Mechanics/Self-Employed/Etc: do you get tired of having to justify your hourly rate?

General Discussion
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I take pride in my work and my ethics and there are shops out there that make me embarrassed or angry to be in the same industry with them, and I do what I can to try to elevate their level of quality, but dammit sometimes the people just ask to be taken advantage of or fleeced. I hate to sound to mean and condescending but I think it’s the truth. I’ve heard people speak of a “stupid tax” and I think there’s some meaning in that.

I had a customer come in after another shop couldn’t fix their car, it had a cylinder misfire. They replaced the plugs and wires, coil pack, did an induction/fuel system cleaning service, replaced an injector, and then sent them to me. First hurdle was getting the customer to pay the $100 diag fee since Shop A does all their diagnostics for free. It was a simple diag, blown intake gasket at #3 causing a very lean misfire. Estimate for repair $350. Again I’m told how expensive we are because I want to charge $300 to change a $50 part.

I finally look at them irritated and said “they took $700 of your money and didn’t fix your car and I’m the expensive one?”

And they still don’t get it. These people still go to the discount brake/exhaust/radiator chain because they do a free diag I charge $100 for. They do free brake inspections that I charge $30 for. They do an oil change for $18.95 that I charge $36 for. Apparently these people have no clue that a loss leader is an invitation to being oversold and that a shop that charges very little will not be able to hire the most talented help out there.

Would anyone in their right mind use a dentist that gave free exams?

Yes, there are mechanics out there whose business tactics make my blood boil. But there are also irresponsible, uneducated, naive customers out there who constantly seek out the cheapest way to do something and then are unhappy with the results.

42
Yes, their are mechanics out there whose business tactics make my blood boil. But there are also irresponsible, uneducated, naive customers out there who constantly seek out the cheapest way to do something and then are unhappy with the results

I understand what you’re saying…but shouldn’t the cheap shops still be honest?

43

I understand what you’re saying…but shouldn’t the cheap shops still be honest?

I think they should be but sometimes they’re not smart enough to be honest or their pricing level just shows the level of their incompetence.

Other than a hypermarket discount marketer like WalMart I don’t know of any business strategy in which lowering prices to constantly undercut the competition leads to long-term success. It certainly never works in a small-business setting. Coupons and discounts on services are nothing but a race to the bottom of the barrel.

In the oil change example, a guy may put out a coupon for an $18.95 oil change because some marketing genius has told him that it would increase traffic, lead to additional sales, etc. At the end of the day he may see he had 3 cars in for oil changes, tied up a mechanic for close to 2 hours doing them, and has less than $60 to show for it. I can tell you that guy will ride his mechanic to find something to sell on the next 3 oil changes, not just to make those 3 profitable but to make up for the last 3 that were dead. He’s looking at the rent and utility payments that are due and he has to make some money.

Alternately, the mechanic may be working flat-rate. He has kids to feed and a mortgage payment. These guys may not be actively out to hurt anyone, they’re just saving their own asses. I can tell you I would hang it up before I found myself in that predicament, but many people don’t have the luxury of that option. If I found myself on the verge of foreclosure on my house, I may behave differently.

I’m not immune to low pricing myself, either at work or at home. 3 or 4 times now I’ve bought clothes at Costco–socks, shirts, jeans–for myself and for some reason it took that 3 or 4 times to realize that their clothes are absolute crap. The shirts aren’t cut right, the pants don’t last, and the socks are packaged one inside the other making them feel twice as thick as they really are in the store.

Shame on me for trying them more than once.

44

Speaking of racing to the bottom, it might be noted that the trend over the last few years has been for new car dealers to adopt this policy. Note the cheap oil changes, free multi-point inspections, cheap tire mounting and balancing, etc.; all designed to compete with Jiffy Lube and Wal Mart.

I read recently of a dealer where the mechanics get paid like this on tire mounting.
They get 0 for mounting the tire.
They get .1 hours for balancing.
A lousy 6 minutes total for something like this.

