Dealership Labor Rates

[Vettereddie]

Service makes more money than selling cars does, tenfold.

This pretty much reinforces the point of the Original Post. If the majority (10x) of dealer profit is coming from service, they're likely over charging customers.

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[WJOHNM]

I was fortunate to not have to pay today however what I thought was bad is now worse.
As has been written the price of the Maverick has increased 25%. What truly makes hard to buy a vehicle are the dealerships labor rates. I thought that the local JEEP dealer was bad at $180’per hour. The Ford dealer where I was at is charging $185 per hour. Another dealer that owns several dealerships in the the area is charging $205 per hour.
I hope the dealers realize that this will push customers out of the door.
The only way around this is lease or by cars from the local junker dealers.
how can a person who doesn’t have the skill to work on a vehicle survive with the kind costs. The last brake that I paid for cost me $1500. I wanted to get a trailer hitch put on my Cherokee and the dealership wanted $2000 for that. This is just crazy.

What makes me mad is they pay there mechanics 25/30 bucks a hour, big profit center for them. Someone has to pay for those fancy dealerships and warranty repairs that the factory doesn't cover or pays much less than us.

 

[CTYankee]

We also added a "if it doesn't fit, you're still paying us" and "if something breaks on it and you need to warranty it, you're paying us again to remove and replace it".

We did the same. If we spent time on it only to discover it didn't fit or wasn't the correct part, the customer still had to pay for the time spent. Remove and replace, same thing. It was on the customer to handle warranty issues on parts they supplied.

A good independent shop should be charging almost the same labor rate as a dealer. If you find an independent shop that charges a lot less than the dealer you have to ask why?

Are they, paying lower wages for less qualified techs? Not buying the needed diagnostic equipment and tools? Not investing in training for their techs? Not paying for vacation and retirement plans to retain good employees?

The only exception is finding a small shop with the owner and maybe his wife working there and he's committed to investing in his family business without having any employee's.

I'd have to disagree with this. Very few shops, including good ones, in our area charged labor rates anywhere near the dealers. Our rate was $90/hour while the dealership was $120/hour or more. We didn't do flag rates, either. Customers paid us for time spent, no more.

We actually never lost a good employee to a higher paying job in the automotive industry. They usually ended up in one of the skilled trades because someone saw their work ethic and skill set and recruited them. We were, however, close to the "mom and pop" model with only one or two employees at any given time.

 

[Steelie Van]

Jeep Ram, Fiat in Santa Rosa CA is $249/hr!

Local old school garage for basic maintenance is $50/hr

Local AAA service garage was fee for service and more expensive than dealer alacarte pricing, even after 25%!member discount.

worth putting the time in if you can.

Fortunately the Mav has needed nothing.

 

[TomD]

What makes me mad is they pay there mechanics 25/30 bucks a hour, big profit center for them. Someone has to pay for those fancy dealerships and warranty repairs that the factory doesn't cover or pays much less than us.

I cracks my teeth when I walk into the showroom and the sales people are playing games on their phones. My dad had a dealer that he bought all of his Ford vehicles from. If the owner caught salesmen loafing he didn’t need that sales person anymore.

 

[Ranch]

We did the same. If we spent time on it only to discover it didn't fit or wasn't the correct part, the customer still had to pay for the time spent. Remove and replace, same thing. It was on the customer to handle warranty issues on parts they supplied.



I'd have to disagree with this. Very few shops, including good ones, in our area charged labor rates anywhere near the dealers. Our rate was $90/hour while the dealership was $120/hour or more. We didn't do flag rates, either. Customers paid us for time spent, no more.

We actually never lost a good employee to a higher paying job in the automotive industry. They usually ended up in one of the skilled trades because someone saw their work ethic and skill set and recruited them. We were, however, close to the "mom and pop" model with only one or two employees at any given time.

Interesting post. The independent shop I worked at in California charged $90 an hour way back in the 1990's. And I do believe that independents typically charge less than the dealers.

So if a tech is really slow and takes twice as long as book time the customer paid the higher price? That's not very fair in my opinion.

 

[Bwicka]

I was fortunate to not have to pay today however what I thought was bad is now worse.
As has been written the price of the Maverick has increased 25%. What truly makes hard to buy a vehicle are the dealerships labor rates. I thought that the local JEEP dealer was bad at $180’per hour. The Ford dealer where I was at is charging $185 per hour. Another dealer that owns several dealerships in the the area is charging $205 per hour.
I hope the dealers realize that this will push customers out of the door.
The only way around this is lease or by cars from the local junker dealers.
how can a person who doesn’t have the skill to work on a vehicle survive with the kind costs. The last brake that I paid for cost me $1500. I wanted to get a trailer hitch put on my Cherokee and the dealership wanted $2000 for that. This is just crazy.

Time to bust out some wrenches , you tube videos and the ol’ service manual .( found somewhere here online.)
It’s really not that hard and the specialty tools and software are used rarely.easy to borrow or rent.;
I’ve always been my own warranty.
Never had a vehicle under warranty since early 2004 on a ml500 mercedes , but i still did the brakes on it.
My 23 Tremor i had for a week then busted out the sawzall and welder.
Just do it .

 

[CTYankee]

Interesting post. The independent shop I worked at in California charged $90 an hour way back in the 1990's. And I do believe that independents typically charge less than the dealers.

