Estimate v invoice total

eabeukes said:

My previous mechanic gave me 2 estimates: best-case and worst-case. The worst case one was for things like rust, siezed bolts, drilling old crap out if needed etc. Basically all the unforseen things that you could find on a 20 year old car. Normally I planned finance around the worst-case. Mostly I was billed best-case

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Exactly how mine does things^^

Transparency keeps everyone happy. Threads like this make me so grateful to have a great mechanic.

very difficult to answer im afraid ..

Ill try to stay neutral ..

Its hard to give a min and max price for a component to be changed .. everything is normally done via the book time for a particular job .. but book times dont take into account things that dont come undone .

You could try and give a min / max price .. but how do you actually work that out .. there isnt a set time to cut out something .

With suspension work then it can be straight forward or an absoulte nightmare .. ive seen both ..

Ie .. Coffin arm .. if the ball joint nut starts spinning it has to be cut off , not that easy , if the bush bolt seizes then its again cutting out and not that easy .. this job can basically be between 1 - 3 hours and thats X1 arm .. to have both on x1 arm then its expensive ..and very difficult to give a price hence garages say an estimate ... a quote and they need to honour the price .

At the end of the day its not our fault that something snaps , doesnt come undone etc but i do feel most garages would not charge every min but charge what they think is fair for a set job .

I know with what i do .. fault finding .. i may take 5 hours but i say charge 3 as thats what i think is fair and thats what we do ..

The service advisors are lead by what the mechanics tell them to a certain extent ..

You also have to bear in mind how busy a garage is .. if snowed under then they are more inclined to charge .. they have after all put off other work to do your car and once again .. if it takes me 3 hours to remove something then why is it my fault ? i cant just undo something thats seized i have to cut and burn im afraid .

Over all though i understand , jobs like this can escalate and a look at the car first then a phone call to say .. its pretty coroded here .. the cost may well go up shall we continue would be in order .. but i can never be sure a bolt will come out untill ive done it so this approach is difficult .

Basically a garage will never win what ever we do , we tend to replace broken items and thats always going to be an unexpected cost .

Just thought it fair to put a mechanics point of view here ... well mine anyways .. i dont represent my garage btw .

Near Haywards Heath by any chance?

^^^
exactly and that's why I will nearly always try to do the job myself and allocate at least double the time I think I will need to the job. Assume most bolts will be corroded and be pleasantly surprised if they are not. I'm not happy when I have to spend and extra hour per side sawing through a troublesome toe arm bolt etc but I'm very glad that I haven't had to pay a garage £80 + Vat to do it on top of the expected labour and parts cost.
Most garages seem to go by the book time but then I would be annoyed if it was straight forward job and they did it an hour quicker than expected and charged me the book figure!

Obviously on several jobs I would pay for their superior knowledge and experience and I'd be happy to do that but with most maintenance items I'll have a go mainly to keep the costs down as these cars can be expensive to maintain if you live down South.

g911omr said:

Hooner said:

Seized bolts or not it shouldn't take them much longer as they have the best tools for the job and have delt with the problems before. A few hours more maybe but 12 hours extra is ridiculous.

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I agree.

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I also agree. I have found OPC Chester to be very reasonable on using book times and on one msjor service, some additional work was agreed in price. The job took longer than book time but they honoured the quoted price. I dont think any indy would do that.
I use both OPC and indy but selectively.

I agree with Demorts way of thinking. Thing is, there are mechanic's, and then there are some fairly "upmarket" Porsche garages that employ mechanic's.

If I employ a tradesperson to do a job in my home, say tiling for example, they give me a quote, if I agree, they do the work. If, as happened recently, my kitchen tiles that the Missus liked, turn out to be cream cracker's and gave the tiler a bit of a mare, then we agreed that it had taken twice as long as he expected. I paid him more, but not twice as much. We came to an agreement of what was reasonable.

Surely a garage should do the same. Sadly, I feel that some independent Porsche garages think I, you and other Porsche owners are unfortunate mugs to be bled dry.

Parrs Porsche in Crawley makes me feel like that. I once asked how much for a geo set up. £230 was the reply. Ooofff, a bit steep, by the way I want a bit more negative camber at the front and less at the rear. "Oh, that'll be £295 for a fast road set up" What the @&%$¥!!!" I say. It's still the same bolts and amount of work/time as a "factory set up?" Well I don't know says the delightful receptionist, I can't say. But that's the price......

I went to 9excellence up the road who did a splendid job. I spoke to the mechanic, who listened to want I wanted. Told me what he could and was prepared to do, and was charged a reasonable amount. About half what Parrs wanted........