The customer of course will love it.
The mechanic will have a diametrically opposed view of that opinion.

The Ford dealer here has their service department located on a lightly traveled side road behind the main lot where the new cars are parked. While going down that road the other day I noticed that the empty lot across the street from the service dept.has a new building going up.
This building looks exactly like a fast lube type building; tall, 2 overhead entrance doors and 2 overhead exit doors on the other side.

I strongly suspect that this building is going to be a FOMOCO version of a Jiffy Lube building so the line between JL employees and “factory trained techs” is going to become very thin. Any signage should be up in the next week or so to confirm this.

The dealer has even been advertising food lately. Apparently no one can get a car serviced now without a meal of “hot soup, sandwiches, fresh cinnnamon rolls” or that “down home biscuits and gravy”. No idea if the cook works on flat rate… :smile:

45

@ok4450

“I read recently of a dealer where the mechanics get paid like this on tire mounting.
They get 0 for mounting the tire.
They get .1 hours for balancing.
A lousy 6 minutes total for something like this.”

They should expect extremely high turnover of mechanics

“This building looks exactly like a fast lube type building; tall, 2 overhead entrance doors and 2 overhead exit doors on the other side.”

One of the Ford dealers near my house has that kind of setup already

The Benz dealer I worked at had luxury coffee, cookies and pastries. Supposedly, it was for customers only. Grease monkeys were expected to supply their own.

When the big shots were not around, the mechanics would grab a cookie or some of the good coffee.

the really sad thing is that the cashiers snitched us out

:cry:

46

Sounds like ok4450 is talking about the Ford Quick Lane shops that are going up everywhere. Quick Lane services are for quick routine maintenance, oil changes and fluid services, tires, batteries, and other minor services that people may want to wait around for an hour or two rather than drop off and pick up the car.

They have also been advertising for lube techs and maintenance techs that have Jiffy Lube experience.

Dealers have been taking a big share of the tire market the last several years. Makes sense, every car that comes in has 4 of them, and they can buy in numbers that a small shop can’t making them pretty price competitive.

@db4690 Every Friday one of our suppliers brings us donuts as a Thank You for the business we give them. The donuts stay in the shop. Once a customer saw the box coming in and remarked “Oh, you have donuts here?” I said “yeah, but they’re for the guys in back. They’re the ones that earn them.”

47

When shop management games their mechanics’ flat rate they and their customers shouldn’t be surprised when the mechanics jump into the gaming themselves. And in the end the shop will find that those who are most adept at winning the games will remain while those who dislike the games will have moved on.

48

@“Rod Knox” When I last worked flat rate it was at a small-ish indy shop. 6 bays, 3 mechanics and 2 guys in the office. I chose to work in the 2 bays nearest the office. When a new ticket came into the “inbound” rack, I immediately punched off of what I was doing and punched on to the new ticket, even if all I did was drive the car from one side of the lot to the other. That way anyone who looked at the ticket could see that I had started the job, and in the flat rate world the same guy who starts a job finishes it. I was just ensuring a steady flow of work for myself, that’s all. When a tech works flat rate, he’s there to make money for himself, not the business.

One day the owner was wondering why the production numbers were so skewed. The service writer told him that “Tech B” had 9 open tickets in progress and Techs A and C had 2 each.

Funny thing, though Tech B was quite capable, he never flagged on to the oil leaks or intermittent complaints unless he was directed by the office to do them. Ha!

49

I understand that you are now the shop owner/manager @asemaster. Do you make any effort to parse out the work load to give everyone their share of gravy and grief?

50

Absolutely @“Rod Knox” . Not that it matters here. We’re a small operation–too small to have flat rate work effectively–so everyone here is paid hourly. Except me. I get the tailings at the end of the month. And aside from that I find that things are easier to manage when everyone is rowing the boat in the same direction. That never happens in a true flat-rate shop. At least not in my experience. Yours may have been different.

