Garage labour rates

[T16OLE]

I am new to Leeds and don’t have any mechanic friends up here 

Anyway my car (01` 330ci) needs a service and MOT, a friend recommended a garage, spoke to the chap he seems to know what he is talking about and sounds like a decent guy

His labour rate is £35 per hour (No Vat) is this reasonable?

[trickywoo]

If he knows what he's doing I'd bite his hand off at that price.

[T16OLE]

He also has a 330ci which is a bonus, so he does seem to know everything about them as you`d expect.

If PH thinks thats a fair price then I`ll go for it, been blessed upto now having had lots of local mechanic friends (welcome to the real world)

[KevinA4quattro]

Round my way (South Coast) you are lucky to find anybody at less than £60/hour. Sounds an absolute bargain to me.

[T16OLE]

KevinA4quattro said:

Round my way (South Coast) you are lucky to find anybody at less than £60/hour. Sounds an absolute bargain to me.

Sounds like a bargain I suppose. Cheers fellas

[McHaggis]

Cramag in Yeadon (outer Leeds) can be quite good.

[Garvin]

T16OLE said:

His labour rate is £35 per hour (No Vat) is this reasonable?

Reasonable .......... no it's totally unreasonable ......... in a very good way!

[sulli]

£35 ph is about right for a generic garage. There's a BMW specialist near me, fairly small outfit that specialises in BMWs as well as working on all other cars, runs a race prepped E36 M3, and he's £35 ph - knows his way round M's.
Ignore those southern softies, they pay through the nose for anything and everything - they like being bent over

[T16OLE]

Garvin said:

Reasonable .......... no it's totally unreasonable ......... in a very good way!

Ah well, booked it in anyway, main plus point for me is that he has the same car and sounds pretty enthusiastic about them

[All that jazz]

T16OLE said:

I am new to Leeds and don’t have any mechanic friends up here 

Anyway my car (01` 330ci) needs a service and MOT, a friend recommended a garage, spoke to the chap he seems to know what he is talking about and sounds like a decent guy

His labour rate is £35 per hour (No Vat) is this reasonable?

Which garage is it just out of interest?

[Beeby]

I wouldn't take my car to somewhere to do both the service and mot. It provides them with the perfect opportunity to invent things that need fixing.

[T16OLE]

Beeby said:

I wouldn't take my car to somewhere to do both the service and mot. It provides them with the perfect opportunity to invent things that need fixing.

He takes it to a third party MOT place, but I suppose your point still stands

[Garvin]

T16OLE said:

Garvin said:

Reasonable .......... no it's totally unreasonable ......... in a very good way!

Ah well, booked it in anyway, main plus point for me is that he has the same car and sounds pretty enthusiastic about them

"Ah well"??? The "in a very good way!" means that it's almost worth me driving up from Canbridgeshire to get work done on my cars - local indie here is £55 per hour ex VAT ............ and that's considered pretty reasonable around here ........ in southern softy, bend 'em over and grease 'em up land!

[Stoatman]

Vtec specialist round my way is about 40 quid ish an hour. Bargain , when you end up having fiddly problems that only experienced hands can sort in about 5mins. Compared to floundering at the dealers or another garage for hours at 60 + quid an hour.

[T16OLE]

Stoatman said:

Vtec specialist round my way is about 40 quid ish an hour. Bargain , when you end up having fiddly problems that only experienced hands can sort in about 5mins. Compared to floundering at the dealers or another garage for hours at 60 + quid an hour.

Specialist often seems better than the dealers from my experience

[sparks_E39]

I take my car to get MOT'd at a U Drive hire place, they can't profit from finding anything wrong as they are purely an MOT station. Still it usually fails on something. My BMW indie down here is £50 an hour, but is bloody good. And my local dealer is useless, they insisted on two occasions my E39 is an E34 and they don't seem to have got their head round how a phone works!

Edited by sparks_E39 on Saturday 14th July 17:54

[falkster]

T16OLE said:

I am new to Leeds and don’t have any mechanic friends up here 

Anyway my car (01` 330ci) needs a service and MOT, a friend recommended a garage, spoke to the chap he seems to know what he is talking about and sounds like a decent guy

His labour rate is £35 per hour (No Vat) is this reasonable?

What's the garage? I use a mechanic just outside Leeds and have done for 10 years - he looks after my E30 M3. He knows BMWs inside out, building and racing them.
Paul Metcalf - used to be Metcalf Motorsport, I think his rate is around £35.

07740 822189

I should be getting my servicing done for free with the amount of people that ice sent his way.
It's even better if you go on a Saturday - mates rates apply plus, if you're lucky, he digs deep and buys the fish and chips plus gives you the run of the garage. I've spent hundreds of hours there FOC working on my cars.

[All that jazz]

Garvin said:

"Ah well"??? The "in a very good way!" means that it's almost worth me driving up from Canbridgeshire to get work done on my cars - local indie here is £55 per hour ex VAT ............ and that's considered pretty reasonable around here ........ in southern softy, bend 'em over and grease 'em up land!

Still awaiting the details of mystery uber-cheap garage.....

[jatinder]

I serviced a 330ci a couple of weeks ago, parts cost 160, full service kit from BMW £115, rest was oil.

Should take about 2-3 hours.

Got paid with a steak dinner :-)

[T16OLE]

jatinder said:

I serviced a 330ci a couple of weeks ago, parts cost 160, full service kit from BMW £115, rest was oil.

Should take about 2-3 hours.

Got paid with a steak dinner :-)

Similar to what he quoted me really! About £100 parts and £70 labour but he would go right over it etc.