Equipment maintenance contracts

[dvelsor]

Hello all,
I have 2 new pieces of equipment that I am considering putting under maintenance contracts- I have a 2008 CAT 966H Loader & a CAT D6T Dozer.

What is being offered to me are 2 seperate contracts at a cost per hour rate.

I am wondering- Is there a going rate or a national average for these?

If anyone has any information or can point me in the right direction to find out it would be a great help.......THANKS

 

[Timber]

Hello & welcome to the board,I am Charlie (AKA) Timber.
I don't believe there is a national standard for maintenance contracts. Pay scale varies across the country considerably. You actual have to work with the service company's available to you anyway. I do how ever have a lot of experience with PM service contractors & I am less than impressed with all of them. My equipment is different than yours but the service is the same. I run a Paper warehouse and I have very large Clamp trucks and Fork lifts as well as several Tractor Trailer units.


These are my thoughts

• Make sure the PM service matches your use. In other words don't just do every 90 days. If your equipment sits for 6 weeks you don't want to pay for an unnecessary PM service. PMs are usually a flat rate but you set the term not them. base the term on hours not days.

• Don't lock into a closed contract. Keep it open so you can get 2nd opinions on work to be done and the mechanic you want to do major work if you chose to use someone else.

• Pay attention to your billing & your invoices & question everything.
• 1) Emergency service is 1 they like to hit you with.
• 2) the hours a mechanic is working on your equipment.
• 3) doing things you don't ask them to do that you get charged for. $50 to put a wire tie on a lose hose will piss you off.
• 4) I get double invoiced all the time, Match the invoice with your work orders.
• 5) If they have to leave to get parts that should be on the truck be sure you don't get charged for there travel time and hours.
• 6) ridicules charges for estimates especially if you didn't ask for 1

When you are looking for a service contractor ask about all these points. They usually give you a great deal on PM service and mechanic rates but then nickel & dime you on extra charges. like emergency service, That can mean you called them and said you need service and now its an emergency rate. Make sure estimates get absorbed into the work & not added to it. I sent a driver into the shop to have a bolt replaced on a Power Jack and got an $800 dollar estimate to rebuild the machine . The estimate was $90 bucks. I was so pissed. I call and said your Joking me right, I wanted a bolt replaced so the driver could finish his work & your hitting me with a $90 dollar estimate I didn't ask for.

Bottom line is pay attention and question everything

 

[dvelsor]

Thanks Timber,
The price that has been proposed to me is from the dealer from which it is leased from. It is being used in a papermill/sheetrock company. I am just trying to find out if it is a fair price. I thank you for your information .