The gravy jobs get done and then if there’s a problem child in the shop they’ll work together to try to get it figured out before kicking it to the prima donna who knows everything and never lets anyone forget it. (guess who?)

My memories of flat rate are a mid-level tech trying his best to sort out a problem, asking the “A” tech for some advice and hearing “bring it over to my bay. I’ll take it over.”

51

After a few failed tries at first flat rate then hourly then a mix I found that a guaranteed weekly salary with a monthly bonus of the flat rate that exceeded the weekly salary worked well. Of course the mechanics who were unable to exceed their guaranteed minimum after 90 days were excused. In looking back the vast majority of mechanics and helpers who were hired didn’t last past the 90 day ‘trial’ period. Many recognized that they just didn’t fit in and left within a week or two. The business is getting terribly computer technical and many great older hand-on mechanics find themselves working at the tire stores where there is plenty of work without dealing with OBD 2, etc. I hired a few as helpers but couldn’t pay them enough for them to stay.

All in all, finding honest, dependable, qualified mechanics is tough these days here in Mayberry II. The average annual income in the area is about $24,000 and when I closed my mechanic had grossed well over $55,000 the previous year. Few dealership mechanics earned that in the area.

52

As a consumer of mechanics services, and a provider of IT services (though on the side of my salaried job, so not as big a deal) I sort of see both sides. The problem I usually have on doing IT on the side is even my “play around money” charge is pretty high in comparison to BB flat rate if you figure out the potential hourly charge for comparable services. Of course, I rarely get to charge the 5 or 6 or more hours BB does for virus cleanings because I’ll tell you straight up you’re wasting money even trying. BB of course doesn’t.

Most people I know are very bottom line focused, and don’t see a reason to pay for experience or knowledge - they’re happy for free advice, but beyond that everyone knows someone who “knows computers”. And they might well be right.

For my consumer side of mechanics services - for an Oil Change, I’ve tried them all - and they’re all the same (to me) save Sears, but they closed in my town anyway. So what am I paying for in experience to change oil? To me, it’s like buying a specific brand name product - if Wal-Mart is 50% cheaper for the same thing, especially if it’s disposable anyway, wouldn’t it be kind of a waste of money to pay twice as much?

And to the Dealer’s quick change stuff - I got a survey from Subaru about the same sort of service. Heck, the local Dealer has been advertising $10 oil changes for a couple years. I still do my best to not go there for anything I’d pay for. They kept telling me to spend $750 every 15k for fluid changes that wasn’t needed in the Manual. Felt like a rip-off. Skipped all of it but Oil Changes on my last car, went the 46k before I traded it in just as well, but I spend thousands less. And of course I don’t really know if the Dealer or Subaru or both is fudging numbers for their interest, but no one likes putting thousands of dollars in fluid changes down the drain for the sake of their local Dealerships business.

So, where do I pay a lot? For issues where I need actual experience. For that I go to one of two local shops. But as I currently drive new cars, I don’t really do that. I generally just put on tires and have oil changes done.

53

So what am I paying for in experience to change oil?

Service, quality, adherence to a proper maintenance schedule, and support of local business and industry.

You’re right. Any monkey can drain the old oil out and put new oil in. But by regularly using a local independent garage with experienced mechanics you can be sure your car gets maintained according to schedule and that any emergent problems are seen and headed off before they become major.

It’s not unusual for a young kid to do the gruntwork of the oil change but then have an experienced tech give the car a once over. The experienced tech will know to take a close look at the lower intake gaskets because they are a weak spot on this car, or to check for loose stabilizer links because they fail prematurely on this model, or that the whistling sound when you start the car is a vacuum leak that’s causing the funny idle you’ve just learned to live with.

The front office will have the info from your previous visits and they’ll know that you are due for a cabin air filter, that at your 60K service your front brakes were at 20% and are probably due for replacement now, and not to fill your washer fluid because the tank is cracked and you don’t want to fix it.

