faithofadragon

well this is my other post i did about savin money on dealer stuff

ah screw it ill post them here

1. when you go in ask them how many hours they are charging you and ask them to show you the mitchell manual to verify that you arent overpaying(it shows the maximum time a job should take by the tenth of a hour) dealers tend to round up..to the nearest hour so if it says 2.1 you end up paying for 3 hours of labor

2. tell them you would not like to pay for shop supplies
most places will charge you up to $15 for supplies thats like the 1 rag they used and the dirty uniform and some spare grease(if they say no thats ok some places HAVE to charge this also cuz youll make a better price with the other 2 steps)

3. also ask them what there labor rate is (ie $75 a hour)
and tell them you wont pay anymore than what the mitchell manual says for hours times what the labor rate is
dealers use a "grid" meaning that you end up paying more as the labor time goes up for example
----------
at my work
labor rate - 80 a hour
time to complete 5.5 hours
dealers total for labor - 517.46

now divide the dealers total for labor by 5.5 hours you end up paying 94.09 per hour of labor
---------
all this is true dealers/mechanics do this so watch yourself

if they refuse to bring down to the right price tell them fine if your not going to do honest business ill take it to someone who will.


EDIT: i wanna add a new one dont be afraid to ask for 10% off we do it all the time but dont get greedy and ask for more

oh and about the diag its a flat rate most dealers will charge a hour of labor to inspect
and look for a problem if they quickly dont see one they wont charge you but if it takes alot of there time to look for it they will argue and you may get away with it

EDIT PART 2: my final point and thought if you go to the doctor cuz your stomach hurts or somethin like that they do some inspections and say your fine do you expect them to not charge you for wastin there time? even if there is somethin wrong and you have to go back later on for the same problem you think they will refund you the money back? hell no

oh and i can give a shit if they pay my bills i get paid by the hour just like most of the usa and do i profit from people gettin work done on there cars? no do i care if they do? no
am i biased toward dealerships? no why? cuz they provide a service and if you dont like it just like everythin else...........go somewhere else that you will like

i work for warranty for a nissan dealership when customers come in the only thing i appriciate them doin for me is actually giving me somethin to do other than sittin here

SwiftTiburon

All I care about is that I stood up for myself and didn't have to fork out the near $100 that I <u>truly</u> don't have. faith, like I said I respect your advice but since you directly worked with the dealer industry there is some bias that you have there.

My lesson: go to my dad to get sh-t done and pay for the inexpensive things myself..and find another dealer if I have/want to go back there again. Since my dad is taking the tib to his place of work tomorrow to do a whole fuel system check and comp diagnostic (to prove theres no cel causing the vibration), i'll update you guys on what the <u>true</u> problem is as soon as I find out.

I didn't know my post would cause all this bickering!! tongue.gif

01blacktib

lil off-topic, but... drivin from fort polk home in 2 cars, me and my g/f , she got a CEL mid way. we stopped at a local mechanic and he only charged 45 to diagnose the computer, was just a cat converter btw, no biggie for now. that was a great price!!!