 | Bobby Lubbers
is owner of Bobby Lubbers Auto Group, a Chevrolet, Pontiac, Dodge, Chrysler, and Jeep dealership in Harper, KS. A graduate of Wichita State University, he has been in and around the automotive industry for more than 25 years, and has been nationally recognized by General Motors for exceptional sales and customer satisfaction. You may contact Bobby by phone at (316) 721-1545, or by email at bobby@bobbylubbers.com |
Cars, Trucks, Vans & Automotive
2003-01-01 12:08:00
Getting prices on repairs
: I wanted to get a tune-up on my car and I called around to get some prices. One place quoted me 4 hours of labor to do the job. Another told me they charge a flat rate fee. What is the difference? The place that I chose only charged me for two hours, not four.
ANSWER: You can easily see that when you call around for an estimate you can get some pretty dramatic price differences. Most larger shops and all dealers that I am aware of will charge an hourly price for each job that is listed in a shop hourly manual. For example your tune-up might have an estimated repair or replacement time of four hours in the shop manual. This time is calculated using the shop hourly rate {i.e., 4 x $60}. Pretty straight forward right? Not all the time. So what do you get for the four hours of labor? If you call a shop and ask for a tune-up price, many will automatically figure in the price a fuel filter, spark plugs, air filter, PCV filter, and distributor ignition rotor plus all applicable labor charges. So the tune-up price from a shop like this would probably be much higher than a shop that only replaces spark plugs on their tune-up package. You need to make sure you are comparing apples to apples when you are calling around for prices. Some shops purposely give low ball telephone estimates just to get you in the door. Example: You call to get a price for a new radiator installed. Does the estimate include new antifreeze, a new radiator cap, and taxes? Many would automatically figure these items in to the estimate, not only because they want to do a nice turn key job, but also because they don't want to have to sell you parts later on that they already know you will need. For this reason, some phone estimates can be higher than others but your final bill might be lower. There are also different brands of shop manuals on the market, so one manufacturer's dealer would be using a different labor estimating guide than another and what other independent shops may be using. Not only would these guides possibly give different replacement times, but they could also classify a tune-up differently like in the example above. So the shop that you found only charged you for the time they actually spent working on the car? Is that a better deal? Maybe not, if all they did was replace spark plugs and call it a tune-up. Just for grins, call them back and ask them how much they charge for just spark plugs. What if this shop has a slower mechanic, or deliberately takes longer to do the work just to rack up more time on the clock? On a different note, as a dealer and owner I would want to know why you are requesting a tune-up in the first place. What I have found is that if the car runs poorly or differently than normal, the customer often automatically asks for a tune-up. Cars of today are very sophisticated and full of computers and sensors that can cause your car to act strangely. So a tune-up might not fix the problem, and a proper diagnosis from the mechanic could be beneficial.
