I only have 1 shop besides the body shop where I will leave my car. I still hate to leave it but when I do I get a firm est of when its going to be done and what it will cost. I never argue or try to jew the guy down on price. Over the years they have come to respect me as a valuable cash paying customer. In my business I offer free estimates. Flat rate pricing and 1 hour service for most calls. Always same day. I make 100.00 per hour+ I seldom ever get a complaint and my customers refer me to their friends. I had a lady call me @ 7:00 pm while I was having dinner with the fam. I usually let it go to voice mail in the evenings but this time I picked it up. She asked me if I did after hours service and I said yes. asked what my service call was I told her the wasn't one I had free est's and flat rate pricing. then I was asked what my hourly rate was. Again I said flat rate pricing. She got a tone a told me she didn't like my attitude and hung up!Geesh. I thought it was funny. Some people. Ya just cant make them happy.
I agree, very wild what this thread became! I pride myself in finding good shops and establishing firm and strong relationships with them, and it IS their livelihood so I don't have any problem at all with that when they need to charge according to their services. I'll say again, it ain't the 70's or early 80's any more.
I also am fortunate enough to do almost all of my own work. However, every now and then i need a lift or a good set of torches, which i do not own, so i bring my car to a local garage that i trust. The person who now owns the shop took it over after the tragic passing of his dad in a hunting accident, and he has more than filled his shoes. He has a sign up in the waiting area that says: LABOR RATES: $60.00 PER HOUR $70.00 PER HOUR IF YOU WATCH $80.00 PER HOUR IF YOU HELP $200.00 PER HOUR IF YOU WORKED ON IT 1ST
Exactly why I don't hesitate to tell a shop their own business. Even if they're honest they often don't know 75 percent of what they should. Case in point from last week when I had the Ford dealer install 4 new tires (my phone call): Hi Steve, This is Brad. I just brought in the F150 for tires. I forgot to mention to please see that the lugs are hand torqued to 150 lb/feet. Steve: No no no - we only run these down to 95 lbs. Brad: Sorry - no. The owners manual indicates 150 lbs. Tell you what, I'll check them myself when I pick up the truck. Please bring out a wrench for me. Thanks. Upon inspection the lugs were at 150. Last time I had the truck in same shop for a flat repair some gorilla set the lugs to infinity. My impact wrench could not break a lug free. I had to take the truck to the shop just to get the wheel off. I guess 95 lbs is tighter than 150, at least according to this shop. I continually hose them on their customer service surveys. I'll stop when I find them capable of doing even the simplest jobs correctly. No offense meant to any out in this industry, but I've found no shop to be trustworthy. Show me the parts you replaced; I'll open the hood before I leave; I'll devise ways to ensure you've done that which you claim; we inspect the vehicle for damage before I depart. I'll ride you guys like Hidalgo until I'm satisfied.
I worked at a shop for a while that customers liked so much that THEY threw the shop owner a party every year! Funny thing was, every day I worked there he ripping his customers off in my opinion. Examples: He would try to rebuild a carb and snap something off it then tell the customer they needed a new carb. He would put conventional oil in when customer asked for synthetic and charge big $$ for synthetic. Would tell me to continue putting new plugs in when it was obvious that they were practically new. And when I started to check the gap he told me to stop wasting time and screw them in. I quit.....
I was always willing to pay. And just like so many of us pay even more after they tell us there were additional things to do. No problem....except that far too often i drove away with things not tightened...wheel falling off....upper control arm not tightened and almost falling off etc. etc. My dad (Class A mechanic retired) told me stories of corrupt dealership managers who tried to get him and other staff to say they installed something without even doing it. Not just one dealership but a lot of shops he worked for. Needless to say he would not be dishonest no matter what. He would often tell customers to take their car somewhere else. I'm sure this kind of thing still goes on and comes down to the shops have to pay their bills so they crank things up wherever they can. I also don't believe all people in the industry are like this but i do believe most of the shops are. I also know from my dad that the listings in books for time to replace parts was way off sometimes but that should then be factored in to the price per the current job and not cause a global corruption througout. I do whatever work i can myself and learn new things all the time. I don't trust shops at all. Whenever possible i look for the old guys, they know a lot and are more honest. We can paint a picture of the annoying customer who wants everything for nothing. But all classic car guys are not like this and we do want quality work. We can also paint a picture of the mechanic, blundering, disgruntled, dirty, fat, beer drinking slob who hates his job. But again this only covers some of the ass holes i've met. I've also met some very knowledgable and caring mechanics who love their job. two cents!
BQUICK, I worked for a local auto service chain for exactly four weeks. When I found that I was expected to sell customers inferior-quality parts that they didn't need - I quit. As a customer, all I want is to have the job done correctly the first and only time for something near the quoted price. If you are in the auto service business, and are honest and competent; you should be able to do that. If you can't, you are a part of the problem. I recently left my BuChev pickup for an alignment. It does have tubular upper control arms which make it much easier to align then a stock '82 Chevy C-10. Every part that the garage would have to touch had been checked for access and to be free. The alignment was close when I gave the truck to the garage. They quoted me $79. They billed me $132. I paid it (under Massachusetts law I didn't have to). The steering wheel is off. I will never give the place another penny of my money if there is any reasonable alternative. I have filled my gas grille Propane tank there for years. I have rented U-haul trucks from them. Never again. I hate leaving my car at the shop.
