Alabama thread!

Perhaps the defensiveness comes from the generalization. Not EVERY shop is going to fleece someone over AC work. Yeah, you CAN buy a compressor for under $200. And just like everything else, you get what you pay for. You mentioned yours came out of a 96, so I am guessing that it was used? I can't sell my customers used parts. They want quality new parts. Yeah, some BIG items I INSTALL are used, but I do NOT sell used parts because if it breaks, I am doing my customer a disservice. And sure, yours might last you 500,000 miles. I buy/sell 20 compressors a year. I can't risk getting a compressor that I get zero warranty on. When running a shop I am expected to fix your car the right way, and if something fails or breaks, even if it is not my fault (i.e. a failed compressor) my shop gets dragged through the mud because the work I did didn't last. To keep that from happening I do my best to buy quality parts, and even OEM if I can. Those parts do get more expensive. You know as well as I do that that happens. SURE, anyone with the right tools can save themselves money. They don't have the over head that a shop has. Do you really expect a business to charge you what it would cost YOU to do the job in your driveway?

The correct procedure for converting from R12 to R134a does call for all seals to be replaced, and for all the lines to be flushed as well as PAG oil only to be used.. I am not a chemical engineer, but ever since the conversion kits came out we were told that the compressor and other parts would not be covered under warranty if the system was not cleaned of mineral oil and filled with PAG oil. A lot of times the conversion would come in when the customer brought their car in to get the AC checked out and the compressor had come apart, contaminating the lines anyway. That being said I have done hundreds of conversions without ever having to replace the seals, but I ALWAYS at least use dried compressed air to blow the lines out at the compressor and receiver/drier (blowing backwards) to be sure any contaminants are out. It is just good policy for a quality job.

We have been told in the service world that PAG oil is the only oil acceptable by SAE and the feds. So we have no choice when we do service work but to follow fed regs, or the shops face huge fines. Just like if you have any freeze12 or R12 in your system, a special machine is required to evacuate the chemical, or you violate federal laws. Even if you do the work yourself, you CAN face fines and such. Yeah, probably not going to happen to the individual, but here at the shop we are watched more closely. I'm not going to lose my business just to save a few $$$. Another reason why AC work is expensive. I never meant to say it was all dirt cheap, just that while it may not be seen by the general public, it is not cheap work to do LEGALLY in a shop.

That would be a good first step. Hook up the gauges first. Would be silly to convert and all if the compressor simply has an electrical issue. lol.

In general, by using only your information on the truck listed, this is what my list is showing:

Compressor (reman)- $298
Receiver/drier $43.75
TXV valve $44.28
R134a Conversion kit $19.99
up to 2 lbs R134a $18.64

That is just parts. If you wanted to just drop the truck off here and get all the work done, turn-key conversion with above parts, you would be looking at about $710 including tax.

I hope this helps you out!

 

I am not opposed to a business making a profit. Nearly $400/hr for labor is fucking ridiculous.

I gave a pass on a reman'd compressor, I get that. I understand a profit must be made. You also earlier extended my comment about AC work earlier to ALL mechanic work, which I never said.

Charging keith ~$250 labor to do a conversion is plenty fair, more power to you. I have never heard of a shop charging anywhere near that reasonably for AC work. The shops here wanted $80 just to vac and fill.

 

To be fair, I don't think you were being quoted $400/hour in labor. You said it took you 4 hours to do the job. Most shops charge "book time" which is pretty much a standard in the industry. That time is per job. That means , like in this case, an EVAC system recovery, vacuum and recharge, is a standard 1.4 hour. Yeah, I can DO that job in less than an hour. BUT the standard job time is an ESTIMATE on what it normally takes for a person with basic hand tools to complete the job. Sure, the EVAC/vac/recharge is mostly done by a machine, so that time is also taken into account when running a shop. Those machines cost close to $4000 each, and typically end up needing replacement every 4 years. Also the internal filter has to be replaced on average every 6 months, at $80 each. So that "1.4 hours" of labor is divided up into the tech time, as well as the equipment cost and maintenance. To be totally honest, a vac and fill at $80 is more than fair. that $80 job equates to an average of $20 in refrigerant, and $42.86 per hour for labor. Hell MY Evac and recharge is $88.64 for 2 pounds of R134a!