When you go to the dentist do you just stop in at the closest one that’s having a sale or do you go to the one you trust and have been using for years?

54

Like anything, a one size fits all approach is sure to rile about 50% of the population- the ones either side of the center.

For example, if I were to bring my car in for some routine maintenance like an oil change and I’m waiting for it to be done, I’m going to be royally ticked off if I have waited over an hour only to find out the reason it took so long was the guys were doing all sorts of ancillary testing/analysis/inspections looking for potential problems.

How would you feel if, during food shopping, the people at the deli section took your cart in back for an hour. When they returned it, it had the pound of roast beef you asked for but also had a list of things they recommend you buy they noticed were missing from your cart…

:slight_smile:

55

True @TwinTurbo , you can’t be all things to all people, but we’ve found what works for the majority of our clientele AND what we’re comfortable with. How long do you think an oil change should take?

You wouldn’t have any reason to be ticked off here. When you checked in for your oil change you would have been told that the service–which includes a tire rotation if needed–takes about 45 minutes or so from the time your car is driven into the shop. And we don’t do all kinds of ancillary testing, just a courtesy inspection that any competent shop does. Check all the lights, blades, fluid level and condition, tire pressure, etc. We also squegee the windows and vacuum the floor. These things only take a few minutes each, but it adds up to about 45 min. But if you prefer just a “dump and fill” we will gladly accommodate you. It still costs the same though. :smile:

Our lube guy is however instructed to ask another one of us for an opinion if anything looks out of the ordinary. Like a brake master or steering reservoir almost empty, a cooling system half a gallon low, only one washer nozzle working. Noting these things and bringing them to your attention is just good service, I’ll never change my mind about that.

How would you feel if, during food shopping, the people at the deli section took your cart in back for an hour. When they returned it, it had the pound of roast beef you asked for but also had a list of things they recommend you buy they noticed were missing from your cart…

Probably pretty good if they were things I needed. More often than not I get thanked for finding and replacing that burned out headlamp or patching the nail hole in the low tire.

56

On the surface a lowly oil change might appear to be something that anyone with opposable thumbs could do without causing in issues.

However, there can be a world of difference with that lowly oil change between an inexperienced novice put under pressure and an experienced mechanic doing the same job. The odds of something being botched are far greater with the former as compared to the latter.

A number of Subaru owners have discovered that a lowly oil change has led to the transaxle in their car being wiped because someone mistakenly drained the final drive instead of the engine oil.

Other problem areas are omission of the drain plug gasket, double gasketing the oil filter, overtightening the drain plug, leaving the oil filler cap off, etc.

As to looking over a car for other problems or looming potential problems I consider it bad practice if a mechanic doesn’t note these things and bring it to the attention of the car owner.

57

I have no objection to a mechanic pointing out looming potential problems. However, I have been told all my fluids needed changed, including power steering pump and brake fluid which had been done not long before. They estimated over $1000 for this service.

Also I was estimated somewhat under $50 to adjust parking brake. On my 2002 Sienna it is self-adjusting if you actually use the parking brake. Since I usually live in a mountain village I almost always use that brake except in my own cochero where it is perfectly level.

They didn’t even inspect those items. They just guessed by mileage the work was needed.

58

In Mexico or stateside?

59

They just guessed by mileage the work was needed

Yeah, that’s even more frustrating.
I’ll never forget when I sold my first house, the buyer’s inspector noted the roof needed to be replaced. I had just had a complete tear off and re-roof job done on it one month prior! There were still some of the plastic strips blowing in the breeze and the roof was plainly visible just standing in the front yard. I wondered if he ever even came out to the house to be honest…

60

Yes, I deal with this every single day! I mainly work on computers and electronics. I have expanded to be a sort of electronics handyman of sorts. One day I am repairing a computer, the next a TV, the next someone’s water well controls, and the next an LED display sign board. I never know what I am going to get when I wake up. Being woke up in the night by a thunderstorm is music to my ears as I know the next day or week will bring me plenty of work. People don’t seem to understand that they need to spend a few extra bucks to protect their expensive and sensitive electronics. Business is good because of the spring storms right now.

