A garage can't survive these day's on labour alone!. The cost of running a garage now is horrendous. The only way you could survive on labour only is a one man band in a van & even then its tight.
Don't forget a garage has rent & council tax charges + insurance, wages gas, elec, phone & the waste charges to comply with waste regs are horrendous with having to have specific waste tanks for Antifreeze, brakefluid, oils air con gas Contaminated fuels batteries, & even old car components if electrical have to be delt with & any oil related components such as shock absorbers have to be delt with then clutches & old brake material & the one that made me laugh was the floor sweepings. I had to have waste control just for the floor granuals in total shooting my overheads up to over 35k a month in total for an average indy.
there may come atime where it will be difficult to find a garage left to get a car repaired!
i Doc
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Well put injection doc. These are the overheads that most builders, plumbers, electricians etc dont have and people dont sniff at paying them 30-40 pounds an hour.
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So put it all in the labour charge then. Why add it to the consumables where the average Joe can check the price and gets peeved because of the mark up!!
The indy I use(d) charges £50ph so not cheap. All businesses have overheads but trying to hide costs within items that were previously supplied at cost or just above just peas off the customers like me!
I actually work the other way in my business, I make sure my customers know I supply the consumables at cost, and can get them cheaper then they can because I can get volume discounts, this means I then get the work associated with those consumables at my normal hourly rate without quibble as I am not trying to make ££ on every single thing I am doing.
Edited by R75 on 05/10/2008 at 17:35
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where the average Joe can check the price and gets peeved because of the mark up!!
I'm a customer too, and i believe the indy should make something on the parts too, he has to diagnose, order and wait for the parts to arrive in many cases, then goodness knows how often the wrong parts turn up. I know how often its happened to me, think what its like for the indy with your car stuck on his hoist in bits, wrong parts arrive he then has to decide can he wait, or should he part reassemble, push the car off and carry on with something else. He can't really bill you for the messing about, and then the customer complains when the chap makes 20% on the parts into the bargain.
Indy can't win.
Sometimes my indy does get me to obtain parts when they are going to be a pain, a memorable one was the front wishbones on my 124 MB, cos i have the 24v model the bottom ball joints are welded in, MB wanted 225 plus vat a side, he suggested i get some from the usual sources and job done, half the price for lemforder IIRC. (the replaceable ball joints would have been about £15 each from MB..grrr)
Maybe your indy has strayed over the mark R75, i don't know, maybe would be an idea to get a quote for the same work from the dealer, you may have a nasty shock.
In a way the better cost of my MB indy is only a bonus, what i'm really getting is his 40 years of MB knowledge, if he charged the dealer labour rate i would still use him as i have complete trust in the man, he doesn't fit bits till its cured, he diagnoses properly then repairs it.
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I can't agree with you i'm afraid about the parts pricing. They order them from their suppliers, if the wrong part is delivered then it is one of their faults, so they should pay for it, why should I pay for them mis-ordering or for their supplier getting it wrong?
I am a little disapointed with them to be honest. Over the last few years we have always used them, as have the MIL and FIL, so at least 4 cars a year going for services and MOT's plus any other bits that crop up. They have always charged full whack for MOT's, which I have been happy to pay as I always felt they were not hunting for work, but this last service has soured things!! Even when I phoned up to book they were a bit cautious about giving an estimate over the phone - this was just for a basic 9k service (oil and filter) and the AT fluid change, never had that problem with them before!!!
It seems the guy who owns it has gone back into the workshop and they have a new guy doing the quotes etc, seems he wants to increase revenue at the expense of business!!
In the end it is their loss not mine, I can find another good garage out there I am sure, but can they replace my family's custom as easily!!! Cash cows are only ever a short term thing!!
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R75, I owned several business for in excess of thirty years & the labour rate for one of my garages was in excess of £50p/h & i didn't inflate the price of parts but used the retail as a guide. I also had a large purchasing power due to the volume of turnover with parts suppliers but I alway's insisted on buying a premium part thus reducing warranty claims. many a time a customer claimed they could buy a part cheaper but was it the same quality & would it of had the same back up should it of failed was alway's questionable.
Gordonbennet has the right approach. the garage trade has never had excessive profits & mark up in general is low compared with other retail outlets. Electronic goods often have a 400-500% mark up from manufacturer and yet most people are prepared to accept it but when it comes to cars 20% mark up creates an " ouch".
As I previously stated everyones entitled to an opinion & purchase from where they like but if the local garges don't get support they won't be around in the future!
I Doc
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I agree most of the points but when I take a car in for service and get the oil charged by the pint when they buy in bulk,particularly when that manufacturer's oil is a fraction of the cost of the oil they supposedly used,I feel they are Extracting the Michael.
