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Some people will call this a rant. So be it !
I have been a “shade tree” mechanic for about 50 years. Changed many sets of point and did several front drum brake jobs (I think the new GM style drum brakes with the one big spring are pretty cool !). I still regularly change my own oil and have done 3 brake jobs this year, so I “stay dirty” !
Like most DIY people, “A Man’s Got To Know His Limitations”, and I know mine. When a job is too nasty (plugs or wires on a Ford E150) or I don’t have the tools/skills (A/C) I take it down to the local shop. Their prices are “fair”, except for parts. I would hope most of the “labor” costs get passed on to the techs. They work hard and deserve it. Its the parts mark up I am complaining about.
We are talking any where from 50-100% for the exact name brand part over Rock Auto or Amazon. Yes, I know, I am paying for the “convenience” of someone locally stocking the item and delivering it to the shop the same day. I am capable of using a computer to look up an item and have it delivered in 2 days (Amazon Prime) AND accept delaying most repair for that time. But most shops have a strict policy of not installing customer parts even when they are the exact same manufacturer and part number.
Example 1 Spark plug wires for a Ford 4.6L $90 ?!!!! COME ON ! Same brand (not Motorcraft) on Amazon were under $30
Example 2 Inner and outer tie rods, adjusting sleeves and center link for a 1998 E150. Moog vs Moog. Over $400 versus around $200. (Saved a lot more by installing them myself. Drove pretty weird until it got back to the shop for an alignment !)
Okay, the shop has overhead and consumables. But there has to be a compromise somewhere
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Amen on that , here’s an example , few years back I needed a small clip on a lid on the bottom console on my car , they don’t sell a clip , they only sell the new lid assembly , cost ? $ 250 dollars , and 5 minutes to remove and re-install , Oy Oy Oy .
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You are forgetting that the local shops do not keep inventory levels even close to what a warehouse store can do. When buying in bulk it is significantly less, so when a local shop gets parts it costs them more to buy the parts than Amazon or Rock Auto. Parts markup is one of the only places to make money, We do try to keep the markup as low as possible.
Everybody loves to get their parts markup, but the main reason customer-supplied parts are a problem is because it is more common than not for there to be a problem with the parts that holds the job up. Experienced professionals know this and dread every customer who wants to supply parts. There are enough parts screw-ups when it’s all being handled by professionals. Bringing the customer into it at least doubles the chances of that happening, and EVERY parts screw-up costs/loses a flat-rate tech money. I lost a job this morning that would have brought $300 gross over the counter, and $45 of it in my pocket because a professional ordered the wrong axle boot kit. I would say I got lucky that we couldn’t get the parts on the spot. I could have waited 15m to 2h for free with the car apart on my lift waiting for parts if we had been able to. Instead we just didn’t do the repair and I got on to the next thing.
The most common thing is that something is missing that they didn’t buy because they don’t understand the job. Such an example would be customer wants aftermarket springs/struts installed, but it take a bunch of wasted time to save all the rusty/rotten strut bearings, mounts, insulators, and bump stops and make them work. Another example is doing a tune up, but they don’t supply any gaskets for the intake manifold, EGR pipes, etc. that need to be removed for the job. If you’re talking a customer supplied engine part or turbo, then it really gets bad.
Then there are all the times the part is just wrong. So many of those times, the customer can’t afford to have us get the correct part on the spot. That just turns into a pissed off tech putting the car back together and pulling it out for free, and giving hell to his service people who have to be nice to a customer that just caused problems for multiple people.
There are also the times when someone thinks the parts they supply will fix a problem they’re not telling us about, and then they are upset when it’s not fixed they way they thought it would be. That may seem like a way to make more money by getting to fix the problem in our shop, but those situations do not usually end up being lucrative for a wide array of random reasons.
My friend’s shop charges a fee to customers who supply their own parts. I’m sure most customers think it’s a way to recoup the parts markup they’re not going to get, but it’s really to cover the costs of what I’ve just described. If these costly screw-ups didn’t happen, they would still charge the fee to recoup the parts loss. Quite frankly, Shops can only dream about being able to be so greedy that hey are worried about losing the parts markup. Preventing lost time and angry employees is the issue at the forefront of this subject.
The tax rates can be different for labor and parts. So, in certain areas, a higher parts cost can be beneficial – it offsets the (now reduced) labor cost while yielding the same total revenue for the shop and a lower tax bill.
If a customer returns with a problem, and the cause is a defective part, which is replaced under warranty – does the shop absorb the cost, or does the part manufacturer/supplier compensate the shop for replacing the defective part? Or, is it a little bit of Column A and little bit of Column B?
A shop must run a markup on the parts or they will be losing money or going under in spite of the perception otherwise.
What if the principle of cost only on the parts was applied to home builders, HVAC service people, electricians, plumbers, home remodelers, roofers, and even doctors and hospitals? They would all be in deep financial trouble unless they all raised their labor rates through the roof.