 

If the book time is 1.4 hours, then the book time is wrong. Actual work time on a vac and fill is maybe 15 minutes, aside from wait time while the vac sits during which you can and probably will work on somebody else's vehicle.

I could care less what the book says. I evaluate difficulty to me vs cost. For $120 including refrigerant I have a vac'd and filled system, and that includes buying a vacuum pump so I can do it again next time for $20. Or I could waste 80 on a shop.

The only justification for $80 I could possibly see is the recapture equipment, except the miata was empty already and didn't need it. So yeah, AC work is still overpriced, you've simply proven my point.

Oh, and if the job takes 4 hours in the real world, I am being charged $400/hr. Who cares about book time, that's an excuse to overcharge me and pretend like it's otherwise. That's a bunch of bunk and you know it. "Hey, mr customer, that'll be $100. I know the job only took 20 minutes, but the book time is 2 hours, so it's really $50/hr!" No, it's really $300/hr, because you worked 20 minutes and charged $100. Quoting a book that may or may not be accurate doesn't change reality, damnit.

I also forgot to mention, of course, that while the vac machines are very expensive and I realize the cost has to be amortized across the jobs that use it, you're additionally ignoring the fact that you get to recover refrigerant using that very same equipment and resell it, assuming it hasn't been gunked up with stopleak or similar.

 

Cool, thank you for the info. I shot you a PM with the VIN a little bit ago, so dunno if that will change anything.

I'm feeling pretty good about doing the work on this one myself, mostly because it's not my daily driver, so I can take my time and be careful and thorough. It's tougher for me to want to work on my DD b/c I always feel rushed and nervous that it's not going to get me to work on Monday, or if it was HVAC that I'd show up to a customer's office all sweaty lol. Or worse, have to take a customer somewhere, and we're all uncomfortable.

As for the EPA guidelines, totally agree. If it's got to be evac'd I'll get someone that has the recovery system to do that. Again, hoping that is something that my HVAC tech friend has the ability to help me do for free.

 

See, this is where people get that popular misconception. Let me explain.

Tech 1 has 25 years of experience. He has been doing transmission work for years and knows a ton of shortcuts to still do the same job, but faster.

Tech 2 has 3 years experience and is still learning. He know a few shortcuts.

Customer brings in his 2009 Tacoma automatic to get the transmission rebuilt. Book time says it takes 11.8 hours to rebuild the automatic transmission.

Tech a Can do the job in 7 hours because he know every trick. Tech 2 will need the full 11.8 hours to complete the job.

The customer has done it once years ago and it took him 9 hours.


Do you HONESTLY think that as a shop I should only charge you 9 hours of labor simply because HE did the job himself a few years back in 9 hours? That is just crazy. Shops have overhead. These Book times are not a method of overcharging a customer. They are a method in which the customer is being protected in all honesty. If I say that I use book time, and I charge you more than what book time states, I am actually violating the law. but if I DON'T use a standard book time, then I am free to charge whatever a person is willing to pay, be it $100 or $500. So every job is STANDARD, and not taking advantage of someone because their other car is a Jaguar, instead of a minivan.

Book time has been around since the 60s, and has been the automotive standard since then for any REPUTABLE shop.

As for the time required to do the recoverery/evac/recharge:

Average EVAC machine time to recover: 10-15 minutes.
PROPER vacuum time: 15 minutes MINIMUM
Recharge: 5 minutes maximum.

So you are looking at PHYSICAL time for the machine and tech to do the work of 30-40 minutes. As I mentioned though, part of the $80 is the R134a (around $20) and the $60 in labor has to cover paying the tech for his time (Techs are not supposed to leave the equipment running unsupervised) so that is 30 minutes of his time. (this obviously does not include bringing the car in or out, or testing the AC system for proper operation after) If the shop charges a US average of $90 per hour, and pays their techs an average of $25.00 per hour, then this brings this $60 labor charge to $47.00. This $47 has to pay for the rest of the shop's overhead. And you STILL think that is a shop overcharging?

And as for your comment of "The only justification for $80 I could possibly see is the recapture equipment, except the miata was empty already and didn't need it." My response is that even if you bring the system in totally empty, the same piece of equipment is required to do the job of vacuum and filling, so yes, that piece of shop equipment is STILL needed.