Spoken to Parrs engine rebuilding chap too. Wouldn't tell me what cylinders they use for replacement. Wouldn't tell me who did the machining, wouldn't tell me whose IMS bearing they use. All trade secrets apparently! Piss Off!!! I'm spending £10,000 and they won't tell you what your buying? Having a total laugh at the punters, and taking them to be a mug.

Sorry, turned into a rant.
I feel for the OP because they suspect they've been mugged off. Dunno if you have but I hate that feeling.....

deMort said:

very difficult to answer im afraid ..

Ill try to stay neutral ..

Its hard to give a min and max price for a component to be changed .. everything is normally done via the book time for a particular job .. but book times dont take into account things that dont come undone .

You could try and give a min / max price .. but how do you actually work that out .. there isnt a set time to cut out something .

With suspension work then it can be straight forward or an absoulte nightmare .. ive seen both ..

Ie .. Coffin arm .. if the ball joint nut starts spinning it has to be cut off , not that easy , if the bush bolt seizes then its again cutting out and not that easy .. this job can basically be between 1 - 3 hours and thats X1 arm .. to have both on x1 arm then its expensive ..and very difficult to give a price hence garages say an estimate ... a quote and they need to honour the price .

At the end of the day its not our fault that something snaps , doesnt come undone etc but i do feel most garages would not charge every min but charge what they think is fair for a set job .

I know with what i do .. fault finding .. i may take 5 hours but i say charge 3 as thats what i think is fair and thats what we do ..

The service advisors are lead by what the mechanics tell them to a certain extent ..

You also have to bear in mind how busy a garage is .. if snowed under then they are more inclined to charge .. they have after all put off other work to do your car and once again .. if it takes me 3 hours to remove something then why is it my fault ? i cant just undo something thats seized i have to cut and burn im afraid .

Over all though i understand , jobs like this can escalate and a look at the car first then a phone call to say .. its pretty coroded here .. the cost may well go up shall we continue would be in order .. but i can never be sure a bolt will come out untill ive done it so this approach is difficult .

Basically a garage will never win what ever we do , we tend to replace broken items and thats always going to be an unexpected cost .

Just thought it fair to put a mechanics point of view here ... well mine anyways .. i dont represent my garage btw .

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Pretty much spot on.


You know from experience the jobs that can be troublesome and we try to warn for worse case. However it does not always plan out that way - recent example is simple (well always has been ) Ohlins installation - time is 12 hours including ride heights and full geometry. Unfortunately for the first time ever the mounting brackets on each of the original dampers would not come off - no matter what method they would not unthread and Porsche don't sell them unless you buy new dampers and aftermarket dampers reuse them. Bilstein had none in stock. Car sitting on ramp. In the end we had to cut the old dampers in half to release enough pressure to remove them- not a pleasant experience as the dampers are under pressure - that took 6 hours extra on what would be a one hour task.


Yes you can tell the customer, which he agreed, but I couldn't tell him how long it would take - it might not even have worked. Nor would I keep ringing him up every 2 hours to say progress - end of day progress or when you know.


Similarily, and common problem, recently we had 6 bolts that snapped in heads upon manifold removal - they would not budge, no matter what tools used. There is a guy in the South that works for all the OPCs and independents. This is all he does. That would normally be 30 minutes a bolt. He is probably the best in the business been doing it for 30 years plus. That job took him 7 hours in the end to remove, time inserts etc etc. So I can turn round and say it will take on average 3 hours for 6 bolts, but sometimes it does not work that way.


I can tell you that the cost of one hour labour to the business is approx £55. That is no profit, just cost of one hour of technician time (overheads divided by available hours). If it takes an extra 6 hours on a job and it is not the result of technician lack of experience then it is chargeable. If your boss asks to work an extra 6 hours for free then I expect you wouldn't be too happy about.


The final bill should be close to what the estimate was subject to anything extra found and if there are significant additional hours because of age of car then they should be chargeable.

I find most customers understand. No one likes paying more and you know the worst job, well for me, is telling a customer he has more to pay. Sometimes I get to tell a customer there bill is less.

What used to annoy me being on the other side of the fence before, is simple things that garages know can happen, but don't say anything when providing a quote. Like when changing exhausts, none of the garages I used ever mentioned to me the risk of o2 sensors not coming out and if you had to have four new sensors, that is a lot of money. We always highlight things like this because imo customers should be aware - it also makes my life easier because customer is prewarned and it is always nice when they all come out fine and no additional part cost.

It is all about transparency imo.

Ken

Well said Ken :thumb:

That's sensible Ken, but can I just query one point? You say that the cost of one hour is £55, but that isn't an incremental cost to 9e, is it? Your overheads are mostly fixed, so if you have to work, say, an extra six hours on a job and you charge the customer an added £330 (6 x £55), your actual physical costs haven't gone up by £330, have they?

