Is my local garage taking the piss!

[Sam9769]

Hi,

Brought my car into my local garage yesterday as a speed sensor needs to be replaced.
The speed sensor is £40 plus VAT but they are charging £90 plus VAT for labour which they say will be approximately and hour and a half.

When I queried the hourly rate the young girl behind the counter said that this was cheap and the "industry standard is £150 per hour!"

AIBU to think that £90 plus VAT per hour is excessive?

As PP have said, you are paying for the costs of running a garage and the expertise of the mechanic. The mechanic knows which part to get, how to fit the part (without causing damage to other parts of the car) and how the part should function when it is in place.

A lot of the mechanics around me "guarantee" their work, so if you go in for a part to be replaced but the part fails within so many months as long as you have your invoice they will either repair or replace the part for free. For example our mechanic will repair tyres for free if you purchased them off him, they fitted them and have your invoice. I had a tyre off him which kept loosing pressure and putting the low tyre pressure message up (pretty much needed refilling with air every couple of weeks), turns out it had a faulty valve. Valve replaced for free and follow up phone calls for a couple of months to ensure the tyre kept pressure. If the valve wasn't the fault, he would have replaced the tyre for free.

There are a lot of cowboys about who claim to do it cheaper. MIL's partner always makes comments about how our local garage rips people off when "Dave" will do it for cost of parts and £20 an hour. "Dave" is a fucking liability, the amount of damage he has done to MIL and FIL's cars because of poor fitting of parts (and sourcing parts which are for the right brand of car but wrong year/ model and then force fitting them) is awful. It's always a bodge job. He made an absolute mess of fitting a tow bar for FIL and it costs £££ to put right at a proper garage. So yes, whilst it might cost me a couple of hundred to have my car fully serviced at the garage rather than £120 cash, at least I've got the right oil and proper oil filters in my car unlike FIL.

So that's £60ph?? Wow that is very cheap labour.

What cost were you expecting?

So yes, you are being unreasonable :)

I had a mobile mechanic come to my house to replace one of my wheel speed sensors recently as it had started to trigger the ESP dashboard warning light. The job took him certainly less than an hour (I didn't time it precisely) and cost me £80, which included £40 for the part. He was someone my DD knew and had done good work on her car too. He was also well recommended locally.

A garage has probably much higher overheads than a mobile mechanic such as rent for the premises, local authority charges, licencing, insurance etc. So I think if you are taking it into a local garage (which I normally would, actually) then £60 per hour is not bad to be honest. Remember that you are also paying for someone who has the training and and back up to get the job done and the experience and equipment to know what to do if things don't go to plan, which can certainly happen when parts are rusted and seized into position.

My son is a technician (apparently they're not mechanics any more). He works for a dealership and barely any tools are provided they have to buy their own. He has at least £20,000 worth of equipment that he is very protective of. As i would be if it belonged to me.
But they do have state of the art ramps, computers etc. They charge about £75 an hour.

No….the fact that I’ve changed a speed sensor told me that. Not everyone is car illiterate you know. And god forbid even some women know how to work on a car!

If you genuinely believe that garages aren’t having people’s pants down left right and centre then you are deluded.

Absolute bargain tbh

Surely that depends on where it is and how easy it is to get to?

£60 an hour is a good price for a trained mechanic, dh pays twice that for his money pit of a car my garage charges £70 for lead mechanic or £40 for the apprentice

Wow, bet your a delight as a customer :)
Depending on what speed sensor & what car really...
Time wise...
Collect car from parking area & drive onto ramp, align ramp arms and put vehicle in the air. Remove wheel (or whatever), use penetrating spray on affixing's, remove offending sensor, clean area ready for replacement. Fit new sensor, rebuild as necessary.
Calibrate new sensor & test drive. Clean vehicle ready for customer collection. Collate job car and create invoice.

15 mins you say?

£90 for parts and labour ? That’s not bad. Mercedes Benz dealership charges £150 just for diagnostics 😂

@Sam9769 what do you mean by speed sensor? The sensors in the tyres that sense the speed of the wheels and monitor tyre pressure? If so they are taking the piss, had one replaced at the dealership recently £54 total. Not sure how long it took I dropped it off, collected a loaner car left went about my day and collected mine at 5:30pm.

I think you are getting a great deal especially if it’s a garage with a good reputation. You are free to gets quotes from other places if you aren’t happy with the price. Make sure you are comparing like with like though.

£60ph is insanely cheap for a garage.
Also they might be able to complete the job in less time than quoted if it's a new car and/or the bolts have all been greased recently and everything comes off easily...however this is rarely the case so they are probably adding some cushioning time to be more realistic. Seized bolts that need cut out and time sourcing replacement bolts for example could mean the job takes far longer than 1.5hrs. I don't think it's unreasonable of them at all.

I’ve no idea whether it’s a good price or not but YABU just on the basis that if you don’t like the price go elsewhere , nobody is forcing you to use this garage .

Its the standard going rate around here unless you go to one of the independent back street garages (which i do btw, more personal service)

If you drive out of a garage with a bill of under £200 you're quids in.

Whilst most of us don't earn that per hour, the hourly rate you have been quoted is not expensive in.comparison to other hourly rates in the industry

That's a very fair price, id accept it.

A lot depends on the car, nowadays speed sensors (probably to the ABS) not so easy to access, wheel arch linings etc to remove, even bumpers to remove sometimes, £90 is a good price 👍

My guy cutting lawn charges 65 an hour. Usually done in less than an hour. No special training needed.
Mechanic , on the other hand needs a lot of training/ experience so looks like a fair price to me.

£90 for an hour and a half is £60 per hour.

What would you expect to pay a skilled mechanic? That price has to cover all their costs, so the mechanic won't get anything like that.

Cracking price, my SIL is a mechanic and he charges £150 an hour

I know that. And I never bemoan paying for labour costs. But I also know how much profit they make on the diagnostic scanner charge as I (used to unfortunately) know people in the business. And again, I appreciate the outlay is huge and they have to recoup but for literally a minute or two work, it does seem like a stupidly high charge!

Bite their hand off.

I have no issue paying for labour. This garage doesn't even put it on the ramp for diagnostic computer, and as I said in reply to someone else, yes it's an expensive piece of kit, yes they need to recoup costs but they literally charge that each time it is used independently of labour and parts!