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As I previously stated everyones entitled to an opinion & purchase from where they like but if the local garges don't get support they won't be around in the future! I Doc
That is my point though. As the line between the indy's and the dealerships get blurred then the indy's will go out of business, what makes them attractive to the likes of me and others is lost and we will seek alternative places - be that a dealer who may now only be £10 or £20 different or another indy who is not looking to make dealership type profits.
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who is not looking to make dealership type profits.
You mean a massive annual loss.
This bank-created depression will quickly kill most garages off; the business model of both dealer and indy is non-viable.
Councils hate the motor-trade and won't let new garages start up anywhere. Basically; the customers are rotationally spiralled.
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The only problem being is that there are a lot of dealerships sailing very close to the wind at present as well as their overheads are huge as they try to comply with the manufactures requirements for even simple things like the colour of the tiles on a showroom floor. The manufactures lay down the requirements for a dealership but manufactures allow their cars to be sold through internet sites where a dealer may be working from his spare room at home & gets a contract cleaner & driver to deliver. How can a dealer compete with that. In reality we could be left to buy from the internet only! how sad would that be.
Main dealers are fighting back with loss leaders for servicing & repairs to give the impression that there is a little difference between themselves & an Indy & lulls you into a false sense of security that the dealer is the best option & then they bite you back when push comes to shove.
Lets hope the whole economy picks up for everyone .
i Doc
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you beat me to it screwloose by 4 mins!
yeah your right trouble is a brewing for many a dealer at present
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But thats the big debating point R75, the savings can be colossal using a knowledgeable indy.
My example here... '96 MB 320 W124, my car....wiring loom disintegrates its a common fault on those,
My indy replaces the loom, unfortunately the ECU has taken a hit and has been spiked by the shorting.
He knows that i have used a handy chap on the IOW before to repair a errant ECU so he gets me to send it off and it duly comes back and all is well.
The wiring loom is approx £550 plus VAT, he charges me IIRC a total of 4 hours for diagnosis and loom fitting and everything else, i know he's spent longer on it and i have to force some extra on him.
Total repair costs including £350 ecu fix is about £1250.
Now i know if this had gone into MB there would have been the same charge for the wiring loom, but they would only have fitted a new ECU and that alone would be approx £1500 plus vat, and they would have charged me umpteen hours at £100 and hour, conservative estimate at least £2600 for the same job, and i may well have had someone with limited experience doing the job, and no telling what else may have got fitted unnecessarily.
Now if my indy has got 20% off the loom as he's trade and made himself an extra £100 i am still at least £1300 in pocket, and jolly good luck to him.
I am very fortunate to have such a chap to look after my car, almost had my wife in tears one day when he called at our house and took his cap off and brushed his hair before entering, old school manners and decency, what price that, and conscientious work practices too.
Inj Doc is right, unless i and many other loyal customers support him, where will we be, at the dealers...i hope not.
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What R75 and others may not know, or indeed may not even care about.
A big difference between main dealer and independant is the staff. This is a generalisation I accept but is common in my area and others that I know of.
Main dealers often run on 1 experienced guy in the workshop with various levels of trainees around him. He gets the diagnostic and customer relationship work; the trainess get the brakes/servicing/routine work.
You are getting charged full price (often) for a trainee doing the work.
At independant level you are getting the owner (or experienced person) to do the work, but are paying him less than the main dealer. Not many independants can afford apprentices and the routine boring work of the main dealers encourages the good trainees (after qualifying) to go into the independant circle (either own business or working for another).
To haggle over a few pounds in parts prices versus the labour quality versus the labour bill is obviously your choice. But are you aware of it?
Now consider the mark up in parts and consumables prices? If any of these parts fail, it is expected for the garage (dealer and independant) to foot the bill and sort the problem? is that not worth a small mark up? Buy a kitchen and get the appliances at the same price as you could elsewhere? Same reasoning too.
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Oh I know all about the trainees at dealers etc, but in my line I have extensive dealing with commercial vehicle garages and they are far better (as a rule) with their charging structures. This I believe is because the transport industry would not put up with anything like that that goes on in car dealers.
My Point was that the OP had asked about people doing their own repairs etc as a result of lean times, and that I was far more likely to do this repair not only as a result of the economy but also because at the same time my indy seems to have changed his pricing structures and is trying to behave like a main dealer with his pricing.
So, no I wont actually haggle over a few pounds, I will look elsewhere or do it myself, but is loosing my business really worth the extra few pounds to him? It is far more expensive to find a new customer then it is to retain an existing one!
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I do not know whether this is true for all garages in France, but I remember from a couple of visits (to Ford and Peugot franchisees), that they display labour rates for 3 different levels of qualified staff. What you get charged is based on 'electronic tech diagnostic rate' , experienced mechanic, or mechanic IIRC.
