You also have no clue. Nearly every auto mechanic on earth is paid by flat rate. If it pays 3 hours to replace a water pump and takes me 1 hour then I still get paid 3 hours. If it takes me 5 hours I still get paid 3 hours. I don't make up the times, they come from either a flat rate manual, for customer pay, or the warranty labor time guide for warranty work.

All 8 vehicles I worked on last week were covered under warranty. This means I beat the factory book time which is generally considerably less than customer pay time. Independent shops are all customer pay time.

One example is replacing cam phasers on a V6 vehicle. The warranty labor time guide says 5.4 hours. That is what I would get paid for the job under warranty. The Motors labor guide says 21.0 hours. That is a big difference. At an independent shop you would be charged 21.0 hours. At our dealership we use warranty time plus 40% for customer pay work. So you would be charged 7.6 hours for that job if you had to pay out of your own pocket.

That is a huge difference. So would you rather pay less at the dealership where a factory trained professional fixes your car for less or take it to someone who doesn't really know your vehicle well and charges you more?