Question for auto shop owners
Full disclosure, I am a diy non-certified parts changer myself. So I have some idea of the time involved in completing certain repairs. I am also aware that any shop lane or lift time is time that another customer's vehicle could have spent there.
Thing is, I had my 2004 GMC Envoy in the shop for a state/emissions inspection. It failed the safety because a tie rod was loose. The truck has 123k miles on it and runs and drives better than most new cars I've driven. But, okay, the tie rod needs replacement, so he quotes me a price of four hundred dollars to replace ONE tie rod and do the necessary alignment. I am not in dire straits so the 400 dollars is not the big deal as this truck has seen less than 1k miles since its last inspection two years ago. It is hardly used, but it is in pristine condition with the 5.3 engine and the dealer only offerred me 2500 dollars on trade in, so I just kept it. So my question is, how far out of line is this 400 dollar quote? Mind you, I have already ordered both tie rods for less than eighty bucks, and I will install them myself, and it will take me less than an hour to do them both. |
Hourly rates vary depending on where you live but figure it will most likely be at least $100/hour. They'll also charge markup on parts, which could be 50% to 100% on top of list. If it takes an hour to replace the tie rod ends, don't forget there's additional time for the alignment, and in the cost for alignment they are probably including some embedded cost for use of their alignment rack and equipment. So, it doesn't take long to get to $400.
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the rate a professional charges for service with what you can do it for yourself. Every day - literally - I get someone contacting me wanting to know if it would be cheaper to hire me to transport a vehicle rather than them going to get it themself for the cost of fuel. Do your own work. Jim |
Agreed...paying retail at least that plus sin tax
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Install the tie rods and take it to a different shop for alignment. Let us know how it works out.
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I worked it the auto repair business for over 30 years before retiring. If the cost does not seem right to you ask them to break it down for you. Any honest shop will. When I bought my new truck I wanted the factory remote start installed. I didn't want aftermarket so I asked the dealer for a price. He quoted me $500 labor plus parts. My son and I did it in 1/2-3/4 of an hour never having done it to that kind of truck before. If the dealer was going to get $200 labor It wouldn't have bothered me. $500 was a rip off though. So ask your questions when in doubt.
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Did some looking up on Prodemand, snap on based flat rate and repair. Lab is .9 to change outer tie rod end 1 side
Part was 350 retail for 1 thru AC Delco brand. Shop lab up here is close to 170 / hr. plus 129.99 for alignment. Not saying they quoted on AC Delco but just saying prices can be higher from dealer or Jobber Retail. Yes one can get parts cheaper and do it yourself, could also set toe by yourself if you wanted to. |
I think R&R of the 2 tie-rods will take you 45-min, even an hour if the weather is nice. Enjoy.
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Off the top of my head .. $400 is about right depending on the labor rate. We charge $150/hr. Dealership is $220/hr. Parts price can vary depending on quality and markup. The days of $29 alignments are long gone.
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If you know how to do it yourself correctly, shop rates hurt your feelings. But remember, they got light bills, insurance, cost of the building, labor to pay etc. The other day I was sitting in a shop with a work vehicle getting serviced and overheard the service manager quote a rear O2 sensor on a 2010ish Ford SUV for $815. That left me scratching my head?
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I'm 72 and still do all my own work except alignment and tire changes.
For tie rod ends. A pickle fork and a BFH is your friend. |
Obviously you think the price is too high or you would have just told the shop to do it.
As a small business owner some things that people dont consider when they get a price for a professional service that they think is too high. First the shop has overhead. That is the electric bill, the gas, water, heat, insurance (which aint cheap!) maybe rent or mortgage etc. You get the point. Then there is Taxes! As for markup on parts, someone is getting paid to sit at a desk, figure what part is needed and place the order, or in a worse case scenario go pick the part up. All that is time. Time=money. On top of that is the payroll for the employee doing the job and the owner of the shop hoping theres enough fat left over to make a little profit for themselves. So if the billing rate is $100 an hour the guy doing the work is not making $100 an hour. I just had to have a new coil pack put on my truck. It cost around $400. I would imagine its not that hard to do, especially for someone that does that sort of work every day. But for me if I tried to do it myself I would loose money. I gladly paid the pro the $400 and spent my time making my own salary. |
I've spent $2800 for LP to keep my shop warm since the weather cooled. Gotta recoup it somehow.
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Don't forget the hazardous waste material disposal fee for the old tire rod.
