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Brakes Menu Pricing But…….
A question that I hope some of you have insight on.
First of all I am not a big fan of menu prices but I do understand that some things must really be priced that way. ie. one of the things in our shop that is menu priced is brakes. Labor specifically on any brake work is preset. Including anything from standard front brake service to the installation of rear wheel cylinders…. Yes believe it or not the labor for rear wheel cylinders is preset! no changes aloud. And it makes no difference what the vehicle is. Also one big sticking point with me may seem simple but I have been unable to convince the owner or manager to change… When a front brake job is done on a vehicle with a “floating rotor” (what I call a slap on rotor) the labor is the same for that as doing a brake job when there is an inner and outer bearing to repack. ie. we don’t change any extra for the removal or replacement of wheel seals or repacking the bearings. It has always been my experience in the past to charge at least a little extra (couple tenths) for that work. I have been told numerous times to not charge that extra time. I have even had my tickets changed to a lower amount then what the customer was quoted and sold… I can’t get past this point for a couple reasons the flat rate techs we have are not happy with how they are billing these jobs plus I am paid on a % of shop gross profit. I mean don’t you think there should be extra time charged it takes longer and therefore should be billed accordingly right?
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4 Replies
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While you may be technically correct, this is probably best left alone
since you’ve already brought it up to the owner. I would also think that
the techs might be able to make the case better.
The good news is that wheel cylinders and packable wheel bearings are
decreasing rapidly. The wheel bearing issue is all but gone at our
shop…might see one every few months. I mentioned drum brakes to
another member here one time and he said with a grin: “What are
those?”….he has a Euro shop.
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Oh trust me I already know what to leave alone and what to still
push for….. And.it is almost a mute point as packable bearings
goaway. Although I think this has come up atleast 6 timez in the 2
months I have been there so far.
We shell see how things go.
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We used a ‘canned’ front brake job that includes packing wheel bearings, we don’t discount if it’s a ‘slap-on’ rotor. The work order reads… “REPLACE FRONT BRAKE PADS, RESURFACE / REPLACE ROTORS AS NEEDED, SERVICE CALIPERS, CLEAN & REPACK WHEEL BEARINGS (WHERE APPLICABLE)” We always wash our rotors in the hot water jet spray cabnet, if wheel bearings are involved, they get jet washed too. I figure it just takes a couple of tenths to pack & adjust both sides on a 1/2 ton or smaller using this technique.
I reserve the right to adjust prices up or down as the job dictates, it seems that the less worthy the car, the tougher the job. (I didn’t break it nor neglect/ abuse it, I’m just trying to fix it!)
You might think that cars that need new rotors are really a ‘gravy’ ticket with this pricing, but there is usually a lot of rust to clean up on those cars. (Rust is usually the reason we replace rotors.)
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The “canned” jobs in our shop are for diagnosis only, all actual work is by flat rate. How can you replace front discs on a Chevy 4WD Colorado for the same labor time/dollars as a Toyota Tacoma? How would your tech feel about that? We compete on quality, not price at our shop, and our customer base comes to us for that reason. We re-do a couple of brake jobs a month for customers that were done at a “menu based” shop due to compromises in the work/parts to keep the profit at quoted prices.
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