I think the worst part about it is we have no recourse. A place does something poorly, or not at all, or I have even heard of them breaking something else to get you back for more... we have no way to get our money back or have them fix what they were supposed to for no additional cost. They hide behind the vague assumption that something else is always teh cause in the car. Something happened in the 5 minutes it was driven away from their shop. So what could we do, call the BBB? Ha. Like John, if you wanted them to get it right, and you brought it back to fix the alignment, they would just lie their heads off and refuse to do it saying you probably cranked the wheel over too hard or something equally as absurd, you would practically have to threaten everything under the sun and hope they'd actually take it and do it. But then they'd probably hate you for being an irate customer and break something else. So what can we do to not be screwed by the dishonest ones?
All I can say is WOW! You guys have had some of the worst experiences imaginable. Being a shop owner, I have heard my share of horror stories. Yes, in certain cases I feel that the "other shop" took advantage of a customer. But to be perfectly honest, many times the dissatisfaction is the customers fault. Goodyear service center??? Sears??? Midas??? etc... Are you crazy? With a classic car? Or even a late model that you are anal about because you bought a car that you could barely afford and if, God forbid, something breaks, you can't afford the repair. You guys gotta search out some local, reputable shops. Do your research. Talk to people in town with cars similar to yours and people who have similar expectation. Now that you have decided on a shop,... Give the shop a chance. If they make a mistake, see how they will handle it. That is a key factor in deciding who is competent or not. Do not immediately get in their face, all you do it put the writer in defence mode. Explain your problem, and analyse how he solves it. There are shops like mine all over the country (I hope) that will give you a square deal every time. You just gotta find them. And expect to pay, because a quality job takes time and effort. What many people fail to understand is that every car is different. Put 3 2004 tauruses side by side, all with the exact same mileage, and each one will need different things. One will need struts, a tune up, brakes all around-including rotors, the second will need an oil change, and the third will need a fan control module, a bank one downstream oxygen sensor, and a left rear wheel bearing. No alignment is cut and dry. Not even an oil change is cut and dry. Rounded head, cracked drain plug gasket (that only fits a buick), oh crap I don't have a 1/32 a-arm shim (that has not been used on a vehicle since 1974), put it back together so we can get it off the lift till the 50 pack of 1/32 a-arm shims comes it at a cost of 75 bucks, bring it back in, set up the alignment machine AGAIN so we can get this alignment done for the "quoted" price of 79.99.... NOT. Specialty work commands a specialty price. And by the way, If you want to improve your relationship with the person who is going to take care of your firstborn, ya gotta give him some gravy to go with the dried out taties. In other words, give him a couple jobs he can actually make some money on, not just re-installing your parts after ya beat him up on his labor. Maybe a retail paying tune-up/brake job on your daily driver. John, why didn't you give them the chance to get the wheel straight? Was there a problem with tire pull? Rear axle tracking (thrust angle)? Did they have an explanation for the additional charge? I have seen a mis-adjusted rear drum brake cause the wheel to be off center. Do you have to fight it to make it go straight? Are the cab mounts tight? Is ride height correct all around?
After reading this thread I must be truly blessed! My local shop has two of the best guys I have ever known. I "try" to leave them alone, I "try" not to tell them what I think unless they ask. Occasionally I will drop a twelve pack at the end of the week. Take care of those who take care of you! :TU:
Steve, Nice reading. Unless you're in the business, you really don't understand everything behind the scenes. It's not as simple as many people think it is to provide good quality work at a reasonable price. I'm glad you still have the patience to work on old cars and deal with their owners. The remaining few I still work on are accompanied by their daily drivers. I make sure they get more than their money's worth on their classic car ( most don't realize this, but I can sleep at night knowing that I was more than fair) and hopefully I get the opportunity to make it up on the daily driver.
If you take your fine or bad ass buick to a repair shop and leave it, it will get ragged on by the owner or some punk kid who works there. If you must I hope you have a programmable MSD to set the rev limit very low. I use to have a T-quad with rear linkages disabled to prevent the car from being run hard the once or twice I needed the trans looked at. I got so pissed I learned how to do most th400 work myself and I don't do this for a living I develop electronic widgits. Now I never, ever take my cars anywhere! I was out of country a couple years ago on buisness. My wifes Excursion needed an alternator. A good buddy of ours had a shop so I asked them to make sure it was fixed. Well the job was so easy he let his hey seed punk work on it who managed to burn up my harness! What a frikken dumb a$$. They even sent my wife on her marry way, about 300 yards! I'm out of town another time and it's time for an oil change on the power stroke. So I tell her to go ahead and get it changed. Well they managed to strip the f*^%$n drain plug. Now days if I need a trans, I take it out and send it to a specialist many miles away. If I need a torque converter I know where to go. If I need machine work I know where to go. NEVER use your local dropout, thinks he's a machanic, to do any work. If you are so lucky as to have a trust worthy shop, be happy, just pay the man so he can survive. He'll still lay rubber in your show car!
So I'm in the wrong hobby for using my checkbook and supporting a local repair shop which is Ivyland Collision (Nick Servo) to do my automatic to 4speed swap and 455 rebuild?
That not quite what I meant.... What I do mean is that there are people out there that have no business owning an old car. People that are not mechanically inclined, dont own a screwdriver and cannot change a light bulb themselves. Basically. people that have to rely on a repair shop for every little thing. Think about it...if you had to farm out everything on your car to a repair shop or a restoration place, how much extra would it cost you? In this hobby, you have to be able to do things on your own. Not everything, but most stuff. I can certainly understand having Nick do that job. One of these days, Im gonna drop off my 70 for one of his ground up restos. Hopefully before I'm wearing diapers again. Just this morning, I had to replace a battery cable on Jen's 73. Naturally, being a s*****x Rustang, it snowballed into a project. By the time I was done, I had about $2k worth of tools on my cart and 2 hours invested in the car. What would that of cost at a shop?
