Discussion
loose cannon said:
a garage charges 75 80 per hour, for that you get factory training, many thousands of pounds in special tooling, enviromental charges,building costs, cost of staff, etc etc, how much does a solicitor charge an hour ? what are his overheads ?
3 Years university2 Years Law school
1 year training
And if your mechanic makes a mistake your car breaks down.
If your lawyer makes a mistake you get sent down*
[*exagerrated for effect]
GBS2K said:
loose cannon said:
a garage charges 75 80 per hour, for that you get factory training, many thousands of pounds in special tooling, enviromental charges,building costs, cost of staff, etc etc, how much does a solicitor charge an hour ? what are his overheads ?
3 Years university2 Years Law school
1 year training
And if your mechanic makes a mistake your car breaks down.
If your lawyer makes a mistake you get sent down*
[*exagerrated for effect]
but from a day to day point of view what is a solicitors overheads ? few parker pens and a leather clad note pad, expensive gifts for blonde big breasted secretary ?
and 2 hour lunch breaks at a swanky restaurant lol. £250 per hour money for old rope if there ever was
exagerated for comedy value
Edited by loose cannon on Tuesday 2nd November 18:26
I'd be perfectly happy paying £80 an hour if the job was done A1 perfectly in the time it should take someone who knows exactly what they are doing. Sadly in my experience the vast majority of garages charge these high prices, bodge the work and take twice as long as they should, so the high charge then becomes very irritating.
SC7 said:
How do they justify such a premium?
You know all the nice touches like the pretty receptionist handing out cups of filter coffee, the courtesy car, the spacious modern glass fronted showroom with perfect tiled workshop situated in a nice retail park or decent part of town that you just know costs a fortune in utilities and business rates to run . . . . . all that s
t costs a huge amount of money and when you couple it with staff who need to be paid and the desire for the business to make a profit, it means that labour rates can’t be mechanics wages + cost of renting a workshop under railway arches + 10% 
I work in safety driven industry. Fitters are equally, and maybe better trained than fitters in a car workshop and also can kill people if their work is poorly carried out. Typical labour rates in this industry? A charge out rate of £45/manhour for "shop-floor" staff outside London and £65 within the London area.
Maybe this is a blinkered view, but ultimately with car servicing you are paying for all the shiny stuff that means f
k all to the actual cost of a service.Where I work we charge £120 p/h (Less for the first hour of any diagnosis work) We are in London we ahve MASSIVE overheads jus to open the doors and put the lights on. Not pay a single member of staff.
The vast majority of bodgers are small "independent" or back street places. They bodge the cars, then when you kick off, they tell you to fk off. I've just had to replace nearly a grands worth of components and wiring that had been mullered by several non dealer workshops. This has been when they were "diagnosing" several tricky faults on the car. Had taken his money and not fixed anything. We don't charge if we can't fault. We don't charge if we screw something up.
With a main dealer, whilst I accept some things are immaterial to a lot of customers. the coffee and pot plants for example. What you get for you extra money is ACCONTABILITY. Whether that's from out people answering the phones to us covering any accidental damage (try getting an indie to admit they scratched your car) to if on the 1/500 times something goes a little wrong, (we see approxamately 250 cars per week! we will look into it straight away. Or even with the manufacturers UK arm or even their foreign owners. You ought to get a loan car, you ought to get your car cleaned/vaccd if requested. You get the service book stamp and the residuals that helps when you px. You get the recalls done on time. We even give champagne to owners of cars with warranty issues that meet a criteria.
This is an overdone argument. But I'm sick of hearing that a good indie (there are several in the UK) is better than ANY main dealer. But then I've found those most vociferous about our service. Are the weirest. One actually told our Service Advisor that the government should introduce a cap on labour rates. The weirdos car? A £45K SUV!
The vast majority of bodgers are small "independent" or back street places. They bodge the cars, then when you kick off, they tell you to f
k off. I've just had to replace nearly a grands worth of components and wiring that had been mullered by several non dealer workshops. This has been when they were "diagnosing" several tricky faults on the car. Had taken his money and not fixed anything. We don't charge if we can't fault. We don't charge if we screw something up.With a main dealer, whilst I accept some things are immaterial to a lot of customers. the coffee and pot plants for example. What you get for you extra money is ACCONTABILITY. Whether that's from out people answering the phones to us covering any accidental damage (try getting an indie to admit they scratched your car) to if on the 1/500 times something goes a little wrong, (we see approxamately 250 cars per week! we will look into it straight away. Or even with the manufacturers UK arm or even their foreign owners. You ought to get a loan car, you ought to get your car cleaned/vaccd if requested. You get the service book stamp and the residuals that helps when you px. You get the recalls done on time. We even give champagne to owners of cars with warranty issues that meet a criteria.
This is an overdone argument. But I'm sick of hearing that a good indie (there are several in the UK) is better than ANY main dealer. But then I've found those most vociferous about our service. Are the weirest. One actually told our Service Advisor that the government should introduce a cap on labour rates. The weirdos car? A £45K SUV!