So 100 dollars a flat rate hour with parts markup or 150 an hour with cost only on the parts…..As to labor costs on incorrect or failed customer provided parts I’ve never seen a parts manufacturer anywhere compensate the shop or mechanic for a problem with their part; both at dealerships or independent shops. Maybe it happened somewhere but not to my knowledge at any place I’ve ever worked or known about.
If an independent shop provides the part and it fails the shop usually covers the repair again per their warranty period. If it’s a new car dealer with a failed factory part it can be replaced under the existing factory parts warranty although the dealer markup on the part is limited usually to 25% and both labor hours and hourly rate are cut for warranty purposes.
If a shop uses a customer provided part then the warranty is up the minute the job is done as far as I’m concerned.I’ve been in the middle of some of those customer parts that were of poor quality and failed quickly and the customer in most cases WILL get mad at the shop for that failure. Even failures of brand name parts can be an issue. At a VW dealer I installed a full set of Bilstein struts on a brand new VW per customer request and within 2 months 3 of of the 4 failed.
He provided these parts and thinks it’s our fault they failed. Not. Bilstein would not pay for labor and we certainly were not because he was told from the get-go once on they’re his.People don’t realize dealerships barely make money on new car sales. They make their money on parts, and service. And ripping off techs with over lapping book times and tweaking RO’s so techs barely get paid for jobs.
Working flat rate at new car dealers is pretty close to Hell on Earth. It’s too bad that more people don’t see or understand the loads of BS that go on all the time behind those service doors.
I worked for a dealer once who announced they were going to what was called a “Team Pay Plan”. Under our original payplan we worked flat rate and we got paid once a month with a draw against our pay about the middle of the month. Essentially, paid every 2 weeks and it wasn’t that bad after a few months of getting used to it.
Under the Team plan they were going to pool everyone’s hours and divide by the number of mechanics. This is total BS.
This meant that if one mechanic flagged 60 hours on the week and another flagged 30 because he was chronically late, taking days off to go fishing, or just coming in as a warm body and not working hard the mechanic who had 60 hours would have to give up 15 hours to the guy with 30 so both would have 45 and “make it fair”.It’s another story altogether but this plan fell apart the first week when the revolution broke out (I instigated it….) and every mechanic quit at once. They hired us all back at once after scrapping the plan.
How many people no matter where they worked or how they were paid would enjoy or go along with a pay plan that took money out of their checks to subsidize another employee? None.
The final straw before war broke out was when the company utility man (swept floors, ran errands, etc) told me that he had discovered the company had put him on the plan and he wasn’t even contributing to the pool of flat rate hours. So the mechanics in the shop were basically paying his salary instead of the company.OK, first off if you are trying to compare prices on Amazon to brick and mortar store pricing you have a serious lack of understanding of the pure economics of retail. Long story short, because I really don’t feel like explaining this all to you, you are paying a premium for local stocking of the part. It costs money to keep that part on a shelf and get to the shop fast, that is what you are paying for. Shops don’t want to order your part from Amazon because it takes them more time, your car has to sit there longer (space is often limited) and if there is an issue with the part the time delay can get pretty epic.
With ‘mail order’ parts there is also the issue of who pays for the parts problems? When a shop gets a part from the local parts house if there is an issue with that part it is easy to return and in some cases they can get credit for the wasted labor. They order the part from Amazon or somewhere and who pays for that lost time? Who pays for a car taking up a bay because it’s sitting due to a parts issue? With a local parts supplier that new part is there FAST, not so much with Amazon…
There is also a parts quality component to it. When I managed a shop (equipment service but similar stuff) I only purchased OEM alternators or got them from a local rebuilder who stood behind his stuff. The reason what the cheap parts store alternators often had a MUCH shorter service life. It’s a bad deal for the customer and a bad deal for me because THE SHOP is the one who looks bad when there is a comeback. Suspension parts are the same way; I stick to getting good Moog stuff over the cheap parts because it lasts.
As for putting on your parts? It’s a terrible proposition for the shop. Not only do they not make the money on the part but after YEARS of doing this I can tell you that AT LEAST 80% of the time there is a parts related issue that makes the whole job either a loss of money or a huge hassle and time suck. Be it wrong parts, not enough parts, low-quality parts or one of 10 million other ways there can be a problem. For some reason a customer never wants to pay the extra labor for THEIR parts problems….
Installing customer provided parts is just too big a risk for shops to assume although some do it. One thing that does happen and I’ve been in the middle of a few of those types of things is this.
The customer is advised there is no guarantee on the part; only that labor won’t be botched installing it. The customer gladly and willingly agrees to these terms.
When a problem crops up a week, month, or 6 months later the customer has amnesia and remembers no such thing about “no warranty” on the part they provided; even on repair orders with their signature stating this.In a few cases, we were accused of “You forged my name!”.
Not true of course; only desperate grasping by a consumer whose idea to cheap out went badly.
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