We can sit here all day and discuss this. Fact is I have been doing this for over 20 years. I have managed in shops and seen the cost of this first hand. You are only speculating on your personal experience with your Miata. I am sure the company you work for is in the business to make a profit. I am trying to make a living myself too. I don't work for free, or for what YOU could do the job for. You don't have to pay yourself for the 4 hours it took you to do the job. I do.

 

You can vac and fill with $170 worth of equipment, from experience.

There's no misconception here. $2000 to evac, install a compressor, change a few items, vac and fill is fucking ridiculous. Period. And it's typical from my own experience, at least in Knoxville and Cullman. Expansion valve? $400. Mostly labor. I checked around while deciding whether to do it myself.

I think the overhead should be built into your rate, that's why you charge a certain rate per hour. A non-crooked business shouldn't pad hours to account for overhead, that's ridiculous. If you can't really operate at X/hour, then make X a bigger number.

Secondly, you're assuming the book is gospel. Well, if "the book" says $1500 is reasonable for what i KNOW to be 4 hours of work from a very average shade tree mechanic, then the book is fucking bullshit.

At this point, we're going in circles. You can get defensive all you want, Bill, but an $1500 premium for a supposed expert to have done the work I did is a complete ripoff, and I stand by that statement. I never said all mechanic work in all instances is a rip, you put that in my mouth.

I also NEVER SAID you should work cheaper. What i told KEITH was that HE SHOULD DO IT HIMSELF. You made this about you, when, guess what Bill? I couldn't care less about you. This is not about you, you're not a special snowflake.

I was giving a friend advice based on experience, that you can do AC work much more cheaply yourself, because the labor rates are absolutely obscene. That's what I said originally, and its still the truth. If you don't like that, well, tough nuts, because I'm gonna continue doing AC work myself.

And I am NOT JUST SPECULATING, you're such a pompous ass. I did the work, I paid for the parts, and I priced the job at several shops before doing it myself. That is quite concrete, thank you very much. I have very solid numbers in terms of prices for parts, and quotes for labor, and first-hand knowledge of what the job actually took. That's some pretty fucking solid evidence, I am not saying "my cousin this one time did it real easy!".

 

Not LEGALLY, and these shops have to stay legal.

It depends. How about you actually list all of the "few items" and I will give you a comparison. I'm not saying that that PARTICULAR shop was not overcharging you, but in your posts you did use "shops" the plural form.

We do the best we can to be reasonable. And no, we do not PAD hours. We use an INDUSTRY STANDARD that has been around for longer than either one of us has been alive. It has worked for that many years. It is called "flexible" billing. Example: I charge $39.95 for an oil change. I pay my tech .3 hours to do the job, since a GOOD oil change should be done in about 20 minutes. My cost in parts alone for an oil change is $24.73. I pay my "tech" $20 per hour, so that equates to $6. That means that my GROSS profit on an oil change is $9.22. I do this for all basic maintenance work (oil change, filters, flushes, etc. Now if I were to charge my normal labor rate of $50 per hour, then the oil change would cost $45.73.

I am not assuming it is gospel. What I am telling you is that it is FEDERAL LAW that a shop who operates under these standards MUST use the book time or face legal issues. So yeah, I think I should pay special attention to the book. Now yeah, maybe $1500 is way too much for the job that you had quoted. Did you get an estimate from more than one shop, or just that one shop? Do they use book time, or just charge you flat out? I truly would like to see what the full item list was and do a comparison to show you that perhaps it was just that one shop that you got a quote at that was overcharging. Especially since your entire side of the argument is based on that one single incident. And the BOOK does not say it should cost $1500 to do the job. The book says Job "X" should take "y" hours to complete.

THIS is the first I have heard that you went to several locations to get multiple quotes, hence my comment where I DID say I believed that you were speculating. Are you stating that EVERY shop you went to quoted $1500 for the job? And no need for name calling here. I have never once directly insulted you. Just disagree with you on what you have said.

