--- Alan Bosch <arbosch@RA.ROCKWELL.COM> wrote:
>
> ...  A local repair shop recently charged
> $500 each for new heads on a 2.1L Westy.  That price
> was the just for the parts.  When it was pointed out
> to the shop that heads could be bought for $400 from
> Bus Depot, a flat "We don't buy from them" was
> issued.  Well, why not?  "Because we mark our parts
> up".  No problem.  Buy from BusDepot and charge me
> $450 a head. It's worth it to me, and I understand
> you need to make a living too. "No.  We can't."
> End of discussion.  End of story.

What I would like to see the repair shops do and it
would set my mind at ease, is to charge me a
competitive price for the parts, knowing they got it
at the mechanic's discount.
To make up or markup the shop cost, I would not
question the labor if 1+ hours was added to the total
bill.  My father worked this sort of pricing
algorithm, when he ran his foreign car repair shop in
Santa Ana Cal. (unless he was diving into a Porsche or
DeLorean then the rates also went up).  He had many
happy returning customers - Peugeot owners returned
more often but that was Peugeot's lack of engineering
on some major parts - like the cooling system in a
desert environment of SoCal.

Back to my story, OK so charge a fair price for part,
keeping the price still below dealer cost and at about
the parts store prices.  Thus bring some pride of
ownership that I didnt loose my shirt on this van and
the dog doesn't have to move over when the wifey finds
out about the bill.

I would not question if the shop said 8 hours to do a
task even if in reality it took them 4 hours and they
quoted me 6 hours but ran into some problems.  I have
no way of checking other than a gut feel for how long
the process takes.

I would get satisfaction and brag about it on the list
that so-and-so is a really great shop and doesn't stab
you for parts prices. Which is the real expenses on
our vans.

Just my $0.02 from an ex-member of the elite
WasserLeaker's Club.

Joel Cort
89 Syncro Westy MV (with the above mentioned new
heads)

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