Labor Repair Time

[tbr701]

Recently I have had my BX1800 worked on by my local Kubota dealer. When the work has been completed, I later questioned to myself the hours that they charged me for completing the repairs. Do the Kubota dealers have a manual with suggested repair times for each repair like auto shops do or do they usually charge what they want?

 

[ToadHill]

Several years I had my Ford worked at by the dealer and when I got the bill I almost s*** when I saw the labor charge. I asked my cousin who had a repair shop and he told me the hours allotted for the work done ( he didn't have time to do it quickly) and I called the owner and asked him what the hourly rate for labor was, He told me $80 per hour. I told him that since the work was flat rated for 1.5 hours they had charged me over $300 per hour labor. He called the service manager and I was told the mechanic had told the office help what to charge for labor and they would correct my bill. I wanted to know how they had allowed this to happen, in my opinion the service manager wasn't doing his job and if I had an employee who was that lax in performing their job, I'd fire him.

A couple days later I got a check for all the labor they had charged me and 3 tickets for free oil changes and a detail job on the vehicle of my choice.

I guess it pays to make noise when your not treated right.

 

[RollingsFarms]

most shops post their hourly rate charge. i don't know if that's mandatory or what, but i always look for it when i walk in. luckily there is a guy(local small farmer) i take my tractors and truck to for him to work on. unless it's something only the dealer could service, he usually can do 99% of the work. he's cheap too compared to repair shops and dealer service shops. i figured it up one time and he is only charging me $20/hr for labor. not bad at all compared to $65-80 in my opinion he does better work then they do as well. i trust him enough and know that he's not going to jip me, or "add on" to the bill. when it's time to pay i know he's charging a fair price and i have never second guessed him about it. you have no idea the value it pays to know someone like that in your area. saves alot of money and headaches!

 

[tbr701]

It is not the labor rate that is the issue. It is how much time they said it took to get the job done. Repairs to cars, whether body or mechanical, have guidelines on how long it should take to complete a specific job. I did not know if Kubota set an amount of time it should take their dealers to do a specfic job, such as change out a power steering line, of if the dealer just decides how much time he want to say it took to get the job done.

 

[Jason537]

Depends on the job,. if its a tranny split,. rad replace or other. Flat rate manuals are only a guideline,.. especially in the beginning when they decided the time was on a brand new tractor, sitting in a clean shop that didn't have a speck of dirt on it, nor rust, no loader frame removal,.. etc, etc.

But they labor charge should at least be somewhat reasonable.

 

[RobJ]

Depends on the job,. if its a tranny split,. rad replace or other. Flat rate manuals are only a guideline,.. especially in the beginning when they decided the time was on a brand new tractor, sitting in a clean shop that didn't have a speck of dirt on it, nor rust, no loader frame removal,.. etc, etc.

But they labor charge should at least be somewhat reasonable.

This is true. When I did this you never know what you got. Sometimes it would take us a half a day to just get to the engine. We didn't have any rate books but we always called with a rough estimate. It could go up..or down, in the case of when the engine was torn in part. You should always ask for an estimate, it'll make them think.

I did know a couple friends in the truck repair business. They aparrantly went strickly by the book. Even paid the mechanics by the book on most jobs. If the manual said it took 4 hours, the mechanic got 4 hours pay, whether it took him 5 hours..or 3.

The book says it took 1.5 hours and you got your bill reduced, but I guess if the mechanic actually took 1 hour, you'd want another $40 back?

 

[PILOON]

Went to a ford dearership with a 'engine warning' blinking fault on a Ranger.
I had rough idea of the cause.
Labor rate was posted at $70/hr.
Mechanic punched on at 10:00 hooked up computer test sets did a few mins of readings and remouved his gloves for coffee break.
Came back and said I needed to replace a small sensor @25.00 so I OK'd that.
Took about 10-15 mins to get the part! 3 mins to install!
He did more tests and determined that I needed a cam sensor (which was not stock) and would cost over $600.
Said thanks, but no thanks.
It is now 11:00 (minus his coffee break)

Well the bill was $70.00 + $25.00 (labor-replacement of sensor) + $75.00 (usage of testors)
plus all taxes.

