mechanic pricing...?

Question

There is a sign in the office at my mechanic. It say we charge $72 an hour for labor, if we use your parts we charge $125 an hour.

Is this normal? Because it certainly does not seem fair.

Answer 1

Yes, it's their policy. Most shops hate it when people bring their own parts because of several reasons. Same as, do you bring your own eggs to a diner and ask them to cook them for you?

People usually bring cheap parts, or could even be wrong parts, or even used parts that don't work. This ties a mechanic up and wastes a lot of time. Most shops will not install customer supplied parts.

Answer 2

Most shops make money on the parts! They can buy the same parts from the same parts store, and they pay less than a customer walking in off the street! Part of their profit is what they make on parts!

When a customer brings in their own parts, there are several problems that can occur. The part can be wrong, either because of an error on your part or by the part store! If they get a wrong part, the parts store will get them the replacement quickly! If you give them the wrong part, they have to call you, wait for you to come and get the wrong part and exchange it, and then bring it back to them. If the car is in the bay or on the lift, and disassembled, they can not work on anything else until the part comes in and they can free up the bay!

They do not want to install your parts. Rather than saying that they won't do it, they are willing to do so at extra cost! That sounds more than fair to me! If you do not like that, you are free to go elsewhere!

Answer 3

i will install coustomer parts but there is no warranty
it can be very furistrating though like the time some one cave ne a autozone starter it didnt work they and i felt bad as i wanted o charge labor o re do the job but it hadent ever started i did an altanator in a checker /shucks parking lot same thing and a lot of pep boys parts (i wont even install them any more its not worth my time)

part of the shop prophet comes from there parts they count on it some shops pay there mechanics on a % of the ticket total price lets say they did a starter job the starter cost them $100 they mark itt up to $150 they charge you $100 to put it in the shop profit is $150 now you bring in your part the shop wants to charge you $ 150 to put it in that is so the mechanic can still get paid his cut other wise youre asking him to take a pay cut to work on your car

Answer 4

They make money by them supplying the parts. If you do, they don't. You don't have to use that shop if you don't want to. At our shop, we will install there parts at the same rate just to be nice but we off no guarantee on them, only the labor.