Unless of course you pay your techs £55 per hour. Perhaps you do, what with NI and all.

Surely the right thing to do (unless you've agreed a fixed fee, see below) is charge the extra incremental cost over and above the original estimate? My experience is that garages actually say "sorry mate, it took three hours longer, so we've added three hours labour at £100 per hour so that's another £300 Sir..."; that's assuming they don't then say "oh, plus 20% VAT, did we not mention that?"

In my line of work - accountancy - most jobs are quoted as a fixed fee. You win some, you lose some, but at least the client knows the cost in advance.

22hrs labour itself is an awful lot, what exactly were they tasked to do? I can see suspension jobs getting difficult and hacking and torching required but there must be more on the job sheet than suspension and brakes, can you specify ?

kas750 said:

Well said Ken :thumb:

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+1

on a side note my mechanic is the 2nd best I've met. Fantastic at his job and only 30 years old. His rate is £30 per hour.


For all I care, he can take as long as he wants because whatever he takes, it's peanuts compared to paying places with high overheads who charge triple.

Although he does call me (mid flight) if he thinks the price is escalating and thinks I might be concerned about the cost.

Counter Of Beans said:

That's sensible Ken, but can I just query one point? You say that the cost of one hour is £55, but that isn't an incremental cost to 9e, is it? Your overheads are mostly fixed, so if you have to work, say, an extra six hours on a job and you charge the customer an added £330 (6 x £55), your actual physical costs haven't gone up by £330, have they?

Unless of course you pay your techs £55 per hour. Perhaps you do, what with NI and all.

Surely the right thing to do (unless you've agreed a fixed fee, see below) is charge the extra incremental cost over and above the original estimate? My experience is that garages actually say "sorry mate, it took three hours longer, so we've added three hours labour at £100 per hour so that's another £300 Sir..."; that's assuming they don't then say "oh, plus 20% VAT, did we not mention that?"

In my line of work - accountancy - most jobs are quoted as a fixed fee. You win some, you lose some, but at least the client knows the cost in advance.

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Basically if I take overheads and add wages/ni/pension costs etc, then take available hours of tech time ( I have five techs ) it works out around £55 per available tech hour. A tech goal is to, subject to available work, bill 6 hours a day. It is not possible to bill 8 hours a day - you would have to have to be not waiting on parts, not waiting on service manager producing quotes from VHC, actually get hold of customers etc.

So basically if I have a tech doing no billing work, that is 6 x £55 of non contribution to running costs. So you can see if all five techs don't do any billing hours, how much you lose in one day.

Fortunately we are busy. Techs generally don't have downtime and have another car waiting.

So back to the example - it takes an extra 6 hours work because of exceptional circumstances. If I don't charge that 6 hours it is actually costing me money in the sense that he could have been working on something else. Of course you can argue if he didn't have another car to work on that day, then you have not lost any more money if he spends that 6 hours.

Basically as in the example, the 12 hours, it is pretty much spot on - sometimes it comes in at 12 hours, other times it might take 14 hours because for some reason the steering wheel is not 100% straight after testing the geo set up, and you have to make the change and back out to test again. That is something that is not the issue of the customer - it is an issue for a tech to get it right first time.

Porsche have book times - we use those as a maximum. Generally we will be quicker than those book times. Remember in an OPC the book time is what a tech is allowed - if he/she can do it in less, then his/her efficency rises - the customer still in that case get charged the book time. OPC tech get pulled in if their efficency is not 85% plus a week.

As to fixed price. We have fixed price for all servicing - those things don't go wrong. The rest is an estimate, and I would say that 9/10 jobs come in at those prices. If I make a mistake with underestimating then I take that on the chin with regards to labour and the next time I quote it would be at a higher price. To me that is my fault if I underquote - I should know precisely how long a job takes through experience.


I would actually be embarrased to even think to say to a customer oh by the way when I said it was 2 hours, it was 3 hours - I underestimated. Never would think that because they might have chosen us over someone else because we were say £100 cheaper.


But generally, if it is not our lack of expertise, and exceptional circumstances, as in the job I mentioned re the Ohlins, then I explain to the customer and I would normally ask that they pick up 1/2 the exceptional hours. I get paid something and hte customer gets a good deal. And as mentioned, now if I was quoting for that job to another customer, I would still quote the 12 hours, but point out that it is possible in exceptional circumstances that the supports might not come off and there may be an additional charge.


Ken

:welcome:

So you joined the forum to potentially sh!t on someone's parade :dont know:

Either say who it is who did wrong or praise them for resolving the issue... :nooo:

Seems odd to join up for a rant :roll:


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:rulez:

This post is not in the spirit of 911uk.