I have been known to do that a few times also, sometimes the means doesn’t justify the end…
Bringing a car into a dealer for service to check a rattle or a wind sound involves hours of my time just to arrange the appointment, drive there, explain the story, wrangle a ride home, wait without a car until the shop tells me it’s done, wrangle another ride to the shop, wait for my turn, get the car back and drive it home. I’d rather spend that time getting to know the car and finding the problem. If there’s a serious problem, sure. But routine stuff is easier to just do it at home.
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Just for my lame contribution, I don’t know about others, but during the great reset, Gm dealers were required to update their facilities. I was at the tire store next door while the guy was painting the outside for the final touches. Kids play room, coffee machine, new lounge furniture, tv,Wi-Fi, etc. no idea what it cost but they stayed in business. Now at Acura after a visit, I always get an email by corporate on whether the lounge facilities were up to snuff. The boys cautioned me that rating anything less than a 10 would get them in trouble so please tell them so the can make it right with me first. I liked my last service consultant. I rated her a 10 but she had a ring.
I’ve mentioned this scenario previously, but it’s relevant. My Subaru dealer also sold Saabs. After GM bought Saab, they informed the dealer that he had to relocate his business from a secondary road to busy (and very expensive) US Route 1, and that he would be required to build a showroom/service dept approximately 3 times the size of his present facility.
He only sold 4 or 5 Saabs per month, so he told GM to pound salt and–of course–he lost the Saab franchise. Within a few years, Saab sailed into the sunset–forever. He proved to be a much smarter businessman than the bigwigs at the “old” GM.
I used to work with a mechanical tech. Somehow we got around to his hourly rate and it was a lot lower than I thought it would be. I asked why he didn’t go back to a car repair shop. He said that even though the hourly rate at the garage was much higher he made more in the end with his current job because of the flat rate structure.
I wrote here before about this whole business scheme and think it is the wrong way to do business for everybody. I’m pretty sure if the business was set up to treat the mechanics more like employees than contract workers, paid a fair hourly rate or better yet salary and provided some type of profit sharing, necessary tools to do the job provided by the business, education reimbursement- you’d have the best mechanics in town clambering to work there, low turn over, loyal clientele and more profit than they make now. I was exposed to this business model early on in my career and it was very successful even though it flies in the face of established corporate thinking.
Although I am in a different type of business, I bring this same basic approach to everywhere I have worked and it always yields better results for everyone. The employees bust can for the company because they are treated fairly and own a part of it through profit sharing. The company benefits through reduced employee turnover, higher profit as employees are motivated to maximize it and significantly higher growth in the market as customers spread the word and are loyal due to the high level of service provided.
That’s because as a flat rate tech you can work 40 ours a week but turn 60, 80, 100 hours a week…
At $20.00 an hour flat rate if you work 40 hours a week but you are turning 80 hours a week then your effected rate is $40.00 an hour, if you turn 100 hours then your effected rate is $50.00 an hour… So the faster/better you are the more money you can make…
But at $25.00 an hour no matter how many hours you turn you are only making $25.00 an hour…
So a good flat rate tech will always make more money in a busy shop then an hourly tech as a general rule…
On the down side if you are a slow tech (or at a slow shop) and making $20.00 flat rate and only turning 30 hours a week then your effected rate is only $15.00 an hour… lol
No different for hourly or salaried people. The better, more capable people are compensated accordingly.
But what that says to me is the hourly tech is not being compensated fairly.
Couple things to address-
If you are slow, then you shouldn’t make as much as someone who is faster and more capable. It’s incentive to get better.
The slow shop is not something the employee can control so should not be punished for that situation. Which is why I think a fair hourly wage for 40 hours is more in line with treating mechanics like employees of the company. Besides, doing all of it right probably means the shop won’t be slow. 
Well the hybrid is the better system. Not one or the other but hourly pay plus incentive pay.
As a college student I worked at two different factories. The one was just hourly. The production rate was set by the plant manager through time studies. Now I liked the guy and still do but his time studies made the rate so high, there was no way to make 100%.
The other place has base pay plus incentive pay. If you produced 120%, which was usual, you got paid 120%. The production rate was a more reasonable professional rate. All of us on the line pitched in to produce at a high rate. So if you did 120%, instead of getting a check for $2.50, you got a check for $3. It was a win for everyone. It was 1968.
Something I don’t understand about how mechanics determine how much to charge. An example, one time the Corolla alternator light turned on. Testing showed battery was no longer being charged. If mechanic is presented with this problem, what would they tell the customer when asked how much the fee will be?
It turned out the alternator wasn’t the problem, neither was the alternator’s belt. The problem was the charging wire between the alternator and the battery had a failed wire-splice. It took 3-4 hours for me to find & re-solder the broken wire splice because the break was deep inside a thick wiring harness bundle.