Yes, we are going in circles. Neither one of us will obviously change the other person's mind. I never said that you said ALL work was a rip off. By you saying I did, YOU are putting words in MY mouth now. and I never made this about me. I have been defending my profession and other shops. Not making this about me. I was also asked about the same information you were, and merely responded in kind. Sure, he can save himself some money by doing some of the job himself. And I even agreed as much. But the vac and fill still cannot be LEGALLY done without the proper EPA certified equipment. Yeah, you CAN do it with a cheap pump and some gauges. I just felt everyone should be advised to the legality of it. How is that making it about me? You can do all the AC work on your vehicle, and everything else on it for that matter. I could care less on my end. But when giving advice to anyone, especially a friend, one should make sure of the legal aspects, and not make a blanket statement such as

Which yes, makes it seem like you mean EVERY shop, not just the one who you stated tried to give you the shaft.

I think to save us all some headaches here I will stop at this point. As mentioned neither of us will convince the other. Let us just agree to go our separate ways.

 

Jim, you seriously think someone with 20 years experience should make the same as someone with 1 month experience? I charge a set rate for everything I do. I can do it a lot faster then I could 15 years ago, while still producing great quality. I still charge the same thing, but because I do it faster, I fan do more in a day and make more money.

My prices don't go down just because I'm faster at the job.

 

Most of this is becoming a matter of opinion.

This, however, is not. He needs refrigerant emptied by an recapture machine to do it legally. However, if it is already empty, he could have an EPA agent watch him vac the system, it is completely, entirely, 100% legal. Working on an empty system can in fact be done quite legally with only a pump and set of gauges.

My original point was, and still is, that I got quoted exorbitant labor, and that from talking to other folks who have gotten AC work done as well as researching it online, it was far from an uncommon story. That's it. If you think the labor on what I described was reasonable, I'm not sure what I'd say about you, but it certainly isn't positive.

 

Thank the lord!!!! This is why i avoided the discussion earlier...


so back to other topics.... Dave...... i hear you like to eat donkey balls..... is this true????

Ha.... jk my attempt at lightening the mood up. sorry dave but kyle hasnt been around so i had to pick someone and i think you hurt floor's feelings and now he doesnt come around anymore.





edit.... crap jim wasnt done yet!!!!! damn!!!

 

Never ONCE indicated or insinuated that $1500 was reasonable. As a matter of fact I have in multiple posts said it seems high, and that I would love to see the details to see where they got their prices from

JUSTIN! Dave's Donky ball eating days were supposed to be kept a secret!!!!!!!

 

Gloss over the part where you, you know, lied. In the paraphrased words of MLK: I have a dream, that one day, we can discuss fixing a vehicle, without you telling us how you know everything about everything that ever was in a vehicle.

 

Without stepping into this quagmire any further... wait, who'm I kidding. I'm jumping in with both feet! I deal with this with my customers on a daily basis.

It's value pricing vs hourly pricing. The fact of the matter is that, yes, Jim, Justin, Dave, Brian, I, or any number of the folks on here who are into wrenching on trucks, can probably beat "book time" on any number of things. I feel pretty confident that I could beat book time on installing a lift on a Tacoma, and I don't even have a hydraulic shop lift at my disposal.

The place where this argument all falls apart from a business perspective, is that all of us on here are NOT a shop's typical customer. We're nowhere near a majority, and I'd say we're probably not even a substantial percentage. If the market is "people who privately own vehicles" I'd say the sub-group of "people who will overhaul an AC system" is probably <15%, and even that I think is being overly generous.

The rest of the market, being conservative at 85%, will probably go, "Shit, that's expensive," and pay it.

I deal with this all the time in what we do. My engineers do flat rate IT work. That places the incentive on us to have highly trained and efficient expert engineers who do work in a timely manner. It also creates an environment where my engineers don't have customers shoulder surfing their computer in a datacenter going, "you done yet? how much longer?" It also (as Bill alludes to) protects the customer to the extent that if something goes awry, we eat it. Estimate a flat rate of $500 to build a VPN across a couple of firewalls for a customer, the third party that's running the far end totally screws the pooch, and it takes 4 hours instead of 2? Customer isn't paying a cent more. We get it done in 15 minutes? Well, I guess that means that we just made $2000/hr. The value to the customer doesn't change. They're still getting $500 of utility out of the service. My engineer that can do it in 15 minutes has 5x the years experience and is making nearly double what the one who is super green that would take 2 hours.

