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?
I get it, its the system, and you are taking advantage of what the system offers. still doesn't make it right if the techs on MArs are doing it. Factory trained professionals??? Yes, I know there is always that one exception. But, Ive had too many of them. Let me give you an example. I had a company truck, Ford 350, 7.3 diesel, had 35000 miles on it, bought new. I serviced that truck religiously. It started smoking on start up and then would slowly stop when the engine got warm. Took it to the dealer and get this, I was told i didn't know how to change the oil, that was the problem. REALLY?? Took it to another dealer, they found one of the cylinder bores was out of round. They replaced the short block. All is well. But to have a service tech and the manager of the dealership tell me changing the oil was a problem. Good Grief. Even you would have to laugh at that.
Let just agree to disagree.
