Exactly.

What I've gathered from the stories I've heard over the years is that most of these places have a "standard package" all figured out. Basically a bunch of easy, high margin jobs that they pretty much recommend to every single customer that comes into the place, regardless of what the car actually needs.

Tie rod ends are a pretty common one. It's an easy job and the parts are cheap, but most people don't know that so they nail them for several hundred dollars. I personally know of one specific case where a shop refused to do an alignment for a buddy of mine unless they replaced his tie rod ends also. Said they were so old and worn out that it would be impossible to align the vehicle without installing new ones.The tie rod ends were brand new, good quality, and in perfect shape, I had helped him install them 3 days before. (The whole reason he was getting the alignment done...)

Gaskets, brake pads, u-joints, and radiator flushes are some other common ones they like to push on you.

One test I like to use when looking for a new shop is to tell them that I already have the parts purchased. If they tell me they'll only use their parts, I can generally assume it's so they can gouge me on them. All of the shops that I personally use are perfectly happy to let me pull in with a back seat full of parts and just do the work. (I don't always do this, but I like to have the option when I'm dealing with higher dollar stuff.)

 

Good to see you learned something and you got your truck fixed with a little help from us, and a lil know how on your part. That's why we are here.



coreybv<---------------
Hell ya brother!


They always look at you with a dumb founded "I can't F**k you look"!!! I always look them straight in the eyes when I do it so they know I mean business. The one thing I always ask if I take my truck in is, I want to see the bad parts! However I do understand that the shop is tryin to make a buck as well. For that matter, I understand that everyone needs to make a buck.

I'm sure after a few years of doing this I've been had, or I've been takin to school, difference is that I learned from it either way and made my own decision from the facts at hand.

What I say is; lets make things fair and not screw each other, instead lets make things right on both sides and do it right the first time. Those shops are hard to come by.

I'll never know everything, but I plan on learning something new every day.

 

Definitely. God knows I don't spend 9 hours a day in a packing house for the pure entertainment of it all....

It's one thing if a shop wants to charge me $60 for a water pump I can buy for $50. Hell, by the time I use the gas to go pick it up, it probably costs me more to buy it myself.

But when I get quoted $250 for that same part? Um, nope, sorry. That's beyond "earning a living" and straight into screwing people over.

When my front differential went out I got quotes all the way up to 3 grand, all using salvage parts. Got the job done for about $300, parts and labor.

The transmission shop I recently had my truck at quoted me $1800 for a freshly rebuilt transmission (upgraded internals) with a 2 year warranty, and $300 to install it. When I said that given the condition of the truck I'd probably rather use a salvage transmission he said "Sure, if you want to drop it off we can install it for the same price". Didn't charge me for the diagnosis, not even for the 4 quarts of tranny fluid they used to fill it back up after they had pulled the pan to inspect it. Now THAT'S a shop that I'll be comfortable using in the future and recommending to others, and one that I wouldn't feel the least bit bad about letting them make a few bucks off me. In fact I asked him to let me at least pay for the fluid they used before I drove it back home, but he wouldn't take it.

 

A rebuilt trans for the same price as an installation of a junker for the SAME price?.... Did I read that wrong? Now if your only talkin about he $300 dollar install of a trans, that's a good deal.

Rest of it sounds good.....LOL


Oh, BTW<---- Not to be a dick, but I'm one of those ******* USDA inspectors standing over ya beotchin for you to present it right......LMAO

 

No, no, no... Transmission install is $300 regardless of what transmission I have them put in.

I can buy their rebuilt, beefed up tranny for 1800, or I can bring them my own from whatever salvage yard I decide to get it from. Either way, 300 for them to install it.


Yeah, you guys are a pain in the freakin' ***!