Bowler said:
I work in safety driven industry. Fitters are equally, and maybe better trained than fitters in a car workshop and also can kill people if their work is poorly carried out. Typical labour rates in this industry? A charge out rate of £45/manhour for "shop-floor" staff outside London and £65 within the London area.
Maybe this is a blinkered view, but ultimately with car servicing you are paying for all the shiny stuff that means fk all to the actual cost of a service.
How much do you think the technican gets of the £120p/h the customer pays? And btw. I can't speak for fitters. But a car tech, doesn't get than much more than a car fitter. Which is a travesty. If I worked in Aerospace, to the same level of techncial knowledge. I'd be getting 4-5 times more a year. Sadly people think that they can all repair cars and they don't want to pay for it. Even a basic plumber can earn twice what I do in a year. And work less hours.Maybe this is a blinkered view, but ultimately with car servicing you are paying for all the shiny stuff that means f
k all to the actual cost of a service.Edited by Rich_W on Tuesday 2nd November 20:06
Rich_W said:
Where I work we charge £120 p/h (Less for the first hour of any diagnosis work) We are in London we ahve MASSIVE overheads jus to open the doors and put the lights on. Not pay a single member of staff.
The vast majority of bodgers are small "independent" or back street places. They bodge the cars, then when you kick off, they tell you to fk off. I've just had to replace nearly a grands worth of components and wiring that had been mullered by several non dealer workshops. This has been when they were "diagnosing" several tricky faults on the car. Had taken his money and not fixed anything. We don't charge if we can't fault. We don't charge if we screw something up.
With a main dealer, whilst I accept some things are immaterial to a lot of customers. the coffee and pot plants for example. What you get for you extra money is ACCONTABILITY. Whether that's from out people answering the phones to us covering any accidental damage (try getting an indie to admit they scratched your car) to if on the 1/500 times something goes a little wrong, (we see approxamately 250 cars per week! we will look into it straight away. Or even with the manufacturers UK arm or even their foreign owners. You ought to get a loan car, you ought to get your car cleaned/vaccd if requested. You get the service book stamp and the residuals that helps when you px. You get the recalls done on time. We even give champagne to owners of cars with warranty issues that meet a criteria.
This is an overdone argument. But I'm sick of hearing that a good indie (there are several in the UK) is better than ANY main dealer. But then I've found those most vociferous about our service. Are the weirest. One actually told our Service Advisor that the government should introduce a cap on labour rates. The weirdos car? A £45K SUV!
You make some reasonable points and yes you are probably right, industry rates for similar skills/training/experience vary massively from one industry to another. However in my post above, if I replaced the word "Fitter" with "Technician", my POV remains the same. The point here is that out of the £120/hr, how much does the guy on the tools get? 20%? (I'm not asking you to answer this, just making a point)The vast majority of bodgers are small "independent" or back street places. They bodge the cars, then when you kick off, they tell you to f
k off. I've just had to replace nearly a grands worth of components and wiring that had been mullered by several non dealer workshops. This has been when they were "diagnosing" several tricky faults on the car. Had taken his money and not fixed anything. We don't charge if we can't fault. We don't charge if we screw something up.With a main dealer, whilst I accept some things are immaterial to a lot of customers. the coffee and pot plants for example. What you get for you extra money is ACCONTABILITY. Whether that's from out people answering the phones to us covering any accidental damage (try getting an indie to admit they scratched your car) to if on the 1/500 times something goes a little wrong, (we see approxamately 250 cars per week! we will look into it straight away. Or even with the manufacturers UK arm or even their foreign owners. You ought to get a loan car, you ought to get your car cleaned/vaccd if requested. You get the service book stamp and the residuals that helps when you px. You get the recalls done on time. We even give champagne to owners of cars with warranty issues that meet a criteria.
This is an overdone argument. But I'm sick of hearing that a good indie (there are several in the UK) is better than ANY main dealer. But then I've found those most vociferous about our service. Are the weirest. One actually told our Service Advisor that the government should introduce a cap on labour rates. The weirdos car? A £45K SUV!
Bowler said:
I work in safety driven industry. Fitters are equally, and maybe better trained than fitters in a car workshop and also can kill people if their work is poorly carried out. Typical labour rates in this industry? A charge out rate of £45/manhour for "shop-floor" staff outside London and £65 within the London area.
Maybe this is a blinkered view, but ultimately with car servicing you are paying for all the shiny stuff that means fk all to the actual cost of a service.
How much do you think the technican gets of the £120p/h the customer pays? And btw. I can't speak for fitters. But a car tech, doesn't get than much more than a car fitter. Which is a travesty. If I worked in Aerospace, to the same level of techncial knowledge. I'd be getting 4-5 times more a year. Sadly people think that they can all repair cars and they don't want to pay for it. Even a basic plumber can earn twice what I do in a year. And work less hours.Maybe this is a blinkered view, but ultimately with car servicing you are paying for all the shiny stuff that means f
k all to the actual cost of a service.
I'm not supporting high labour rates but even at the average quoted it cant be easy to make money. The overheads must be high for the business and setup costs phenomenal. Its called market forces, you charge what you can for what you do, you may run a garage, be a cleaner, a footballer or supermarket manager. Everything has a value that people put on it. I think pilots are over paid, but thats what they are paid.
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