I've got family experience with this stuff. My uncle owned Fox Plaza Tire and Auto in Memphis for over 20 years (after being a mechanic there for over 10 years) and his shop was very successful, expanded from three bays to 9 over his years as owner, and consistently stayed booked solid. He has done comfortably for his family, but he wasn't out there living in a half million dollar house with two kids in private school and driving a Porsche. Now, when he sold that business? He made good money. His wife inherited some hunting / farm land in MS years ago, he retired, they built a nice 4 bedroom house overlooking a pasture, and he's got two full size garage doors with space to build a hotrod.

Jim I'm not trying to attack you personally, and I appreciate you explaining that the AC work is something I can probably knock out on my own. This is all business stuff, and I don't have any problem disagreeing with anyone. I also feel really strongly that if someone can figure out a better way to bill services, have the customer pay less, and they make more, in ANY industry, then they should do it and make piles of money. Eventually someone will say that it's not fair, they're making too much, the customer is getting screwed, and someone will innovate. Perhaps the automotive industry is ripe for innovation. If someone does that, it'd be interested to see how everyone else reacts.

 

This is exactly how my jobs go, just for flooring instead of IT. Well said Keith.

 

I'd add to what i've said above, because there are additional parallels for our business. I'll have customers ask us to do hourly work, that amounts to basic, basic, BASIC stuff. The functional analogue would be going to a mechanic and paying them hourly rate to tighten your lug nuts. They're asking us to do this because they don't have enough people to run their network.

You know what I tell those customers? Mr. Customer, you're not my ideal client. We aren't in the business of running a network, and I don't have the staff or capability to bill you fairly for that type of work. What I DO have the staff and ability to invoice fairly is complex project implementation. My engineers build datacenters, engineer complex WAN/MAN designs, and deploy multi thousand user networks many times over the course of a year. Your business only goes through that lifecycle once every 5. My utility as a business partner is optimized for you when my guys are doing the expert level stuff. As part of that, my goal for the project, is to equip YOUR employees with the training and tools they need to successfully maintain and run the equipment on a daily basis.

I'm sure any mechanic with any sense of morality, if someone came in asking for something truly so simple that anyone could do it on their own, would do something similar.

Again, going back to the folks here on TW and most forums being a fairly extreme corner case, we're not the usual customer.

 

Wait...what? Time to board the rape train, my friend.

OH DAMMIT!

I must have missed the "lies". Personally, myself and hundreds of members of TW have thanked Bill graciously for his knowledge and experience that he has shared when people are in need.


I fail to see the problem with that.

 

BTW... Who writes the "book" that ends up being the federal mandate? Is it the FSM for the vehicle that's published by the manufacturer?

 

Would you like to bring out specifics instead of painting with that broad brush? Let me go back and look here:

My quote: "Now yeah, maybe $1500 is way too much for the job that you had quoted...."

Sounds to me like I was saying $1500 was too high possibly. Again, without SPECIFICS of the entire job, I have no way to know if that is too high, but yes, for a compressor job and a few "small parts" I did say it seemed a bit high. I don't know what year your Miata is, but I just did a general estimate for a 2009 Miata to replace the compressor, receiver/drier, TX valve, and then evac/recharge cost. The grand total at MY shop, is $1062. The total number of labor hours is 8.7 hours which includes replacing the compressor (1.1), TX valve (5.2), receiver/drier (1.0), and the evac/recharge at (1.4) hours. This total reflects a cost of $559 in parts (compressor, TXV, drier, R134a) The rest is in taxes. Now if I were to go to the labor time standard my char shows for Tennessee, it says the average independent shop charges about $82.04 per hour. THAT would mean that an expected cost in Tenn to be: $1272 plus tax. I don't know the tax rate for Tenn, but in this county the total sales tax rate is 9%. Grand total estimated to be $1323.

Now if YOU have figured out a way to replace the compressor, TX valve, and drier, and then evac and recharge in 4 hours, then you are doing good on book time. But no, they did not charge you $400 per hour in labor. You can't compare how much you did the job for in USED parts, without most likely replacing the TXV which you should do whenever you replace a compressor, to them doing the same job, with new parts.

 

There are two books that I know of, they are Chilton and Mitchell. However I think the two companies merged a while back into a single company.