Just kidding... Actually, my job has a really high turnover rate. Most new people can't handle it past the first few days, and anyone who does it long enough gets shuffled off to 6 weeks of light duty as a result of hand injuries sooner or later (and bids out to a different job before they come back). As a result we have a constant supply of people in the early stages of training, and what is supposed to be done by 3 experienced guys is done by one experienced guy and a trainee helping him out a little, and the inspectors who look over our stuff have all but given up on worrying about our presentation. As long as we get it reasonably, half-assed close, everyone seems to get along just fine... (I haven't even finished my 90 day probation period, and I'm already one of the "old-timers" at my particular job... In my short time, there have been at least 30 people that started training for it, most don't make it through a week, and only two of us have "qualified" and gotten bumped up to full pay, and the other guy is about to get disqualified and moved back down.)

Our supervisor was a much bigger PITA over the silliest of things than the inspectors are, but he "sadly" (LMFAO) got fired the other night.

I will say this, though. If you USDA folks would quit stopping the line so damn much, I might actually get home at a reasonable time every now and then...

(Speaking of which, you do realize that occasionally we screw one up on purpose just so you'll stop the line and we get 10 seconds to get our knives sharp again, right? )

 

That is a good deal for $300!

Ya, we get the hint when something goes bad and people do the hands down (slow down), so they can hit their knife on the stone or grab a drink. Were all human ya know.

Sounds like your a header?

 

Yeah, I think it's pretty reasonable. Originally thought it might be a little steep until I looked through my Haynes manual and figured out what a PITA a tranny swap is going to be in this particular vehicle...

How'd you figure that out from what I said? LOL...

(At my plant the job is called "drop heads", but yeah, probably the same job. Cut through the neck then skin around the face and leave the head hanging in the proper position for the USDA to have easy access to the glands for inspection.... It's still a complete animal when it comes to us, we're the first ones that actually cut into the hog.)

I'm told that it used to be an easy job when all we had to do was meet the USDA's requirements. It became so hard when the company added additional requirements to make things easier on the dept further down the line that actually processes the heads...

 

Cause I'm that damn good.....LOL.....Been in the business long enough to figure out exactly what you were talkin about. Hands down that's one of the hardest jobs as your always workin around and upward. It's called a "header" or at least what you describe as a beef header.. Contrary to what people believe, the head is the most viable part of the postmortem.

What actually happened is, a big company b*tched and said we didn't give them the "chance" to fix the problem, so what the USDA said was "ok, then it's your problem" and they said "you show us" how to do it the right way and we'll ensure that your process is correct to the 9CFR. The large companies love to try to push their ways, but I'm one of those ******** that say no and I don't care, been in a lot of heated arguments, as you can see here on the forums, however I try to do it right and work with companies but when push comes to shove, I can wear a really hard hat.

I'm one of those people that say, if your going to do it I would rather you do it in front of me and not behind my back.

 

Yeah, even the people with higher grade (higher paying and supposedly harder) jobs tell us there's no way they'd ever come do this. There's talk about bumping our grade up, which would put us at the highest pay, and give us a special, purple hard hat too. LOL...

It's not that it requires a lot of strength or anything, but your hand and wrist are definitely twisted into weird positions, and when each person processes 1500 hogs on a VERY SLOW night, well, the repetition really starts to wear on ya. (9000 hogs through the plant divided by 6 people == 1500 each. We never do that few, and very rarely have a full staff of 6.)

The one thing that's saved me so far isn't that I'm a big tough badass or anything, it's that when I was a kid my dad owned and operated the local meat locker. I started helping him out when I was about 8 and then all the way through high school, so I came into this job knowing how to keep a knife sharp. I also came in knowing how important a sharp knife is in this type of work, so I went out and invested a hundred bucks in a real steel instead of the little $5 toy that the company issues to us. I also use 8" knives instead of the 6" ones that are "approved" for our job. Lets me get more work done for the same effort. Even still, after 3 months when I make a fist my pinkies on both hands stay stuck in place and I have to use the other hand to force them straight again...

Ain't as young as I used to be.... LOL...