Dealer workshop prices

Hi Rob.
Your example is the reason I do not use a dealer to work on my vehicle.I use a local mechanic(who used to work for a local dealer). He now runs his own business, is cheaper & honest with his work.
Your bill seems excessive but the dealer has you over a barrel!!!!!!!
Regards.
Vince

They may charge $80 an hour.... 6x$80=$480 + GST + a few bucks in sundries...

In our workshop we quite often fault-find things which can take hours,,, then customer gets a big bill....
Someone has to pay for the mechanics time,,, because he is getting paid all day long by his boss....
The first day they may have looked through for the problem and found nothing after an hour,,, still have to get paid...
If they did that all day long for free they would be paying mechanics and getting no money in..
The days of "she will be right mate" are gone in most places..

Now on the other hand,,,,, if they fixed the problem by 11am and then held on till 3pm to call you,,,,, that is a blatent rip off,,, but you will never know...

Rob.

I think it all depends on whether you think they are competent or not.
Intermittent problems can be real hard to find. A good tech can still take a long time to find the problem.
If they are good at what they do, then its just one of those hard to swallow situations.

Regards

I would have thought a broken wire would have been very easy to find given the symptoms you gave. But then again, if they don't know what they are doing, then it can take ages. Labour on my Jack at a dealer was $100 per hour. Substantial oil leak, they replaced a pipe/washers, kept leaking, took it back and all of a sudden there was a completely separate leak. Coincidence - I think not - more like wrong diagnosis at the expense of the customer. Compained and threatened them with legal action, ended up putting a dodgey warranty claim in for the first lot of work!

why do you buy Toyota AND use a dealer ?? Overpriced spares and stupidity combined makes a deadly combination. I have yet to see a clever sales person or a clever mechanic at a dealership in Australia. You get what you deserve for your judgement ... that is not meant personally, I don't know you .. but I hear sooo many complaints about dealers and I simply do not understand why people bother to deal with them ...

/rant end/
good luck
gmd

a few of the replies above i agree with.
faults can take time to find even for the best.
the thing i find funny is if its a broken wire generally if its broken it wont work at all so bit odd how its interminant that could explain some of the time.
ive got a mirage at work at the moment with the engine light coming on plugged it in and it showed up 4 faults we checked the 4 itrems that came up and they were all working.
next step was to phone the customer and explain the next step is to check a wiring diagram for the ecu at every pin to see whats not right.
it could take quite a while to go through the whole thing and maybe not find anything or just sent the ecu to a computer specialist and get them to check it or not worry about the light as its not affecting the car in any way.
do what ever it takes they said so at least they know they will be up for a bit of money.
some times we spend hours and hours trying to find out problems and its not nice trying to explain to a customer about the bill at the end of the day but its something a busines must do to stay in busines.mind you if we do spend the whole day most times we dont charge the 8 hrs probly 6 hrs.
another problem mechanics have is pepople always complain about the price of getting work done.
ring a plumber and find out how much to come over and change a leajking tap washer.
cheers

I'll 2nd 3rd & 4th that Dio, agree with all above . lesson is if you can, stay away from the dealer, find some one you can trust {word of mouth evey time helps} build a relationship with them and stay there,if we all did that they'd soon rethink thier stupid prices even if your prepared to pay $100.00 an hour and happy about it they still stuff up and give you the impression its your fault, add to that most dealer workshops know very little about the cars they sell and thats a fact, anyhow hard lesson to learn but you know now Rob, hope all is O.K. now
best wishes,
Dave

Rod

Most times the bill cost what it cost because that's what it cost..

;-)

Richard

Sorry mate but "What and Joe Blogs does your got to be kidding" doesn't make any sense to me, what do you mean ?

After using delerships that are unable to find gaping holes in radiators and fuel lines riped off as well as being unable to even glance at the job sheet id say the biggest problem was you (I didnt have a choice) I could well go on and on but you are responsable for using the dealership ( I had no choice) and THAT is your problem

Several issues present themselves here.

My NP Pajero had a problem where it suffered a lack of power. As the vehicle was still inside the warranty period, I took it to the dealer.

So that was my first mistake. As many have pointed out, don't use your dealer. Well what if you believe, as I did, that the problem is a warranty issue? OK, if you've had a problem with a dealer, take the vehicle to a different dealer. But what if the different dealer is 400 Km away?

Dealer has several attempts to fix the problem, each involving the vehicle being in the workshop for several days at a time. All of the work is done, after huge resistance from Mitsubishi, under warranty - good so far. The trouble is, none of the work has fixed the problem.

Over 40,000 Km elapses from the time the fault is first reported to when the fault is apparently found.

The final diagnosis is blocked breathers in the fuel tank. These are allegedly blocked with dust so not a warranty issue. Now you can hear the cash register ringing as the Service Manager is telling me this news.

The first repair involved removing the fuel tank, removing the breathers and flushing both clean. Cost? Nearly $1000.00.

The second attempt (required because the fuel tank leaked the first time I filled it after the original repair - a long story involving ridiculous excuses from the Service Manager) they did all that again but this time replaced the breathers. They generously discounted the labour and only charged me $700.00 to fix what they should have done properly the first time.

This is what a major flaw in the system. If I had known that the problem would not be covered by warranty, I would never have gone to the dealer in the first place. So if I went to a private workshop and they found the problem and it was a warranty issue, would Mitsubishi pay them? No. So you are knackered whichever way you go.

What protection do you have when the dealer doesn't get it right and charges you anyway? In my line of work, if you don't get it right, it's free. These people are supposed to be the experts. They charge expert rates and yet think it is OK to charge you to get it wrong.

I haven't paid either account. I've written to the Dealer Principal requesting a meeting and asking him to decide which of the accounts I should pay. I've also indicated that I believe the problem is a warranty issue - I have a whole bunch of technical data to support this.

I won't be going down quietly.