The hourly rates are also significantly less than UK! However my 1 experience of getting a quote for a 12 k service at a citroen garage was that it was not significantly cheaper. How that worked I do not know.
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R75
Maybe he's now having to absorb £5 per delivery charges since diesel went up. Parts delivery always used to be free - not any more. 10-20 deliveries a day and it makes a big difference.
Maybe he found that he was rushed off his feet, but not turning any sort of bottom-line profit and was forced to change his business model to stay afloat - have you actually asked him why he went back into the workshop?
Or did he get turned over for the usual £25K by the EA when some target-chasing kid walked in and found a drain-bucket and a battery sitting on the floor.
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Nope, haven't asked him, and no real intention of doing so either. Who his suppliers are are his problem, but the parts issue does not account for the huge price increases in his oils does it?
As for regulation, we are all caught up in that, all LGV and PCV drivers now have to undergo 35hrs of training in 5 years to keep their licences etc, etc, etc.
In the current climate most of us are looking for ways to cut costs in business and personally, if someone seems to be putting theirs up then I will look at why etc. When I asked about the oil I got some BS about how much the price of oil had gone up and how our car took a special oil - engine oil has not nearly doubled has it? certainly not in the quantities they will buy it in at. And our car takes 15-40 semi synth, nothing special about that either.
I am happy to pay a fair price for fair work, but making £££'s on things like oil is just not on in my book - others obviously disagree and are happy to pay it.
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R75
Of course bulk lube has shot up - it comes from the same people that have kept road-fuel and heating oil prices so level over the last year. [Any excuse to add to the several million a minute they make in profits.] A new EA-compliant storage tank may have set him back tens of thousands too.
The re-structuring in you indy's business [he's gone from overhead to producer] has the hallmarks of either his accountant - or his bank's "Business Manager" - going through the books and pointing out why he's losing money.
There have been many recent sudden price increases - haven't you had an electricity or gas bill lately? So thay can jump 40% and that's OK - but if a guy finds that he's losing money on lube, he's not allowed to put the price up?
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>>Of course bulk lube has shot up
Yes!, my chin nearly hit the floor when I bought a barrel of engine oil at the Vauxhall dealer recently.
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My gas/electric has not gone up, but then I fixed it a couple of years ago and have another 2 years at my current rate yet.
I did post an example of what I was talking about, but it was posted at the same time as yours Screwloose.
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To add a bit more to this, last year (almost exactly a year ago) the invoice for the AT fluid was £8, about cost price at todays prices, so last year I expect he made a bit on it, this year the invoice price for the AT fluid was £24.95!!!!!!!! Thats one heck of a price increase in one year is it not! It only takes 2ltrs for the change as well.
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R75
It's possible that he kept bulk stock of the ATF last year - but found that with so many different drums now needed, that it was better to get the dealers to supply it in litres along with the other service parts - in which case, they set the price, not him.
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Well put screwloose.
But to agree with R75 a second, I wouldnt worry unduly over him and his business.
The independants that are good and established are busy (but struggling to make profit at moment) , those that arent are struggling for custome.
The irony of these financial times is that more "main dealer customers" are going to independants because they recognise the difference in financial "value" !
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hey screwloose I like many others got caught up in the Bunded oil tanks senario & oh boy what a cost!, loads of ground area as a catchment & being told by some youngster just out of uni about soil contamination & having soil samples taken it takes the buiscuit when I see what some companies & some motor traders on farm premises get away with!. I even had samples taken from the drains to ensure I was using bio degradable handsoap as even using non bio soap for washing hands would of caused an offence!
Retirement came just right last year.
I agree with the comments on employees, I couldn't afford trainees with the mistakes they make & staff with a minimum of 10-15 years experience were more my cup of tea. a main dealer not far from me had 12 techs but only 2 fully qualified & the rest trainees but charging top dollar.
I think the customer should have the choice of type of tech & level of training to suit the job in hand. great idea.
I Doc
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Doc
I don't think anyone not caught up in August '06's EA changes would have any idea of how stupid they were. You can't legally unload even an empty drum without the risk of incurring a £1,500 fine.
I'm all for responsible environmental protection; but their 600 hurriedly-recruited errand-boys did more damage to the motor trade than the Luftwaffe. I used to distribute Valvoline with about seven tons of 39 different oils in stock - not any more; their required bunding would have contained the Torrey Canyon spill.
As soon as a friendy eye and "You'd better do summat about that before next time" turned into a "points win prizes" mega-money-making exercise, that makes scameras look ineffective, then most of the good garages gave up and the cowboys won.
Don't think farms are that different everywhere; here they take samples from even the field run-off drains and anything amiss is immediately the nearest garage's £25 grand penalty - no proof required.
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