I have a 2006 Honda Civic. The driver side sunvisor broke. The dealer told me the new visor was $60, okay, no big deal. But they wanted $50 to put it in. Is that out of line? It seems insanely expensive. I did it myself in about three minutes, including opening the box and taking off the bubble wrap. It was only two screws. I assume that they charge about $100/hr and this was probably a ‘minumin half hour’ or something along that line. But considering I bought my car there, I have all my oil changes done there and all my warranty work is done there, I’d think they would, maybe, just ‘comp’ the installation. I’m just wondering if I’m right to be insulted by $50 to remove and replace two screws. If that is reasonable, I’ll shut up.
I think it’s the going rate.
Well it depends.
If it was an illuminated sun visor where the technician had to pull the a-pillar apart, then .5 would be about right.
With just a standard sun visor .5 seems a bit high. If you brought the car in for just the sun visor .3 would be more in line, or if other work was being done, either free or .1.
Of course on the other side of this two weeks ago, I put a illuminated sun visor and a dome light in a customer’s car, charged him .1 total for both and I got yelled at for ripping him off. :rolleyes:
I sure as hell am not defending what sounds like an exorbitant charge, but when dealing with automotive repairs you have to keep in mind that there is rent to be paid at the shop, plus myriad expensive equipment laying around that has to be paid for and kept up as well. Basically you have to pay a pro-rated portion of the all the bills, plus all the tools, not to mention all the training and manuals used by the mechanics and their wages even if all you need is a guy with a screwdriver and some common sense.
I think the discrepancy between cost and difficulty really presents itself in the small/easy repairs such as the one you’ve mentioned. Basically you are paying for what you need done PLUS the capability to do a lot more involved stuff. Kind of like hiring a classical pianist to play jaunty birthday tunes at your kid’s party.
Trust me, I know better then most people what it costs to run a business.
Rick, it wasn’t illumited. It was literally a cover that snapped off, remove two screws, replace two screws, replace cover. All in all it took me just a few minutes. Add in paper work and time spent moving my car around on the lot and they were probably looking at 10 minutes of work. Now, don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t have paid $10 for this either. It was so easy I had no problem doing it myself, I was just insulted that they wanted to chage me $50 for it (that would be ~$300/hr).
Oh, and I should add (more becuase I thought it was kinda neat) the visor was set up to be installed very quickly. One of the screws was already in it, so all you had to do was hold it up the the ceiling with one hand and screw it in the rest of the way with your free hand, and the visor was set at “45 degrees” between the windshield and driver side window so you didn’t have to move it back and forth to access the two screws.
That’s a good analogy, but I would add something to it. In my case, I only needed the pianist for a 2 hour party, but he charges in 4 hour increments. So I had to pay for four hours, even though after he left my party, he was going right to another one. He was, in effect, getting paid double time for next two hours.
The mechanic was only going to work on my car for 10 minutes, so for the first 20 minutes of the next job he (or the shop, I really don’t know how that works) was going to make double time.
Understood, but I’m not trying to defend all mechanics or automotive shops as bastions of integrity-just trying to express some of the hidden costs that would increase the price that some people might overlook. You don’t seem to be one of those people, but I thought the idea would be helpful to some. $50 for the repair you described sounds well and truly beyond the pale, but I could see it being priced at $10-$20 in perfectly good faith by the shop and the customer still seeing it as absurd.
If you’ve had good luck with the shop previously, I’d probably chalk this up to some sort of anomaly in their rate scheme-and I’d keep an eye on them in the future.
Yeah, I think $10-$20 would have been ‘fair’ (but I still wouldn’t have paid it). The thing is, the service manager will most likely call or email me in the next day or so with a ‘survey’ and I want to know if I’d be out of line to say I was insulted.
I guess I have my answer.
When I take my vehicle for state inspection, I always check my lights carefully. I’d rather buy a $2 bulb and install it myself, then pay a pro to do it.
Likewise, I get some feedback from people who want their pet’s 1 cm laceration sutured. My minimum surgical fee is $80, which is average for the profession. Even though the wound is tiny (and I have explained that surgery is not necessary) opening a surgical pack, cleaning the used instruments post op, re-autoclaving the pack, etc all add up.
Yes, it was too expensive. I agree that the “minumum half hour” is the most likely explanation for it. In general, dealerships are more likely than independent shops to have such policies and to be rigid about them, which is one reason some people prefer to take their cars elsewhere.
The point about overall shop expenses has validity, but also valid is consideration for customer perception about pricing. It’s necessary to find a balance. No shop wants to do a lot of piddly jobs for a few bucks, but 50 for a 5-minute job that requires no special tools is leaning too far away from that. Some shops go too far the other way, for example trying to match ridiculously low oil change prices - that are actually less than their cost for just the parts - so as not to seem expensive. In a case like this I would consider a nominal 10-20 to be reasonable.
The fact that it was something you could do yourself actually makes it seem reasonable to me. They’re not exactly putting you in a tough spot by charging full rates, you can just as well go home and figure the whole thing out out yourself (and you did). You don’t even have to go bother the neighbor-who-knows-cars.