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Most people looking for service of ANY kind aren't concerned with what your cost of doing business are. They are looking to solve an issue. Fortunately for me, I have the wherewithal to not be deceived by the legal malpractice of automotive repairs. I personally know two, (one of which was my NEXT door neighbor) who are multimillionaires today, all through exhorbitant charges for certain repairs. He has moved on to a muliti-million home with exotic cars and vacation homes by the lake. After I retired from the Army, my brother and I started a trucking company and it lasted for eighteen years. We had ten 26' box trucks and delivered home appliances. We averaged 4-5k in weekly fuel expenditures. We had ONE tow that cost us over 2k when one of our truck went off a snow covered road and had to be extracted by multiple tow rigs. But you know what? Sears, Best Buy, and the other companies that we contracted with didn't care if we, as owners made a cent. I thank all you shop owners for responding. But you seem to ignore the simplicity of R&R for a TIE ROD! I don't care how well off you might be, but throwing away money needlessly will quickly deplete your wealth,. The personnel problem exists within the auto repair the same as any other industry. Substandard repairs are why repair shops struggle. The proliferation of aftermarket warranties is only exacerbating the problem So to this point, NONE of you has pointed out the reason for a TIE ROD replacement should cost 400 dollars. Yes, I am old school and trying to redirect and adapt to the exhorbitant costs of pretty much anything these days. This is the same reason that I have so many projects on hold and will probably not move forward. |
Old flat rate mechanic, and also I've owned my own garage business twice during the last 5 decades. .8 HR. to replace the tie rod, and set toe in to factory spec. .3 HR. to replace tie rod without setting the toe in.
List price is all I've ever charged a customer repair for parts. If they supply their own parts then I add the markup to the bill, I also will charge them double labor if the part they bring me is wrong, or defective. No warranty on labor if the customers part fails, and it needs to be replaced, 2 operations will be charged if their part fails, and I replace it a second time. To warranty parts, and labor, I must supply the parts. I really hate messing with customers bargain basement crappy parts, plus I lose the markup, effectively cutting my paycheck. Every one of my customers would scream bloody murder if their boss cut their wages so he could save some money. In my eyes they're in effect asking me to take a pay cut to save them money. If you want to save money on the parts purchase, then you also need to do the labor, and save that expense too. There's an old example that garage owners use when confronted by cusomers that want their parts installed by a professional. "Do you also buy your own steak at the grocery store, and take it to a restaurant, and have them cook it for you?"...........:noidea: That's how I ran my successful business for many years. I really didn't care if it offended anyone, it was my garage, and my rules, I had more work than I could keep up with. You might want to get a second opinion if you can't see any play in the tie rod end. Either it was bad last time you had it inspected, and they missed it, or the garage you're currently dealing with is not that reputable. $400 to do 1 tie rod end seems excessive to me..........:eek: FWIW, I found this on the net typical charge for Envoy parts, and labor: Quote:
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Do it yourself. www.rockauto.com has tie rods for $65 bucks plus shipping so call it $79 or buy it off amazon with free shipping.
Here is a video on how to do it. Then you'll have to get an alignment which aren't $300. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQZUrNhuU60 Shops have to charge more because they have other expenses to pay. They warranty their work but the place that sold them the part, like O'Reillys or Autozone warranty the part. |
Did the shop write you an estimate? I would be curious to see the breakdown.
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As a former business owner myself, I understand the overhead and just how difficult it is for an owner of said business to provide a decent salary for himself. All I am saying is that if you want to charge me $400.00 for something as simple as a tie rod, you are not going to be getting any future business from me. It seems to me that more and more people are going to be googling repairs and attempting those repairs themselves. It's not like a valve job or something labor intensive. It's a TIE rod. So you under charge people on the big jobs and over charge the small jobs to equalize things. I get it! By the way, I had a thread about the "service vehicle soon" light on my '04 GTO and you didn't chime in, Any insight on that? |
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As a former business owner myself, I understand the overhead and just how difficult it is for an owner of said business to provide a decent salary for himself. All I am saying is that if you want to charge me $400.00 for something as simple as a tie rod, you are not going to be getting any future business from me. It seems to me that more and more people are going to be googling repairs and attempting those repairs themselves. It's not like a valve job or something labor intensive. It's a TIE rod. So you under charge people on the big jobs and over charge the small jobs to equalize things. I get it! By the way, I had a thread about the "service vehicle soon" light on my '04 GTO and you didn't chime in, Any insight on that? |
I work for a large corporation that manufactures and sells power equipment. When pricing products, there are two labor rates we consider:
Straight labor - the average hourly rate of a manufacturing person. This just includes direct pay and I think the employer's portion of social security and medicare taxes. This rate is in the low $20s, I think. Burdened labor - this cost includes benefits the employer pays, the cost of operating the facility he works at, the cost of support staff, etc. This number is in the $120 / hr range. There are different burdened labor rates for different functions. Engineer and manufacturing have different burdened and straight labor rates. So you're only considering straight labor, the business has to consider burdened labor costs, otherwise his business will fail. And BTW, burdened labor rates are rising faster than the normal inflation rate due to supplier shortages, customs fees, expedite charges for shipping, etc. Straight labor is a small part of the overall cost for a business. |
I had to clean up a bunch of petty arguing that wasn't contributing at all to the discussion. Please keep things civil, folks.
