Another couple of "motor trade" raw nerves...
What do fellow "forumers" expect to pay on labour rates?
I know the figure in my area varies from £40 per hour for a cheap independant to upwards of £120 per hour for the fancy dealers... in both cases the technician will probably get between £7 to £14 of that figure.... the rest goes on paying the overheads and equipment... and in the case of the dealerships, all those "extra" members of staff (service receptionists etc) whos time cant be charged directly to the customer.
The other raw nerve is the price of parts... and that is nothing to do with the grages themselves. To give an example, we fitted a £350 part to a japanese car the other day that took half an hour to diagnose. half an hour to replace, so the bill was £350 plus 1 hours labour (around £45).
After I was paid, overheads (lighting heatng) covered, service receptionist paid, the diagnostic tool cost (that particular tool was £4000 3 years ago), insurance (about £1000 mnth) The garage probably made well under £10 profit... and we got 5% off the part....that is £17.50.
So although the customer leaves the building ******ed off he just spent £395 this close to christmas... and is no doubt moaning down the pub about the extortionate prices the motor trade charge... we, as business, were lucky if we made £25 off him!
The diagnosis time thing was a blessing... when we deal with extended warranty companies, they wont pay for diagnosis time, so theoretically, if it takes me 3 hours to rip wiring looms apart to find a chaffed wire that took me 10 minutes to repair, we would only be able to charge £4.50 to the warranty company, who then expect you as a customer to pay the rest, or us to take the hit.
In dealerships, its only slightly better, when a technician is trying to find a fault with your car covered by a manufacturer backed 3 year warranty, he/she is only allowed 15 minutes to diagnose the fault, if he/she hasnt found it by then, it is affecting his productivity, and therefore his bonus, and therefore his income at the end of the month... this should go a long way to explaining why technicians in dealerships often wind customers up the wrong way by just "guessing" after 20 minutes so he can get on with trying to meet bonus targets!!!
One last thing... I have in my time had customers say stupid things like "£60 per hour labour... I want your wage at the end of the month!".
When I last worked in a dealerhip (this was only 4 years ago), charging £60 per hour labour, I saw £6.63 of that... and I, like 99% of all the technicians in the British motor trade have to buy ALL my own tools, and my toolkit, including all the code readers and test equipment is around £35,000... it doesnt take a genius to work out it takes a LONG time to get a return on my investment!
So the next time anyone complains about garage bills being too high, remember, the service receptionist you most likely will take your frustration out on, and the technician you will probably complain about, have next to nothing to do with the big number at the bottom of your invoice...
incidently, I have been told by a parts supplier to a dealer, when I asked why some parts are so damned expensive when the cost to make them are so low, the reply was "some of the prices are artificially high as they have been off set against the loss made on 'goodwill' warranties!"
Rant over.
