Hello!

I hope you are all doing great!

Just had a question.... this past weekend went to my good friend to do some yearly maintanance I do on my minivan along with a must need placement of my Radiator. In total the parts were:

Oil Sensor 24.95
serpentine belt tensioner 57.50
serpentine belt 25.84
spark plugs 12.00
oil change parts like oil and filter 15.00
water hose $15.00
radiator $101.50

TOTAL: 251.79 In parts and it was cheaper for him because he buys it wholesale but this is regular price as least thats what he told me.

Now... once were done with the car and of course these are things I have no clue how to fix.. but he was done in 1 hr 45 minutes and charged me a total of

$751.50 including parts... which means... $499.71 in Labor for all of this work...

did my best friend just rip me off or its a decent price?

THANKS!

Tali

 

The parts list seems very fair(even cheap), but
that's a lot of labor for a "friend" to charge.

 

Dude, that's $285.00 and hour. ($499 divided by 1.75) Uh...my nephew is a drag car builder with a price tag of $100,000 and up, who fabricates parts from scratch and his labor rate is $125 an hour. Yeah, you mighta got ripped off a little, sorry to say. what he might have done is went by the labor manual which dictates how long a job is supposed to take. I betcha he calculated each job as if he were only replacing that particular part, not as if he already had it tore down to replace another part. You follow? Example: Price the radiator as a complete radiator removal and install. Then go back and charge for the radiator hoses as a hose removal and install. When in reality he had the radiator hoses off anyway to remove the radiator. Double whammy. Mechanics do this. Especially to the unsuspecting. Thats why I learn all I can about my vehicle. Anything short of pulling the engine out, I can do in my driveway. Get a manual form AutoZone, read it.

 

This sucks man... not so much because of the money which hurts big time... but the frienship you know... I only take cars to him and he has never, ever dont this to me before.. maybe its because he knows I got my finantial reimbursement from school but he knew I also needed clothes and stuff... Man.... but Praise God.. he is faithful and I will get over it.. I just thank you guys for the advice because in all honestly, I dont know much about cars but when I saw the price tag... I was like... WHAT? But paid it without even complaining so that he wouldnt fell bad..

 

He said he hated to do the spark plugs because they are in a difficult position

 

Is your buddy a Mechanic because that's a lot of work performed in a short time.
Are you familiar with Flat rate or book time?
Each job on a car takes a certain about of time for an average tech to perform. It's standardised by either Mitchell or Chilton.
Experienced "Technicians" can routinely perform these jobs well under book time. Sometimes less than 1/2 the book time. The Customer always pays book time regardless of actual time spent.

So lets break this down.
I'll quote approximate times by memory in tenths of an hour.(Standard for the industry) (accuracy may be off a bit here)

Oil Sensor .6
serpentine belt tensioner .8
serpentine belt -included
spark plugs 1.8 (tune up)
oil change parts like oil and filter .5
water hose ? (need more info)
radiator 2.0

So that's 5.7 hours worth of work performed. Plus "water hose"

$500/5.7 hours is about $88 per hour.
This is assuming you have the parts/labor numbers right.

The parts price seems way low. The Radiator could be $200 all by it's self.
I don't think you got ripped off but you certainly didn't get a "deal"

I used to charge "aquantinces" 1/2 the current shop labour rate and a 20% markup from my dead cost on the parts.
"Good friends" got a better deal.
You sure this guy knows your friends?

 

He owns a small car dealership which is very succesful for a small one and what he sells the most is Caravan's so he has worked in them for the past 8 years and knows them by heart. So maybe I did get a good deal then! Either way I paid him and didnt say anything because its easy for me to say its easy because its not me doing the work but he should have at least warned me before doing work that I didnt tell him to do like the water hose, oil sensor and serpentine belt tensioner....

 

A reputable mechanic will always give you a preliminary estimate for you to
OK before work starts.If there's a question,they should explain the answer to you until the question goes away.
The labor charge was extremely high because he obviously used the book labor charges with each job being figured sepeately.Doing the jobs all at once should have netted you a discount.That was his perogative however.The next time take the van to someone not quite so "friendly"!

 

How do you figure "doing the jobs all at once" nets you a discount?
I don't see any overlap between the jobs.
I don't think his parts to labour numbers are accurate though.