Now if it were something like , I dunno, cutting off the license plates**, that would be different. The average apartment dweller might not have the tools to do that, if the shop won’t help you out then you’re kinda screwed.
**only example I could think of when I needed something done on my car that took two seconds but couldn’t find anything in my mom’s garage to do it myself. I offered the guy at the shop $10, he didn’t take it.
ETA: obviously it would have been a nice courtesy if they helped you out. And I am not a car person, so MHO might not even be worth 0.02 here.
Let me expand on my earlier answer. Fifty bucks does seem for sure high for 2 minutes work, but there is more to it than the two minutes the technician spent with screwdriver in hand.
Assuming that you just came in for the sun visor and nothing else.
[ul]
[li]Service has to write RO and call parts to see if part is in stock. He will have to have the upholstery code for you car to do this.[/li][li]Lot lizard parks car and loses keys.[/li][li]Ticket goes to the dispatcher.[/li][li]Ticket gets dispatched to technician.[/li][li]Technician has to find keys to car.[/li][li]Technician has to go find car.[/li][li]Technician has to go to parts and wait his turn.[/li][li](many dealers) technician has to wait even more time.[/li][li]Parts guy has to find the special order part in that whores nest that is the SOP bin.[/li][li]Parts guy has to charge part out on the ticket.[/li][li]Technician finally gets to walk back and get a screwdriver.[/li][li]Technician installs part.[/li][li]Technician flags ticket and turn it in to either dispatch or service writer.[/li][li]Ticket has to be verified that part was charged out, and then labor is added.[/li][li]Some where in here car gets sent to wash. (some dealers)[/li][li]Ticket gets sent to cashier.[/li][li]Cashier waits for car to come back from wash, and pages customer if waiting.[/li][li]Or if customer left car cashier calls customer on phone to inform them car is ready.[/li][li]Cashier collects money.[/li][li]Lot lizard bring car around for customer pickup. (some dealers)[/li][li]Several days later, a follow up phone call is made to see if you are satisfied.[/li][/ul]
Personally I think $50 bucks is out of line for this, but when you look at all the stuff in the list above, it starts to make sense.
From a customer satisfaction / customer retention point of view I thin they shot themselves in the foot here. I think in the long run they would have been money ahead to just go ahead and install it for free.
You can’t give everything away, but some stuff you should so the customer is pleased. I have installed tons of stuff in the service drive for free just to keep a customer happy.
On a realted note I buy a used car and it comes with one key fob so I buy a another because I want 2. Told there would be a $60 dollar charge to progrma the car for the new key fob. Take it in. the do it on the spot and tell me no charge.
A year later that car is totaled and I buy a another car that takes the same key fob. I figure I still have the 2 form the wrecked car so I might as well go and get them programmeded for the new car. Go expecting to be charge but again told no charge.
I figure the $50 you where quoted might have been chosen as incentive to get the “scared of tools” crowded to actual do it them selves.
Rick’s latest post is the perfect example of the problem.
Absolutely horrible business practices defended by those in the auto industry.
Nobody asked for a goddamned carwash!
The Honda dealer made a profit on selling a regular customer a visor.
But they can’t just put it in for free because you have to account for the technician’s time spent on covering other employees screw ups.
The parts guy has to cover for the poorly designed parts system.
The dispatch has to cover the fact that one of the guys is asleep and one went for a test drive two hours ago.
Plus you know those lot jockeys always drop the seat all the way back and now the technicians all have bad backs, so now our health care and lost productivity costs are sky high. Also somebody has to pay for the lot jockeys time changing all your radio presets and mirrors.
Joey P you now know your value as a regular customer. Please act accordingly.
Why would a repair shop want to do that?
Dude, take a chill pill. I was not defending their actions. I was explaining why a dealer might act that way.
Hell I even said I thought the dealer fucked up, and that I had installed lots of stuff for free when I worked at a dealer.
As far as the car wash goes, try giving a customer his Mercedes, BMW, Jag, or Volvo back without washing it first. After listening to them for 5 minutes or so you will want to ask if they would like some cheese with that whine.
So who wants their car washed? That would be the customer.
For a slight counter point, just how much do you think a plumber would charge to come to your house and manages to clear a clog in 2 minutes?
Around here, I would guess that would be between $80-$100. Same 2 minutes of work.
But that would be different. If I called a plumber, it’s clearly an issue that’s beyond my ability and therefore it would make sense for me to pay for their knowledge and expierence. It would be more like bringing a faucet into a plumbing supply store and asking them for a new aerator for it. After handing me that aerator and charging me for it then saying “For $50 I can unscrew the old one and screw this one on”
Rick, you do know they other meaning of ‘lot lizard,’ right?
a prostitute that hangs out at truck stops
There are a lot of people out there who don’t know righty-tighty, lefty loosey and in who’s hand a screwdriver is a deadly weapon. What is your point? For them attaching a new sun visor is clearly beyond their level of mechanical ability.
Because they are busy enough doing real jobs that they don’t want to handle trival things like replacing a sun visor.
This whole thread is starting to sound like viral marketing for purchasing a Haynes manual…
FML