Front wheel alignments typically call for a flat rate of 1.2 hours. So you could multiply that times your shop rate to get the total price. However, most shops have a reduced hourly rate to achieve a lower total price for wheel alignments for competitive reasons or as a loss leader. Around here that fee is $79.95 total price. That shakes out to $67 per hour.
Not exaclty true. Most alignments are lost leaders. The shop typically charges a set competitive price for mainstream cars. Like 59.99. That includes whatever is adjustable on the front wheels. Some new cars dont even provide adjustments for camber or caster. You have to install aftermarket kits to make these adjustments adjustable which is not included in a regular alignment. Northstar is a popular company that makes adjustment kits- http://www.northstarmfg.com/ Old shim alignments are a little more involved. In many instances, the adjustments are frozen and the torch needs to come out. Extra time is involved. A shop needs to be fair to its customers in that situation, but needs to be fair to itelf as well and charge for the extra time involved in freeing up parts like that. A repair shop is not a non profit organization. Once you start getting into cars like a Corvette where there is caster camber and toe on all 4 wheels, then your looking at a $300 alignment depending on the amount of time it takes. Its time consuming work sometimes. Then once you get the car properly aligned, you test drive it and its got a wicked tire pull. You obviously cant give it back to the customer that way, so back in the shop it goes to swap front tires left to right- more time. Working in a repair shop is a trip. For instance, if I balance a set of tires and a wheel doesnt call for weight on the outside of the rim, guess what? You better bang a 1/4 ounce weight on it or the customer will claim you never balanced that tire. I learned that the hard way. And never, ever park the customers car in the same spot he did in the morning. He will clain you never worked on his car. if the customer has a missing hubcap on the right front, you better make sure it still has a missing cap on the right front. if you put the left front cap on the right front and park the car with the missing cap on the left, he will claim you lost one of his caps. Its all true, and it used to happen all the time
Wrong again, pal. Sure, it's a great deal if you have no overhead, the building was free, the techs work for free, the supplies cost nothing, the guy comes and recalibrates the alignment machine doesn't charge anything, and the money appears in the checkbook every night, like manna from heaven. And no, new cars are WAY easier to align than a crappy old skylark. Nothing has been hacked, rusted, outdated ... How would you feel if I aligned your brand new car with the same machine I aligned a '71 Buick on when the car was new? I'm pretty sure technology has made some advances in alignment equipment since 1971. And No, I cannot keep a 1971 alignment machine around just to do a cheap alignment on your crappy old buick. You guys really ought to do a cost analysis on a competent repair shop before you knock our prices...I'm pretty sure a small business educator would tell you we have to charge alot more for the work than we are actually charging, but there are to many guys who claim been able to make a car go straight(by pure dumb luck they did it once) and the dumbheads spout off what a rip-off a reputable shop is cause they did it once (in 20 years of trying) After you filter out all the bull, you will find that most of us do not overcharge, we just want enough to say we got paid today. And yes, if you want your crappy old skylark to go perfectly staight down every different road, yes, it's prolly gonna cost about 300 bucks, I'm gonna get alot of brain damage explaining to you about road crown, different pavement surfaces, tire pull, thrust angle, steering box freeplay, frame flex and so on, and your crappy old skylark will still only go down a road straight if there is a 1/2 degree crown and I offset the toe and camber to compensate for it.
The new breed of imaging wheel aligners are big money. At least they're all self calibrating these days. The old aligners used incinometers and LED arrays and needed to be recalibrated constantly. And God help you if one of the techs dropped a head on the ground! Then guys like me have to come in and its big $$$$. I still have my calibration bar and stands in my truck!
Nope, mine:laugh: :laugh: I love these old cars, but put 95% of em on a lift and look underneath, and they are all just crappy old skylarks, with an owner who thinks they are the collectible of the century, and they all know waaaayyy more than me about their car. Wrong again! Guess I won't be winning any popularity contests, but it is what it is. I do my best to fix every one the way the customer wants it, but the classic car crowd is without a doubt one of the most unreasonable and needlessly anal group to deal with. I'll stick to working on 2004 tauruses, thanks. Especially after reading posts from what I used to consider the more intelligent group of muscle car owners.
I couldn't have said it better, and it still happens all the time! Just yesterday, (my lot is jammed full) we brought a car in did a lof, rotated and balanced, popped it in the same spot cause it was the only one, and was accused of not doing anything to the car. More brain damage, just cause my tech forgot to park it facing in instead of out (the way the customer parked it). Had to go out, show him the clean oil on the dipstick, and still spend 10 minutes assuring him we did actually rotate and balance his tires. Another 10 minutes I'll never get back.
