PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post

stevebfl · #6 07-17-2004, 10:25 AM

What an amusing thread.

The fact that auto repair costs more than the economic value of such, is a disturbing concept to most.

As I listen to all the whining you all make while trying to beat the system at low rent shops, I just have to giggle.

I'm 55 years old and am probably ten years too young to happlily last out the remaining life of independent auto repair. Only the most efficient shops get it all right. Getting it right means three things. Most importantly, a proper repair and happy consumer, next comes a sustainable, liveable, income with health insurance for all employees, and finally a profit for ownership. The repairs that can be done and satisfy those three conditions deminish every year. We are passing through the point at this moment in history where only large specialists can approach those three conditions. Most rape their employees first, virtually none have health insurance. Probably the ones that handle all three have passed the economically justifyable limit to repair expense but their customers haven't yet realized.

When they realize that auto repair has passed into the realm of TV repair, they will join the masses who no longer pay for auto repair by keeping only vehicles in warrantee.

My view of the demographics is this (only my opinion and observation): 40% of the populace have entered the never again land and will never again pay for auto repair. These are the people who could afford auto repairs costs but are smart enough to realize the economics. The bottom 50% can't afford real auto repair and do their best to remove sections of the "3 things". Most would hope to beat the tech out of a livelyhood, all would rather buy their repairs without paying for health insurance for the worker.

This leaves the 10% supporting real shops. Unfortunately the numbers are so small the shops are forced to deal with the lower 50% who just physically can't afford it. It doesn't change the numbers and thus most repair shop problems.

The funny thing about all this is as the need for competent techs increases logrithmically the money available to support them is decreasing at least geometrically for the same reasons. Those reasons being the economically sensible limitation to repairs.

Now that my gigling is over, I might point out that in the State of Florida it is illegal to add such charges as listed in this post. More than its illegality is the stupidity. Look at all the aggrevation it caused here. The shop should have charged the reasonable charge (89.95 sounds reasonable for Miami I charge 75 in Gainesville) and not pulled the whodo charge.

What is a reasonable charge? I know a lot about it, as I align cars for atleast 15 other shops. I charge 48 to other shops and I can do about 6-8 alignments a day. As an owner my paycheck is not obvious, because the pittance I get every Friday is not my lifes story, but if you multiply the best days by the discounted charges one will see that it works out to a little more than the $60k a year a good tech in Gainesville should make. For those of you that think that a shop should bill no more than technicians wages, get a grip. In my shop we have one person in customer service for everyone billing hours. I suppose those people should work for free? Every analization of labor dollars per hour needs to understand that. You get two people for every hour you buy and no one is playing computer games.

Oh that felt good....