What happens when you pay someone to work on your car

Motormoron, it sounds like you're not talking out of your ass, and your complaints are likely based in reason.

The sad fact is, some shops just suck. Maybe most do, who knows? But if these guys refuse to make this situation right for you, however you see fit, it sounds like you've found a shop to add to that list. Bottom line is, they said they'd do the work, with the implication that they'd do it correctly, and they've failed. So they have an obligation both professional and ethical to make it right.

If not, they go on the suck list.

I may be adding one myself in a few days here, with a somewhat similar siutation. We shall see.

My solution will be easy.

I'm going to buy a lift. I've got everything but a lift. I don't mind doing the work provided I could put the car in the air in a dry space and work as time permitted after work evenings (regardless of weather) 'til the job was done. At some point I lost my taste for doing things like removing entire suspensions in freezing cold or blistering heat from under a car on 4 jackstands, pausing to consider my mortality.

I emailed the shop owner w/ a detailed and non-confrontational account of how I found the pricing to be less than completely fair and ~some~ of the work less than satisfactory. I received no reply.

I went to the shop to discuss the fan wiring. He maintained that his approach with a used BMW relay plus part of a SPAL relay kit routed across the front of the radiator and left dangling in the general vicinity of the (broken) fusebox was superior to what SPAL and Zionsville suggest.

I've had someone work on my car now. I tried it, it doesn't work for me.

Jensenman wrote: Like I said, it all depends on where you are. Atlanta is higher than Charleston, New York is higher than Atlanta but Charleston is higher than the outlying towns. I have heard unconfirmed rumours of $120/hour in GM dealerships in the San Francisco area.

I will confirm it.

Jensenman wrote: I have heard unconfirmed rumours of $120/hour in GM dealerships in the San Francisco area.

Thats low. Here in Louisville KY at a highline import SUV store we get $125 an hour. NY city area was knocking on $200 a few years ago.

Junkyard_Dog wrote: Thats low. Here in Louisville KY at a highline import SUV store we get $125 an hour. NY city area was knocking on $200 a few years ago.

That's it, screw my computer engineering position with a multinational company. I'm going to go work at a GM dealership. Do you get paid for 8hrs every day at $125/hr regardless of the actual hours worked?

motomoron wrote: My solution will be easy. I'm going to buy a lift. I've got everything but a lift.

That's really the best approach. No one will care about your car as much as you will. As for the lifts, tools, comfortable workplace ideas and options...hang out at garagejournal.com and they'll fix you up good. I'm there too...

RussellH wrote:

Junkyard_Dog wrote: Thats low. Here in Louisville KY at a highline import SUV store we get $125 an hour. NY city area was knocking on $200 a few years ago.

That's it, screw my computer engineering position with a multinational company. I'm going to go work at a GM dealership. Do you get paid for 8hrs every day at $125/hr regardless of the actual hours worked?

The shop gets $125/hr. Guess how much of that the tech sees.

Take my advice: don't quit your day job.

That's still ($200/hr) about as high as what the IBM professional services group charges for their top geeks in IT. The said geeks probably see half that.

I didn't read anything in this thread except your first post.

I'm an attorney. And let me tell you man, you need an attorney.

You just want to double bill him too!!

Junkyard_Dog wrote:

Jensenman wrote: I have heard unconfirmed rumours of $120/hour in GM dealerships in the San Francisco area.

Thats low. Here in Louisville KY at a highline import SUV store we get $125 an hour. NY city area was knocking on $200 a few years ago.

The highline shops routinely get $125 and up per flat rate hour, even around here. Gotta pay for that latte machine somehow. The surprising thing about the $120/hour is that it was a mainstream GM store, i.e. not exactly Jag or Mercedes.

andrave wrote: I didn't read anything in this thread except your first post. I'm an attorney. And let me tell you man, you need an attorney.

Oh, I LOVE it when lawyers question our billing methods.

Junkyard_Dog wrote: Thats low. Here in Louisville KY at a highline import SUV store we get $125 an hour. NY city area was knocking on $200 a few years ago.

Damn... I guess that explains why so many NY area MINI owners drive 2+ hours to Philly to have Helix work on their cars at $90/hr...

Just for reference, at the outer edge of Fairfield county (NOT Stamford, Darien, or Greenwich), the hourly rate for independent shops seems to be in the $85/95 an hour range. I can only imagine what a high-end dealership charges in the area. WIth that being said, the shops in this price range do good work, and will fix any issues that result from their work. I have no problem paying that rate because when I choose to use a shop, it means I don't have the time, tools, or skill (or a combination of the three) to complete the work myself.

The shops that I do use have always provided me with an estimate, and have always called before proceeding with any major work after they have diagnosed the problem.

I believe the shop should have provided a ballpark estimate for the work, and followed up with the original poster with any discrepancies they ran into. It's always a more difficult when there's a tight timetable to be met.

motomoron wrote: I emailed the shop owner w/ a detailed and non-confrontational account of how I found the pricing to be less than completely fair and ~some~ of the work less than satisfactory. I received no reply. I went to the shop to discuss the fan wiring. He maintained that his approach with a used BMW relay plus part of a SPAL relay kit routed across the front of the radiator and left dangling in the general vicinity of the (broken) fusebox was superior to what SPAL and Zionsville suggest.

Now I really think that for $5100.00 he SHOULD attempt to keep you as a customer and at least address the situation.

I have an update from MY earlier example. Ralphs GTi came into our shop again last night. It seems during the rain he got a little hot on an offramp and bumped some curbing with the left front tire knocking the alignment out. SOP on our end would normally be you are TSOL but since we just did the repair and like Ralphs money we took a tech off the floor and put him on the alignment rack for an hour to fix his crooked car. Dwight made it go straight and my boss (Who is far more greedy than I am) charged him absolutely nothing to keep the customer happy.

With parts and labor a service bay should make $2400-4000 dollars per day depending on region. If you do the math that is a lot of parts for an 8-10 hour day.

I dont care about the price of the bill, but from the quality of work performed, it seems like you'd have a case.

$5100 seems pretty high for R&R a trans and diff, installing some bushings and a clutch, and half assing some fan wiring. If they charged you 3 times to R&R the trans because they didn't know how to install the clutch.....?

If the shop can't do that in a day or two, I dunno how they stay in business....stuff's gotta get done in/out to make $$$.