Well, that's a quite an education, listening to the "other side" of the car business. I personally haven't got a problem paying for work done to any of my cars, - these are jobs that I can't do myself and I fully expect to pay through the nose for it because usually the jobs I send out require time or specialized tooling that I haven't got. I for one fully realize that working on an older car can be a challenge because of rusty parts or badly reinstalled crap, so I'll let them know about it beforehand, and budget my money and time accordingly. However, what I don't like is when I've been had by someone who claimed they did something and then didn't, and I've seen it a lot. I've got this nasty habit of marking things to see if things actually came off when they were supposed to have. When ever I send a car in for work I usually have a very good idea what the job will entail, so I know what's supposed to come off. Recently I got a car back that was supposed to have a new head, the timing belt had snapped (recall item) and it was a GM warranty claim. Imagine my surprise when all of my marks were still there, the bolts showed no evidence of being replaced, and the engine covers still had the same amount of dirt on them and no fingerprints, - yet I signed a 3K GM warranty claim for a replaced head. The car ran well, so there obviously was no damage, but they still screwed GM and in a way me when they did this. This was an affiliated GM dealer who did this, and one of the reasons I hate dealerships. Never had many problems with private shops though, and up here in Canada they are disappearing at an incredible rate. Probably due to the fact that there's next to no way they can keep up with all the costs of keeping up with the tooling and spec changes. I'd sooner bring a car to one of the guys above than to a dealership; especially if their businesses have been around for a while. And yes, as long as the work is done, I would have no complaints about the bill.
My brother-in-law has been a GM mechanic at a local dealership going on nearly 20 years, and my brother started as a porter at that dealership, went to parts, and eventually became a service writer, left to go to a Cadillac dealership and eventually became service manager. Last year, my brother quit his job after nearly 17 years in the industry because he just couldn't handle people anymore. He's had dozens of calls from dealerships around the region and he turns them down. He just won't do it. He can't bring himself to deal with the petty customers anymore and upper management that fights him on chargebacks for company mistakes. He's happy sitting at home now buying guitars on ebay, stripping them and selling the parts on ebay (yeah, it *is* profitable) My brother-in-law has been considering leaving the Chevy dealership because he just doesn't seem to "enjoy" it anymore. Unfortunately it's the only thing he knows, and I imagine he'll be there until forever. It can be a cutthroat industry.
This has been a very interesting read. I will say this up front. I am a full time mechanic, I am almost 40 years old and I have well over $100k invested in tools and equipment when you count the tools I have at work and the duplicate set I have at home. I have a 1200 sq/ft 3 stall shop at home with 1 hoist. I use this shop to work on the classic cars and race cars. I do this because at home I can give the cars the time I need to without worrying about flat rate time. So far, I have always quoted my work by the job and I stick to it. I am doing a 1967 Mustang fastback complete build right now and I have a ton of extra time into this one because of all of the unforseen things I have run into. I am going to stick to my quote because I promised I would. The reason I bid jobs this way is because 1) so many of you have been burned at other shops there is no trust there and there is a certain amount of "gun shy" going on and 2) the work I do at home is in a low overhead shop and I'm not making my living doing it, just extra $$$. I truly enjoy doing the older cars/high perf cars but they take 4 times the amount of time and effort to get it right. I can not stand plug wires that look like a rats nest, I can't stand wiring that looks like it was done by a 3 year old, I hate cars that have had the "tune up" done by someone and they don't run for $h!t. I am willing to put the time and effort into these cars to make them right but NOT AT WORK!!! If you want me to do it at work, I have to charge a lot more because now we are talking about making the mortgage payment and the tool payment, and...and...and. I don't know if this came out right or not, I am just trying to illustrate the difference between being "on the clock" or not. It has nothing to do with how much you care It has everything to do with making a living. I do not charge for work I don't do or sell parts that are not needed but I do have to move along at a pretty good clip to get things done and you just can't do it that way with a 40 year old car that has $15 grand in paint on it. Lunch break is over now, I gotta go work on a POS Chrysler so I can keep the lights on. Thanks, guys.
Oh boy! I used to get such a kick out of that one. I had a quip I used to say that some of the other guys around the shop picked up. I started the quip because of all of the "ever since" and "never was" customers. A lady would come in to pick up her 10 year old Monte Carlo and start claiming that most all of the wear and tear on the car wasn't there when she dropped it off. I would here one of my employees mock her with the quip under his breath "It was a new Vette when I dropped it off, now look at what you've done to it" It was so problematic at the body shop that I started requiring my estimators to photograph the cars when they came in and asking the customer to sign a damage acknowledgement form.
