I also know how shop-rates work. The 'book' says it takes an hour so that hour can be billed at the shop-rate but it really doesn't take that long.
Also, I've boosted a few cars with my VW, I'm pretty familiar with the battery placement and I could have that swapped in 5 minutes.
Book time is usually pretty accurate, if stuff isn't rusted or busted.
Sometimes they have a minimum shop rate, maybe it was an hour? We never charged labour for things like batteries, wiper blades, light bulbs(unless Peugot)..but stuff was easier then.
Haha I wish. I googled it cause I typically fix everything myself. The battery alone was around 1500$ and per sure there was some programming or resetting required. Apparently you can put in an agm but you have to do some jailbreaking. Kinda seems dumb to balk at the battery cost when you’re buying a car that has silly expensive options like 2k for a carbon fibre roof.
Book time is usually pretty accurate, if stuff isn't rusted or busted.
Hard disagree when a dealer is involved. Going to Tunedub, the book time is often 2/3 of the dealer for big jobs.
I had a friend that basically did every NSX transmission job in southern Alberta for years at an Acura dealer. He left and started his own shop, and the dealer would send cars to him as he'd do it in about 1/3 of book time and they'd split the difference between them.
Hard disagree when a dealer is involved. Going to Tunedub, the book time is often 2/3 of the dealer for big jobs.
I had a friend that basically did every NSX transmission job in southern Alberta for years at an Acura dealer. He left and started his own shop, and the dealer would send cars to him as he'd do it in about 1/3 of book time and they'd split the difference between them.
Does your friend still have a shop? Always looking for someone for my S2000 for maintenance work.
Sure, dealers are their own thing in my head. Maybe it's different now, but we used the Mitchells book, and everything in there was created by mechanics doing the job and putting the time it took, so they tended to be close. I see Mitchells is an online service now, but I just assumed it was still done that way.
But it is also easy for a greasy garage to take a multiple part job, like say, doing the water pump at the same time as a timing belt, and instead of the extra .5 for water pump time, they bill the full timing belt and pump as if all the steps before we're done twice. You can show the customer the numbers in the book if they get cranky, but if you don't know how to use the manual, you can get fooled.
Sure, dealers are their own thing in my head. Maybe it's different now, but we used the Mitchells book, and everything in there was created by mechanics doing the job and putting the time it took, so they tended to be close. I see Mitchells is an online service now, but I just assumed it was still done that way.
But it is also easy for a greasy garage to take a multiple part job, like say, doing the water pump at the same time as a timing belt, and instead of the extra .5 for water pump time, they bill the full timing belt and pump as if all the steps before we're done twice. You can show the customer the numbers in the book if they get cranky, but if you don't know how to use the manual, you can get fooled.
Thieves. And. Brigands.
They've got to afford their Yachts somehow.
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He's back with Honda now unfortunately. I miss his shop.
Does he do side work from home? If so, PM me please. It's tough sometimes to run an independent shop but then again the dealership model is really screwing tech's/mechanics a lot.
The entire industry is somewhat in turmoil and only getting worse with everybody involved. I don't know when a breaking point occur's
Feel free to fast charge your phone at mach 1 and the degredation will be within the margin of error at best and negligible at worst.
Doesn't seem to be the case with DC charging an EV. Slower level 1 or level 2 charging seems to be ideal whereas DC fast charging is considered detrimental. [shrug]
Here's a question: anyone buy a used car from BC before? We're considering a vehicle from a franchised JLR dealer in Richmond -- how much of a pain in the ass is this going to be?
So far, I can think of:
- the requirement for an OOP inspection on a vehicle we've just purchased prior to registration -- only to find that it needs a bunch of stuff done on it. Is there a good way of mitigating this? Send a copy of an OOP inspection sheet as part of the pre-purchase inspection process?
- taxes -- if you're buying exclusively for registration and use in Alberta, is it possible to avoid paying the provincial sales tax on it?
- logistics -- How expensive is it to ship a vehicle from the Lower Mainland, or would we be better off just driving the thing?
It would be great if we could find what we were looking for in Alberta, but to no avail.
Is it private sale? We bought a VW from Manitoba, private sale. Went on Reddit and found a local VW nut, asked for a local mechanic recommendation, and then had that mechanic do the PPI. Everything checked out, so I had them leave the vehicle at a local VW dealership and then sent payment. We flew in (stayed with friends), drove it home, and then had an OOP done on it at home. Sucked to pay for two inspections, but worth it for the piece of mind.
No, it's a Jag from a JLR dealership. While I would normally have assumed a full reconditioning prior to being put on the lot, I can't help but feel like standards have fallen since I was in the business.
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Typical dumb take.
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