stores in NH and MA. When we built our house many years ago the builder sent us to one to pick out our fixtures. Unless you’re a plumber or builder you can’t buy from there.
One last point…We had a new granite counter top put in a few years ago. Part of the deal was a new sink. The granite counter store offered the sinks as a courtesy to make it easier for their clients. The sink we picked out from them was far far far better quality then anything you could buy from Home Depot…and it was cheaper then Home Depot’s BEST sink.
You’re kidding yourself if you think your business isn’t doing it too. Since I’m the directory of engineering…I know for a FACT we do NOT mark up the components we buy. I’m very familiar with the cost of every component that goes into our systems. I’
I don’t know how but you COMPLETELY missed the point. Here it is one more time- although your company does not mark up your parts, it costs money to employ people to order them, pay for them, receive them and install them. Those costs are bundled into your overhead. So although it APPEARS as though you aren’t charging more than your cost, you really are being compensated. You HAVE to or your company wouldn’t be able to stay in business.
I know you’re a smart guy so I confused how this point is being lost in translation. Perhaps re-read my prior post if it isn’t clear this time.
@RemcoW, that’s a good point. When I saw this thread was still active, the thought that came to my mind was “If you don’t want to pay for marked-up parts, you can always go to the auto parts store and do the work yourself.”
An auto repair shop isn’t a charity; it’s a business. If you don’t like how a particular shop does business, you have other options. Personally, when I go to a shop for a repair I either don’t want to do or I am unqualified to do, all I care about is whether the total cost is reasonable. If the job costs more than I think it is worth, or more than I think is reasonable, I can choose other options. I’m not going to pay for the job and then regret (and whine about) paying what I was told the job would cost beforehand.
Re-read my posts…I even said that in my posts. We’re honest to our customers about what our product and service costs. Most of our customers are engineers. When we do a service call we may have to replace a disk drive. We have a flat rate price for labor. So when we show up our customers have a good idea how much we’ll be charging them. I don’t even mind if they buy their own disk.
MOST of the parts we buy…we buy wholesale. So YES we do mark those parts up. But the final cost is retail cost. Here’s one item…Bud Cabinets. We buy a LOT of them. You can go to any electronic store and buy the exact same Bud Cabinet as we do…but we probably buy them 30% LESS then what you can buy them for. We then mark them up to the price you buy them for. We DON’T sell it to you at some absurd inflated price.
The only point that bothers me about places that have markups…it’s very difficult to get a true estimate. I had a good example above. It’s very difficult for someone to estimate from one mechanic to the next.
Before Auto Zone came along automobile parts pricing was retail to the walk in public and 30% to 40% off to shops. If an automobile repair invoice were questioned by a customer they could call the parts house and the price quoted would be full retail. That price allowed the shop to add 43% to 66% mark up to the parts. So the automobile repair shops no longer have the benefit of appearing to only fill in the difference in their “special price” and the list price. Automobile parts are available at wholesale to anyone these days. What will other service businesses do if their supply chains get McParts chain stores that sell wholesale over the counter?
We still have part stores here in NH like that. And most of the mechanics use them.
There’s also a drastic difference in quality with the parts these stores and the parts from stores like ADAP. ADAP and PepBoys have very convenient hours.
We have this tiny mom and pop parts store around that’s right new a Pepboys. I go to the small place for most my parts and liquids. If they don’t have it, they can get it for around the same price, a little more than online.
This way I’m supporting small business. They are also nice guys, all into old cars.
Good point, @RemcoW. Price is just one factor in determining who we buy parts from. We try to keep the dollars in our own backyard. I’m often tempted to stock up on items from rockauto.com or some other such vendor, but in the end I buy from locally owned and operated businesses 90% of the time.
I strongly believe in supporting local businesses, with all the superstores driving every small guy out. You’ll never see me in Wallmart for that reason.
Oh, I use Rockauto when my local guy can’t get it but prefer to get stuff from the local guy.
They’ve been in business for as long as I can remember and it would be a shame if they closed because nobody buys from them. I’d imagine they’ll retire at some point, which would still be a dark day for me.
They aren’t open on Saturday afternoon or Sunday so then I go to NAPA. I think the one near me is individually owned.
I think best approach as others said is look at overall job. If the part is extraordinarily expensive I would ask for a break in price.
The other thing to consider is if you supply the part you are on the hook 100% if the part is defective making the job time and materials. So if an internal part is installed and assembled before testing the mechanic turns to you to pay that labor along with installing the new one. They also look at you do bother getting the replacement.
If the mechanic supplies the part they eat all that. I happily pay them to for that.