He has one thing wrong. If you qoute 2.5 hours, and it takes 3 because of broken bolts, you still only charge 2.5 Of course you can call the customer and explain why you need to charge more labor time. Usually theres more parts involved also.
That's a pretty good article. I thought at one time that the hourly charge was way out of line but I have changed my views on it over time. I work part time for a shop in my area and after seeing all of the overhead that a shop has it's very expensive to keep a shop up to date. Every new car out there needs some special tool that you will only use a few times a year. Mitchell on demand is a common program to help with working and trouble shooting problems on thousands of different vehicles. This program needs to be purchased every year and it is not cheap. You also warranty your work for one year if any thing goes wrong in that year it's on you. Flat rape (rate) works out well in less than 50% of the jobs that are done. If you work on the same brand of cars day in and day out the flat rate system works out very well but if you work on every kind of car it does you know favors. The only jobs that I see that is very profitable is front end work and brakes. It's easy work and the parts and labor to replace them works out well.
If yiou call a place to ask for hourly charge...you also need to know which "book "they use... having run a dealership, where we used Volvos factory guide our "hours" sometimes were different than an indepenfdent shop that uses 'other manual'....my advice is , dont ask for hourly charge OR no of hours...ask for a PRICE....which is the hours times that guide... the guy with the lesser hourly charge may still cost you more if his guide tells him to use more hours...
if a guide says 2.5 hrs to do the job you charge those 2.5 hrs...doesnt matter if it took 1/2 hour longer...what if it took 1/2 hour less? it does averaghe out for shops , and "good mechanics" will make money , bad mechanics wont until they learn the jobs.