It's known as "sinceya". "Sinceya" replaced my trans. I've gotten 2 flats tires. It has been "sinceya" changed the trans. This has never happened before!!!! My electric antenna doesn't work "sinceya" rotated my tires. And on & on & on & on to infinity!!!!!!!!
Some of you guys with the shops - you should white-out your shop names before writing some of this stuff. I'm even more grateful for the several excellent and good natured mechanics I use (and pay well). Some of you have some pretty big chips on your shoulders. It's fortunate we're not in the same locality - sounds like you don't want my business anyway, and I drive right on by that kind of negativity. I'm not so suprised at the reasoning you present, everything you have said about the problems of the repair business makes sense to me, I'm just surprised to find you writing on an old Buick website in that case. I write this out of respect for your hassles - I am a businessman myself and in my business we have parallel headaches to what you have described.
While I do agree that running any business is tough there should be a point where the customer gets a good job for a fair price. One member mentioned that he aligns his own car in his driveway. I remember paying like 29.95 for alignments and well with the cost of inflation at 79.95 is probably too cheap. So a real question if an alignment is 1.2 hours on my crappy old skylark and I get charged 300.00, do you advertise your time at 280.00 per hour? If I know this going in I might choose another shop. If you put my crappy Skylark on the rack and see that the frame is bent, I put parts on wrong, everything is rusted and it will take you many extra hours, can't you call me and advise me to the facts? Most people are willing to pay a fair rate for a honest mechanic. I used to work at a shop and I know there are times when its better to send the customer elsewhere. As a side note I hope you are using this board to vent your frustrations because if you speak to clients this way you might find a ever shrinking customer base.
A shop cannot add extra labor or parts with out your written or verbal authorization. Thats a law. And if they do, your not required to pay for it. There were very few exceptions to that rule when I was a service manager. There was certain times when I had to use my judgement. For expample- Customer brings his car in for a state inspection. Its overdue so the sticker has to get scraped. The car needs a couple small bulbs and some wipers lets say. I cannot get ahold of the customer all day and the car was promised for 5PM. What do you do? Do you do the add'l work without authorization? Or do you hope the customer doesnt get pissed when the car isnt ready at 5? Its a fine line. If it was a good customer and I had a repore with him or her, then I would just do it and cross my fingers. But I did get burned a few times trying to do the right thing.
this thread just won't die, so i'll post some of my thoughts, having worked at shops for the last 37 years. " some guys align their own cars in their driveway". i needed a good laugh this morning. it takes equipment worth thousands of dollars to properly align a car! for you guys that don't know, most cars on the road today have alignment adjustments on the front and back. yes, a 4 wheel alignment. try doing that in your driveway, and you'll chew up a new set of tires in no time. our shop charges 98.50 an hour and doesn't apologize for it. we give our customers an honest day's work with a warranty. comebacks at our shop get first priority, the customer doesn't pay the second time, and gets an apology. some of you may think our hourly shop labor is too high, but if your gonna run a business and don;t charge enough to pay the overhead, you might as well shut the doors. no matter how hard you try, shops can't make every customer happy.
what adjustments did you make on your truck? did you eye ball it? does your truck have camber and caster adjustments, or just toe adjustment? were your old tires wearing unevenly? if you don't think you need an alignment machine to properly align modern vehicles your wrong.
This used to be a real sore spot for me. I had attorneys, doctors and executives for customers. Some never said a word about the price and others did not believe car repairs should cost any real money at all. One, in particular, stands out for me. In the early 90s, I had a dentist with a 66 Corvette convertible that came in and asked for a quote to fix his steering and install stainless steel calipers and redo the brakes. When I gave him the quote, he immediately started sarcastically complaining about the labor. "No way should the labor cost more than a couple hundred bucks!" he exclaimed. Most times I could just explain to the customer where the cost comes from, but on this day, he got under my skin. Mainly, I think, because I know what he charges for his labor and also that he was one of the most expensive guys around. Not to mention, his manner was particularly condescending. So, I threw a question at him to see how he handled it. Probably not the best business practice, but on this day it worked like a charm. I said: "Look, I tell you what, I will have about a days labor in all of this. We are both professionals, why you tell me what you would charge if it took you all day working on my teeth? Will you work on my teeth all day for $600?" In the end, he paid the whole quote and I never heard another price complaint from him.