I complained that he barely worked 45 mins on my vehicle and the part was installed during that time also that $170 labor charge for less than 45 mins at $75/hr was outrageous.
I obviously paid his coffee break!
They said that that was standard proceedure and that if I did not like it to go elsewhere.
Claimed they charge min 1 hr and that diagnostic fees were standard and also installation was a seperate thing.

Never went back there and never purchased another ford product.

 

[RobJ]

Went to a ford dearership with a 'engine warning' blinking fault on a Ranger.
I had rough idea of the cause.
Labor rate was posted at $70/hr.
Mechanic punched on at 10:00 hooked up computer test sets did a few mins of readings and remouved his gloves for coffee break.
Came back and said I needed to replace a small sensor @25.00 so I OK'd that.
Took about 10-15 mins to get the part! 3 mins to install!
He did more tests and determined that I needed a cam sensor (which was not stock) and would cost over $600.
Said thanks, but no thanks.
It is now 11:00 (minus his coffee break)

Well the bill was $70.00 + $25.00 (labor-replacement of sensor) + $75.00 (usage of testors)
plus all taxes.

I complained that he barely worked 45 mins on my vehicle and the part was installed during that time also that $170 labor charge for less than 45 mins at $75/hr was outrageous.
I obviously paid his coffee break!
They said that that was standard proceedure and that if I did not like it to go elsewhere.
Claimed they charge min 1 hr and that diagnostic fees were standard and also installation was a seperate thing.

Never went back there and never purchased another ford product.

I think you'll find that fairly standard. If the mechanic looks for a problem that's labor(usually 1 hour minimum). Hooking it up to the computer is a separate charge. That's how they pay for that computer! I went to the dealership (once) to have them recalibrate my speedo for larger tires. First the service writer said they couldn't do it..yada yada. I gave them the directions on paper. Bottom line $70 and about 10 minutes later my speedo was correct. Maybe I got a break. I couldn't charge them for the directions on how to do it!!

 

[ray66v]

I did know a couple friends in the truck repair business. They aparrantly went strickly by the book. Even paid the mechanics by the book on most jobs. If the manual said it took 4 hours, the mechanic got 4 hours pay, whether it took him 5 hours..or 3.

The book says it took 1.5 hours and you got your bill reduced, but I guess if the mechanic actually took 1 hour, you'd want another $40 back?

This is called Flat Rate pay. You get a certain dollar amount per flat rate hour the job ends up paying, say $15 for example. If the job pays 3.5 hrs. you get $52.50 period. Get it done in 2 hrs, you make $26.25/hr. Spend all day on it, you make $6.56/hr.

A good, experienced technician can hustle and make more money, (most of the time), than if he worked hourly. This in turn, usually results in increased productivity, for the business. This system rewards hard working people by giving them incentive to increase their pay. And punishes lazy people by not paying them unless they work. Technicians tend to spend less time talking, and goofing around. And tend to want to work more hours, since they only make money, when they actually work. They also get nothing for rework, making doing it right the first time, more important.

I worked this way in the Auto Body repair business. The labor times, for changing parts, or painting things, were specified in the computer estimating programs. 99.9% of the time the Insurance Co's would not budge on paying you more time than the computer said, even if it was obviously incorrect. Mechanics don't have this problem, as most of their work is customer pay. They are free to deviate as they need to. And, unfortunately, free to over charge you sometimes.

 

[csr0831]

I just recently had my GR2100 in for a leak in the transmission. Only has 87 hours on it. They said the vent tube had become pinched and the tranny was a little over full. So the unpinched the vent tube and let a little oil out of the tranny. Their labor rate is $75/hr. The bill for labor alone came to $93.00. Seems to me that is some where over an hour just to let a little fluid out of the tranny and reroute the vent tube?? With pick up delievery, shop fees and the like, the bill was $157.00 for soemthing that probably took about 10 minutes.