So went to the stealership for my 04 ram just to see how bad the would try to screw me over lmao to do upper and lower ball joints along with inner and outter tie rods just because i didnt feel like doing it myself. So this **** gets on the computer and says it will be 1400 for labor i was like wtf are u charging me 300 an hour i was like there is no way this will take more then 5 hours he says the computer says it will take 12 so i was so if sit here and it take 5 are u going to charge me for 5 and he looks funny as i walk out the door

 

Parts ready to go in.

 

12 hours is stupid. BUT...if one of them is siezed in there, you're gonna wish like hell you'd have paid someone to do it.

 

There is a 'book' time for repair work on vehicles. The time is based on an average of how long it took some mechanics to do the work or something. If you are good at your work, you can do it under the book time - and make money.

You're usually able to do front end work under the book time...why do you think shops sell front end work all the time?

Just for fun, you should time yourself...and I mean from the second you have to get your car off the street to the time you park it back where it was, and clean up.

 

^^ Yup.
ALL Dealerships go by booktime. When I worked at a dealership as a mechanic, I would generally work a 40hr week and get paid between 55-60hrs of book time because I would get the work done faster than I was allowed. Some of the more experience mechanics then were working 40-45hrs and making 65-70hrs booktime but only because the Service writers would favor certain mechanics and the things they did were easily profited.
Mechanics get paid by the hour per each book time hour worked.
Now, for warranty work...most mechanics get screwed. For example, I worked at a Chevy dealership. The Malibu's had a faulty blower motor amongst several other things(crap car). Warranty book time was 20min. It generally took over 1hr because you had to take apart half of the lower dash and glovebox to even get to the blower motor. It was a major problem and is why alot of dealers don't like warranty work because it barely pays for what is fair and they make no money.

I would suspect that within that labor time they quoted you was an hour allowed for the alignment tool as well. Alignments run ~$100-$150 at dealerships depending on your dealer.

 

100% this! I did the exact same job on my 04 over the summer. I didn't time myself, but it took a couple of days. I needed 1 new ABS sensor that tore apart pulling it out of the hub and I had to get the torch out on the passenger side as the TRE was stuck in the knuckle. You will have to take it in to get it aligned when you are done. And those rental ball joint press tools are a joke. I still saved money over getting it done if they wanted $1400 to do it, might've spent $500 with parts, tools, extra parts, and alignment, but it was a hell of a job for 1 person in a driveway.

 

My dealer quoted me 1100 for ball joints. I took it to another shop, they charged me 750 with parts. So I let em do it so I wouldn't have the hassle trying to do it by myself in the driveway.

 

Hah, yep. A driveway job like that makes you feel like you've been run through the ringer.

Usually, after a truck has a few years on it you'll need some compressed air, air chisel, pullers, a press and if you're lucky you won't need to break out the torches. It's a tough job even if you're good at it. There's always independent shops. I would look around.


......you ain't kiddin' ! Not to mention the money the car companies extort from the dealers to try an impliment silly BS guidelines. I could go on all day, but I won't lol

 

I lowered not long ago so the upper is no issue and i know they go by the book which doesnt count in overlap and i had took it to another shop before that had told me 450 because I had the parts already which is a fair price. But 1400 is just a rip off. i know thats how they get extra money by going by the book the same they do with parts you buy from them. they get them at a discount and generally charge around 30 percent over reg cost. i maybe getting old but miss the days where people didnt always try to screw you and cared about repeat customers

 

I would do it myself if i didnt live in an apt right now. ive changed just about everything on this truck myself so when i take it somewhere to do something i know how much it takes to do the work so i get pissed when im lied to or overcharged on something. When the guy tried to tell me the times on the jobs dont overlap i was like how could they not :-/