So if a tech is really slow and takes twice as long as book time the customer paid the higher price? That's not very fair in my opinion.

California is a different market with a different cost structure than central MA so the labor rates aren't necessarily the same. For example, our labor rate was $75/hour until we bumped it to $90 around 2012.

You're also assuming facts not in evidence, as they say.

Our customers paid for the time a job should actually take, not the flag rate or book time that could be twice as long or even longer than the real time needed to complete the work.

If the tech took longer than the time we quoted, it didn't change what the customer paid, unless it was a customer-supplied part that we weren't accustomed to installing and that caused the extra time spent. No one ever paid for a tech's learning curve or for slow technicians. There's nothing unfair about that.

 

[Joe Strummer]

Remember - these rates include a complimentary styrofoam cup of insipid coffee. Mmmm.

 

[WJOHNM]

I cracks my teeth when I walk into the showroom and the sales people are playing games on their phones. My dad had a dealer that he bought all of his Ford vehicles from. If the owner caught salesmen loafing he didn’t need that sales person anymore.

Back in oct 21 when I was looking to order my 22 FX4 the first dealership I went to barely knew what a Maverick was, they had no idea of models and options, I on the other hand knew everything about a Maverick and had to tell them after watching and reading everything I could find. I found it hard to believe with all the time they have sitting around waiting for a customer to come in they don't study a new model, the second dealer I was in had some knowledge of packages and options only because one of his co-workers ordered one. I left a deposit with that dealer and got my truck 9 months later.

 

[todd92]

Dealers are for warranty and recalls only. They charge more because they have huge overhead. Services writers, service manager, parts inventory, parts workers, parts manager, billing and accounting department. Not to mention the giant facilities and real estate. There is no need to go there for routine maintenance.

Find and honest local repair shop. I go to a shop with two mechanics and no other employees. The rare times I can't fix it myself I take it to them and the the bill never seems outrageous and it's done right.

 

[Ranch]

California is a different market with a different cost structure than central MA so the labor rates aren't necessarily the same. For example, our labor rate was $75/hour until we bumped it to $90 around 2012.

You're also assuming facts not in evidence, as they say.

Our customers paid for the time a job should actually take, not the flag rate or book time that could be twice as long or even longer than the real time needed to complete the work.

If the tech took longer than the time we quoted, it didn't change what the customer paid, unless it was a customer-supplied part that we weren't accustomed to installing and that caused the extra time spent. No one ever paid for a tech's learning curve or for slow technicians. There's nothing unfair about that.

I'm not sure that it's a fact book time could be twice as long or longer the majority of the time. I thought that book time doesn't allow for rusted, stripped or oil caked fasteners that can make the job take much longer.

And how did you do the labor quote? Take book time and divide by two? Or ignore book time, go by past experience and hope it's close?

 

[CTYankee]

I'm not sure that it's a fact book time could be twice as long or longer the majority of the time. I thought that book time doesn't allow for rusted, stripped or oil caked fasteners that can make the job take much longer.

And how did you do the labor quote? Take book time and divide by two? Or ignore book time, go by past experience and hope it's close?

I sold my business in 2021 so I don't have a view into current labor rates but, based on what my customers used to tell me, the dealership install rates were significantly higher than ours. I assumed that was a function of higher hourly rates plus longer book time.

Since we were not a high-volume shop, it was better for the customer and the tech to use set pricing on installs wherever we could. The main exception to that was installing lift kits on vehicles more than 5 years old.

Five years was a somewhat arbitrary cutoff, but our experience showed we were more likely to run into rusted bolts and higher levels of difficulty with vehicles that had 5 years of New England winter roads under their tires. That's another variable that the California market doesn't have.

Experience gave us a pretty good clue on how long a particular job might take. Step bar installs, for example, were always a 1 hour install. Power steps took longer and were priced at 2 hours. If it ran longer than that, we absorbed the cost difference. If it was quicker (45 minutes was pretty common for non-power steps) we made out a little better.

There were days when we had one install after another and others when the shop was empty, so it's a different model than a dealership that has a steady stream of work virtually all the time. The techs never had to worry about slow install days because they worked the counter if there was nothing in the shop. So hourly rates worked well for them and set installation pricing worked well for the customers. In addition, we had a bonus plan for the techs if the shop exceeded the monthly sales and gross profit goals, so they often did better than just their hourly pay.

 

[notfast]

Believe it or not one of the most cost-effective places to go for a trailer hitch install is U-Haul.
They want to rent you trailers so they will install a permanent hitch at a reasonable price.
Definitely worth getting a price from them.

If by "install" you mean "hitch is hopefully bolted securely to the vehicle and the wiring harness is not entirely on the ground", then sure. I suppose it's up to the individual technician and how much pressure they're under to crank out hitch installs, but I've repaired way too much "wiring" from U-Haul hitch installs to recommend them for anything other than a hitch-only install for a bike rack.

My favorites were the trailer plug wiring harnesses that were not in any sort of loom and just zip-tied to the brake lines (one of the few objects that runs from the back of the car to the front) without even fastening the zip-ties all the way or cutting off the excess. Oh, and lots of Scotch-lock connectors that caused wires to snap from fatigue.

Next to that would be the trailer brake controllers mounted on the left side of the driver's kneeboard. Makes a great knee-bashing implement every time you climb in and out of the vehicle.

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