If you're a girl, don't take your car to a shop if it's broke

[Miataracer]

2 winners banned in one thread... lol

[YOUNGSTER]

its seems like if you mess with ricochet you get banned you a mod now? lol

[Ricochet]

Yeah, but I've chosen to not let anybody know
j/k

[bbyzfr6]

Not picking on you by again wtf is this topic in lets get technical? Here is my Technical answer:

SR. Technicians (Mechanics) get paid ~20-25 and hour depending on they type of job.

70-80 Dollar shop rate, where does the money go?End of technical answer....
Coustomer reps, managers, and the big three for all that damn diagnositcs crap that makes the little shops unable to work on you car, which in turn is gauranteed to make dealerships more money. Politics my friends!!! Damn democrats lol. Create more jobs and more government to cover it up, more committies and boom: Look at California.

Serice centers/dealerships have the hours required to complete a task. They make their estimates off of that. Say 6 hours for a clutch in a 2000 accord. Spelled right out so they know how much to charge you.
Now ask to see all of you old parts when the job is completed, ask for a detailed list of what was done or will be done. Do all of this before you car is worked on so you wont bitch afterwards.
I do love the fact that Ricochet busted on the dealership. There are a$#@%@#%@#Q$% out there that try to make more money, but rememeber it isnt the mechanics that see the money. They only get payed by the books on hours to complete. The damn managers and upper end guys get your money for being stupid so don't lean on the mechanics, kick the shit out of the managers and customer reps!!! I say this because I'm pretty sure a tech didn't give you the prices rather a service rep or manager...can you see now or is the water still muddy?

[Ricochet]

Originally Posted by bbyzfr6

Not picking on you by again wtf is this topic in lets get technical?

Has to do with fixing cars, and how it's better to get [knowledgeable] answers in here than take the car to a shop. That was kind of the text in between the lines.

[pheurton-skeurto]

ricochet is turning into a punching bag here...
regardless, i got your point ricochet and bbyz but look at it in another respect: who gets the money when you take your car to say, a small shop. i go this route most of the time, and to say that upper management gets the money in this case is off base, because well with the shop that i go to there is no upper management, the owner works in the shop. prices are also still compairable to that of a dealership...i realize that these same owners have to pay for costs of running a business, but that comes nowhere close to justifying a $107 charge to install plugs. all that im saying is that this whole 'labor' thing is a cop-out.
at my work, i wait tables/serve food. when i give poor service, or hey, lie about food/prices, the customer has the option of not tipping well (or not at all). i still make good bank for what i do and i dont have to scam people in the process. shouldnt this ring true across the board without someone going, well, thats life and thats the cost of things?!?!?!

[bbyzfr6]

I as well have been in the service industry. Good ole country club bartender for the majority so I feel ya there, but the whole shop money thing is just a way to scam people in some regards. I was just covering all my buds by saying its not always the mechanic.
Not only that I was saying you should have the shop give you a detailed list of what is going to be done or was done depending on your situation. If you see any #@$@# stuff on the estimate/recipet. say hey what's that. If the spark plugs are hard to get to I'd charge 100 bucks too!!! But all in all I see the light in the post of how to take someone knowledgable w/ you or become knowledgable yourself. Just remember not to get cocky or they might really vasaline you a good one.

[T!mmy]

or maybe they won't even vasoline it to oyu...maybe they just make you take it...hard...with NO vasoline *T!mmy shivers*

[IntegraB18LS]

Originally Posted by Ricochet

Yeah $107 to take 5 minutes and change $8 worth of spark plugs sure sounds fair You're a fuckin idiot.

I work for a ford dealership and depending on the car we usally chage more then that. prices go by if the parts lady is having a good day or not, then we are $70 a hour on top of that. we usally charge around 50$ or so for a set of plugs, sometimes more.

I did a brake job on a Explorer tonight, $1150 for new front rotors, pads, rear rotors and pads then labor and diag. i think the rotors were like 180 or something each and like 150 for the pads.

thats what they charge, you could get all the parts at autozone for probably 100-200$ and save yourself alot, doesnt matter if your a girl or guy its gonna be alot AND if we break something while working on your car that wasnt what we were fixing 99% of the time it will get chaged out to you

[Ricochet]

I seriously need to open my own shop... $$

[pheurton-skeurto]

ricochet...
ill go into business with you...heres the plan:
-figure out how to fix something...anything, i dont care. and then ill go around and break that on peoples cars. then ill act all surprised that its broken and ill send them to you. ohh yeah, i want 75%

[Ricochet]

"yeah can you install this cold air intake for me?"
"sure kid bring her around back"

2 days later after we drive the shit out of it for beer runs

"yeah looks like your transmission is about gone, for $800 we can make it like new"

haha

[turbonewf]

sorry i have to take exception to some of your comments. i'm a tech at the local dealer, and have been for the last 13 years. I have to take pride i doing honest work. if i see some thing you need i'll tell you, if it will need work soon, i'll tell you. i don't really mind if you don't have the work done (hey its your car) it dont affect my paycheck one little bit. i dont make any extra by being dishonest any ripping you off. most of all its not in my nature to work that way. it is simple business sense to treat the customer honestly and fairly, they'll respect that and return for service.if you operate dishonestly then word of mouth gets around (this case is a good example) soon there won't be any more customers. dont be mistaken that all tecnicians are crooks, i've been fighting that stereotype for all of my career, and then some people still lump us all together. i'm tired of this crap

[Ricochet]

Read the other posts above, we're not lumping you together. I know there are decent human beings under my hood at the shop sometimes, but the guys behind the desk at the door and the suits counting bills in the back room are crooks.

[Miataracer]

Originally Posted by turbonewf

sorry i have to take exception to some of your comments. i'm a tech at the local dealer, and have been for the last 13 years. I have to take pride i doing honest work. if i see some thing you need i'll tell you, if it will need work soon, i'll tell you. i don't really mind if you don't have the work done (hey its your car) it dont affect my paycheck one little bit. i dont make any extra by being dishonest any ripping you off. most of all its not in my nature to work that way. it is simple business sense to treat the customer honestly and fairly, they'll respect that and return for service.if you operate dishonestly then word of mouth gets around (this case is a good example) soon there won't be any more customers. dont be mistaken that all tecnicians are crooks, i've been fighting that stereotype for all of my career, and then some people still lump us all together. i'm tired of this crap

and it is good to have at least a few people like you out there. too bad there aren't more of you!