Crumpler wrote: ↑Wed Dec 15, 2021 12:49 pm
I guess the 20% that irritated me was if you (ie me as shadetree wrench) look at that invoice it feels like overlapping labor charges.
Ah. Ok. A specific irritation I can work with...
One thing to consider right off is that once you have more than "you" working on 928s (any car really) you can't just bill straight time. If that doesn't make intuitive sense then let me know.
So... you have to use book time, book time with modifications based upon experience, and/or just "set" labor charges for tasks for which no book time exists or which aren't reflective of actual average labor. (I'm pretty sure book time for 928s wasn't updated after 1979 except for "new" tasks due to new equipment (e.g. PSD, etc.)
Crumpler wrote: ↑Wed Dec 15, 2021 12:49 pm
There’s a post purchase inspection fee which I feel like falls under the “ I’ve crawled through this car, this is what you need”.
You've seen my PPI doc right? (If not, link is in my signature.) If you go methodically through that and do everything including crank-end play on an automatic, it can take 10 to 12 hours and that doesn't include any supporting documentation you want to produce for the client.
Last time I did a full inspection it took 8.42 hours (5-speed) and the write-up required 8.02 hours and resulted in a 19 page report where about 1/3 of the "paper" was included pictures. (7 MB PDF.) I also went through 20 years of service records as part of that and documented "notable" items.
What would be a fair charge for my 16.44 hours?
In the case of the BaT GB invoice, there were corrections made to findings en passant with the inspection. So, was that work free? Or added to a "set" labor fee for inspection?
Crumpler wrote: ↑Wed Dec 15, 2021 12:49 pm
Then a diagnosis fee. This involved know good MAF and brains.
Actually, reading the description - this involved effort in diagnosis and then swapping-in MAF and brains to attempt to confirm and/or gather more data.
Now, some of the diagnostic 'findings' are interesting because I would have found them during my inspection.
I'm pretty sure GB's shop rate is close to $200/hr (you can thank California for at least $50 of that).
So, if we add up the labor for the first page then, assuming shop rate between $150 and $200 that's 6.3 to 8.4 hours of labor.
Does that seem excessive for what's described?
It's basically a "day" of work. Do you think you could have done what was described yourself, in a day, on a 928 you'd never seen before? Probably you could have. What would you want to charge for that day of work?
Crumpler wrote: ↑Wed Dec 15, 2021 12:49 pm
Then labor for each system component on at least what I consider top end work. Then 1100.00 to break down top end. Then labor to replace fuel lines when he’s already got them right in front of him because he charged to get down to them, etc.
So, I saw that too. There are a number of ways to look at those labor charges and descriptions. One thing for sure is that the labor is NOT based upon the actual time required. So, these charges are very likely "list" based.
Without having been a fly on the wall - and since the invoice is as best a high-level summary - you can't know for certain what was the order of operations. They might have done the fuel lines and then the intake. That would have been the wrong order. But, what you don't know is if that is actually the order in which it was done. The invoice implies it.
Maybe they did do it in the wrong order. If they did, then you can't be sure that they didn't discount the labor for the intake R&R because of the 'wrong' order.
One thing I note is that there was almost no labor charge to replace the in-tank pump and external fuel filter. The in-tank pump can be a serious bitch and takes a couple of hours even in the best case. It looks to me like they did that almost for free.
When I add up all the labor in the first invoice (exclusive of the inspection first page) I get $5535 which is 27.7 to 36.9 hours of labor based upon 150-200 shop rate.
Given the descriptions of work that labor range seems about right off the top of my head.
So... in the end... you have to pay your employees, pay for premises, taxes, yada, yada, and you have to charge your clients enough money to show at least $1 profit after you've paid yourself a wage of some sort.
Since you can't charge straight time for each of your "wrenches" you have to come up with some sort of "flat rate" schedule for most tasks. Dealers are notorious for charging flat rate for every part as if it was the only part replaced regardless of common labor for other parts.
So, looking at charges like $90 for knock sensor replacement, you have to know that that charge is based upon "intake already removed" so GB is at least trying to base "set" charges on savings from common labor.
So, unless I was a fly on the wall, or the invoice was "blow-by-blow" there's a level of opacity that precludes some conclusions. In the end though, I look at the described work, back out the labor time, and it looks about right.
Crumpler wrote: ↑Wed Dec 15, 2021 12:49 pm
I might, if I was doing this, not charge the client for the distilled water. But that’s me ;)
Would you not document it for the client? If not then won't your client complain that you used tap water? Or the wrong coolant mix? If GB hadn't listed it then you would surely have noticed that the wrong mix was installed or that the client was charged for pre-mix (and therefore more.)
If you are going to document then why not charge at least actual out-of-pocket cost?
If you charge JUST what you paid for it, then you are actually losing money on it. Someone had to go to the store and buy it. That took time. If you had to pay for that person's time then you're loosing money and won't be in business too long...
... unless you increase your shop rate to cover that kind of overhead. What about the time you spent working up the parts list, getting the stuff ordered, receiving it, checking it, marking contents against the order, etc? How does that get paid for?
($2.25 for distilled water is a 'nice' markup. It's $1.04 at the store here. But, someone has to get it, it takes up shelf space (rent) so you can't argue that it shouldn't be marked up. You can argue about how much it's marked up, but not that it should be.)
One thing that is difficult is the methodology for dispersing overhead between parts and labor. How much effort (overhead) are you willing to spend to make that accounting make sense from all angles? Or, do you just WAG it and at the end of the year figure out how much you - as the business owner - made? Then when you realize that you made $10/hr on 60 hour weeks you decide that perhaps you should charge for the distilled water and figure out where else you can do "cost recovery."
Crumpler wrote: ↑Wed Dec 15, 2021 12:49 pm
Ok, I’ll take my lumps now.
Give me the pro version of this story.
No lumps really. For the most part they are questions that arise because you have insight that people that don't work on their 928s don't.
All in all, yes there are some questions. But, when I look at "the whole" the expended labor looks "about right" given certain assumptions.
If you spend non-trivial time looking at service records for 928s I think you would find that GB's invoices are an island of competent sanity in an otherwise insane and incompetent world. Sure, you can poke at them and maybe you'll get a drop of blood here and there. But, I can show you invoices (many) that would make your head explode with fury. (For example: the GT that was the subject of the inspection for which I detailed labor above, spent three years going to and from the shop to have A/C o-rings replaced. One. At. A. Time. (Yes, slightly kidding, but only slightly.))
I can't tell you how many 928 records I've seen where the intake was R&R'd three or four times in the course of a couple of years to replace the next failed part. That "inspected" GT got its cam covers removed for the fourth time because it wasn't done right after the first time. (They last 15-20 years, so a 30-year old GT would be on its third set.)
If you look at my invoices you would certainly come away with the feeling that I am insane. My "invoice" for that GB work would have probably run to at least 15 pages and that doesn't count itemization of parts. But, you would have been dead certain about the order in which the tasks were done.
Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Heinlein’s Corollary: Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
The Reddit Conjecture: Sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.
Worf’s Razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by laziness.
Worf’s Identity: Sufficiently advanced laziness is indistinguishable from stupidity
Worf's Law: Once you've mitigated risk from stupidity and laziness in your endeavors, failure is usually the result of insufficient imagination.
My 928 Inspection Guide