There are two types of people out there. Those who appreciate your work and are willing to pay and those who want everything for nothing. People also don’t realize the difference in quality vs. having a couple year old high-end unit fixed vs. going out and buying another cheap disposable at Wal-Mart. People think an HP computer is an HP computer and that isn’t true. The comment “It is a good computer, it came from Wal-Mart” is an oxymoron. The sad thing is people will drive around all Saturday finding the best deal. The cheapo is only $15 less than one a whole lot better on sale at the office supply store across the street but people are willing to drive around all day to buy the cheapest one in town. They would have been so much better off in terms of performance and quality to buy the better unit at the office store for only $15 more.

Another issue I have to contend with around here are the druggies (meth and/or heroin) that will fix your computer for $15. I guess that is just about the price of their next hit of dope so all they care about is getting paid $15 and nothing more. They will spend all day at someone’s house not knowing what they are doing and possibly making a bigger mess but people looking to save a buck will hire them. The good news for me is that when these folks screw up their equipment but good, I get more work out of the deal and hopefully the owners get taught a lesson that the $5/hr or $15 jobs don’t work.

People also get mad when I charge quite a bit more for certain jobs when coming onsite to their location vs. picking up their equipment and working on it at my location. The deal is that I can work on 3-5 units at the same time at my place while I am captive when onsite and cannot take in any more jobs. There are times where you have to wait for a process to finish and sometimes this can take hours. If I can work on another job, do things for my self, or be sleeping, of course I charge a much lower rate. I have helped elderly people move things, clean, etc. when waiting for processes to finish. I tell them I am captive so you can pay me to just sit and wait or I can do something while waiting.

Some of my most common issues… “I am on a fixed income” is one of the most common phrases I hear when answering the phone. This one is so frustrating as they just want things for nothing. I tell them my prices are also fixed so that is good news for them. I rarely get these jobs anymore and I view that as a good thing. They end up costing you more money than you will ever make.

Also, “There was nothing wrong with it when I brought it to you” is not an uncommon saying when calling someone with an estimate. I tell people this is the biggest bunch of BS ever as you wouldn’t bring a computer to someone who repairs them if nothing was wrong. Would you take your car to the mechanic if it was running perfectly and didn’t need any routine maintenance such as an oil change? I now have everyone sign a form acknowledging quite a few things, one of which is that they are providing a device for service that is broken or deficient in some way and needs repair and/or upgrading.

Another issue are the people who bring something to you with no intention of paying when the work is complete. Sure, I get to end up keeping their equipment but I don’t always resell it quickly to recoup what I put into it or sometimes it wasn’t worth the repair they had me do so I have to sell it at a loss. I have also had people get threatening when I wouldn’t return their equipment for non-payment. One guy threatened to break into my place by busting in the door one night. I let him know that would be the very last mistake he would ever make in his life. He asked if I was threatening him and I let him know there was no threat to him but that anyone breaking into my home wouldn’t walk out alive. I went out an purchased a basic security setup with motion sensors and installed it where anyone would be likely to break in and remain ready “locked and loaded” at all times.

One thing I have done is require a $35 upfront charge before I take on any job. This is really not a large amount but it has served as a simple and genius filter to the scum I used to have to deal with. I am not saying I still don’t get this scum from time to time but it isn’t nearly as common as in the past. I also make people who require a non-standard part that only works in their system to pay me at least the cost of the parts so I am not out that if they leave it behind. If people have some money invested in the repair, even $35, they seem a lot less likely to leave it behind.

I have pages of other crazy stories I could share. People will call asking to have sex or offer sexual favors, etc. People are just nuts these days!