As for the original question, my understanding is the shop's quote was for labor and parts to replace both tie rod ends, plus an alignment, as opposed to buying and installing one tie rod end at home without an alignment. Yes, $400 sounds expensive but it's probably the reality of what the shop has to charge to stay in business these days. |
You hit the nail on the head. 'for $400. they wont get any more business'. It is good business sense to work for a profit but to also be fair and get repeat customers.
My son has an 04 GTO and frequents some forum called LS something. Are you familiar with that? There seems to be some knowledgable guys on there regarding these cars. |
As far as the 04 GTO, I obviously missed that post. You'd have to pull the trouble codes from the ECM, and get at least some direction as to where to look for the cause of a SES light.
Once you pull the codes, it will decipher as to what part of the engine management system is out of spec. Without a decent scanner that is able to give you some values of the system, your pretty much going to have to play electronic parts roulette, which becomes very expensive, very quickly. This is where most backyard mechanics either give up, or start throwing parts at a problem. Without the proper tools, and knowledge of how the system works, your shooting in the dark. There are no short cuts when it comes to electronic engine management systems, the faults need to be identified, and then you have to isolate if the fault is caused by a replaceable part, or a fault in wiring/connections. Sometimes there is a certain system that may have a common problem that shows up frequently, and can be repaired by a parts replacement, but myself I like to identify exactly what is causing the fault, before replacing any parts, once you plug a new electronic part in, you own it, the parts store look to see if the part was used to diagnose a problem, and refuse to refund any parts that have been used. This isn't like the 60s, and 70s, where everyting under the hood was fairly cheap to replace, so people would just start bolting in new parts, until the problem was found. Electronic engine management systems quickly seperated parts changers, from mechanics, that could actually diagnose a problem, before bolting on new parts. |
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Please understand that I had no intention to incite arguments over what shops should or shouldn't charge. As a former business owner, I, too, turned down opportunities that didn't meet my criterior for profit. I GET it. |
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Throughout all my googling it seems that most responses defer to the SES light rather than the service vehicle soon light. I guess this warning is pretty rare. |
The BCM can be set off by recharging the battery with the voltage set too high, I always disconnect the battery from the system if I have to charge my battery. The other thing I have run into is an ignition key fault will also set the BCM off. A low battery in the keyfob can cause you grief too. Beware that this fob battery is a bear to replace, and was never intended to be replaced. They designed it so you should replace the whole fob, also don't be tempted to buy the cheap aftermarket fobs if you change it, they don't seem to program correctly. I went to the local GM dealer and bought a new one.
Those are 3 items I've experienced with my own car, so far I've been ablle to fix my own car, and get everything figured out, and working. LS1GTO.com is where I got much of my information. You're correct that it takes a expensive scanner to chase down certain problems, you're probably gonna have to bite the bullet and pay a steep diagnostic fee if you can't find a workaround to get the BCM to stop lighting up your light. PY sells fobs for the GTOs, and they are supposed to program just fine. I needed mine so I could drive the car to Norwalk last year, so I just ordered one locally from GM dealer. |
I get the O/P frustration and I too don't mind paying a dealer for service, but when your just getting hosed that's a different story. Case in point. Our 2014 Acura RDX needed timing belt changed and possibly water pump. Acura dealer where we bought the vehicle new, quoted me $1400 to do timing belt and wanted another $900 to do water pump. I was looking at $2500 to $3000 with water pump changed.
I did the job for $500 with dealer parts. The water pump was fine. It took me about 5 hours taking my time to replace timing belt and tension-er and new serpentine belt. A tech could have done this job in 2 hours max. They could have done the job for $1500 easily with profit. That would have been $1500 profit over and above there actual cost and shop rate. In fact another independent shop quoted me around $1200 with parts to do the job. Turns out I walked away from the dealer and we just bought a new vehicle from another manufacture. I said screw them. |
$400 sounds expensive.
I will say this though,buy good parts.I`ve been at the same independent garage for 33 years,and we redo alot of work from other shops that have used bargain basement parts. We tell the customers to go back to the previous shop,since the parts are warrantied;they flat out refuse,and tell us to just do it right. |
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