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Book Hours for a job. Need to help a friend.

DRTDEVL

DRTDEVL

Mothfukle
Joined
May 19, 2020
Member Number
78
Messages
768
Loc
Austin... TX? Nope. Minnesota!
Female with limited knowledge; I think she's being taken advantage of.

Shop gave a labor estimate for installation of a maintenance kit.

2005 Dodge Sprinter 2500. Parts to replace (included in kit from factory-authorized sources) include:

Water Pump and Seals (Hepu)

Thermostat and Seal (Behr/Wahler)

Cooling Fan and Thermostatic Clutch (Meyle)

Pulleys/Rollers (LUK) (2 idler pulleys)

Belt Tensioner Pulley (Litens)

Serpentine Belt (Continental)

What does the book say for this job?
 
Ted_Kaczynski said:
Did she buy those parts outside of the place giving the quote or is she going to buy them there?

If she bought them already, I think I see her problem.
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Outside specialty vendor. The van broke down before the kit came in with another problem, so she inquired how much to install these parts while they were replacing the blown turbo, since the kit came in while waiting for the turbo to arrive.
 
Chiltons lists:
Water pump - 2.0 Warranty 3.0 Regular
Thermostat - 1.2 W 1.7 R
Fan Clutch 1.0 W 1.4 R
Drive Belt Tensioner 1.6 W 2.3 R
Drive Belt .8 W 1.2 R

No listing for the Turbo.

For the non-turbo repairs I couldn't imagine it would be much over 3 hours as most of those are required to be removed to access the water pump.
 
From Alldata:
Water pump is 2.7. That involves removal of the 2 idler pulleys and the fan clutch and serp belt.
Thermostat is 1.8
Tensioner is 2.1

However, all of these parts are getting changed at the same time, so you can't bill each as a separate operation. If I was writing the estimate I would charge 2.7 for the water pump, and add 1.5 for the thermostat and tensioner for a total of 4.2

Turbo is 3.8
 
DRTDEVL said:
That's what I thought.

The shop quoted 12 hours labor for the kit installation (not including the turbo!)
Click to expand...

That is what you get when you bring your own parts. You are a problem customer before the first wrench is turned. If you want to help her, advise her of this.
 
DRTDEVL said:
That's what I thought.

The shop quoted 12 hours labor for the kit installation (not including the turbo!)
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So, 8 hour job and +3 hours for bringing your own parts. They make good money on parts markup. It's probably not a great deal, but it sounds fair based on the book hours.
 
rugger said:
So, 8 hour job and +3 hours for bringing your own parts. They make good money on parts markup. It's probably not a great deal, but it sounds fair based on the book hours.
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It's not 8 hours. You can't treat them as separate jobs as most of those parts have to come off anyway. It's way dishonest, customer bringing in parts or not.
 
So what was the actual $dollar amount they quoted?

I want to know what a water pump, serp belt, fan clutch and a couple of pulleys cost. I would imagine an honest shop with parts supplied by user wouldn't be more than 4 hundo..

I am guessing this place is asking twice that?
 
MuntCuffin said:
They quoted her hours that it would not take. Thats dishonest. Call names if you want, just exemplifies who the "simpleton" is in this exchange, booboo.
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It isn’t dishonest. It would be dishonest if they quoted $1k and when she came to pick it up they charged her $2k for the same work.
 
DMG said:
It’s not dishonest you simpleton. They gave her a fuck off price. Most shops really dont like Customer supplied parts.
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So is it also not dishonest if they add a "because it's a woman" markup to the fuck off price?

I mean, I understand the concept of a fuck off price, when it comes to coming up with estimates for odd or one-off jobs I'll absolutely do the same thing if it's not straightforward and I don't want to mess with it. But when there are established book times for a job, and you're "stacking" the steps of one book time job as if you were doing them as individual, separate jobs, seems a bit shady. I'm not trying to be all jimynumbers here, serious questions.
 
We don't know shit until we get the original quote.

So what is it?
 
And this is why people go to dealerships... you pay and it's done... none of this "oh we broke a bolt so it was an extra three hours". Book time is book time and I don't understand why independents can go around it. Sure it's a f-u price... but she didn't get screwed because it wasn't accepted.
 
[memphis said:
;n269737]And this is why people go to dealerships... you pay and it's done... none of this "oh we broke a bolt so it was an extra three hours". Book time is book time and I don't understand why independents can go around it. Sure it's a f-u price... but she didn't get screwed because it wasn't accepted.
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Show up at the dealership with your own parts and see what happens.
 
Wheres Jimmy1232125754937265968 to set us straight. Hell maybe Jimmy works at that shop and it really will take 12hrs. Nobody is forcing her to pay the price so not a scam.
 
MuntCuffin said:
Saying its going to take time that it won't is misleading and a lie.

being dishonest is synonymous with misleading and lying :homer:
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Until the customer supplied part is wrong(happens constantly), then the vehicle is down on a rack. Now that rack isn't making money. Sounds like she got quoted a fuck off price. Not dishonest.
 
[memphis said:
;n269737]And this is why people go to dealerships... you pay and it's done... none of this "oh we broke a bolt so it was an extra three hours". Book time is book time and I don't understand why independents can go around it. Sure it's a f-u price... but she didn't get screwed because it wasn't accepted.
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DMG said:
Show up at the dealership with your own parts and see what happens.
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I don't know of any dealerships or any mechanic shop at all, that won't charge you broken bolt book time when they break a bolt.:confused:

(unless it is REALLY easy bolt extraction in a easy to get to place).
 
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I always thought you bill/pay by the job (X hours) and not by how long it takes (actual # of hours)? That's how a place makes money.
 
DMG said:
Show up at the dealership with your own parts and see what happens.
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the times i've done that (either an aftermarket part thats better than the OE, or the OE part is out of stock) the shop or dealer looks at the part, sees that its the same as the original and its brand new and then says we'll install it but there is no part warranty.
 
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