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Did I just get ripped off bigtime?

1K views 7 replies 7 participants last post by  John Davis 
#1 · (Edited)
So basicly I went to my usual autorepairshop. My electric window switch needed to be replaced, and the plastic things in the front bumper (don't know whats it called, the things you can remove and click back in easily) needed to be replaced.

So today I got the invoice regarding these repairs. Stating this;
32 Euro - window switch
47 Euro - the bumper thingies
48 Euro - hourly fee (aren't these repairs supossed to be like 15 minutes of work, max?!)
31 Euro - covering? (No idea what this is supossed to be)

Total 194 Euro.

This seems a bit too much. What do you guys think? And does anyone knows what those plastic things are I described, like, what are they called? So I can search for the price for it.
 
#4 ·
Sorry, but if you're calling broken parts "thingies" you probably need the help and likely should not be questioning a one hour labor charge.
Independent shops are not charities. They have to pay rent on the building, taxes on income, staff wages, kids' iDevices / dental straightening / education as well as save for their own retirement. You would have paid more in California regardless of what the thingies actually are.
 
#5 ·
...
So today I got the invoice regarding these repairs. Stating this;
32 Euro - window switch
47 Euro - the bumper thingies
48 Euro - hourly fee (aren't these repairs supossed to be like 15 minutes of work, max?!)
31 Euro - covering? (No idea what this is supossed to be)
...
This seems a bit too much. What do you guys think? And does anyone knows what those plastic things are I described, like, what are they called? So I can search for the price for it.
On the labor; here in the USA/CA (might be same in EU), they charge by a predefined "labor unit", and they're usually in quarter-hour increments. 48 euro is probably 1/2 hour, not too unusual a charge.

You can probably identify the part using the US sites realoem.com or penskeparts.com.
 
#6 ·
I wouldn't question that labor part.
That's how shops work, quite simple things can take time, specially if time begins from putting gloves on and searching for tools and parts...

Anyway did they replace and fix exactly what you wanted? Or did they invent something which you didn't even notice yourself?
 
#8 ·
If you're not in a position to do the work yourself, ask your mechanic if he minds you bringing your own parts (which you would buy online to get a good price). If he says he minds, look for one who doesn't--some don't. That prevents a mechanic from marking the part up.

I'm not sure what you can do about the labor charge.

Frankly, I don't know whether mechanics charge too much. I think they should charge enough to pay a mortgage on a house, save for retirement, pay for health insurance, send their children to college, take vacations now and then, and pay the taxes and equipment leases and rent on their shop. It may be that they're doing exactly that, and maybe not even doing that well--I just don't know.

Part of the problem is the way they price things. They mark up the parts, and they tell you they charge, say, $80 an hour, but then the number of hours ends up being more than it took to do the job. What would happen to a mechanic who said, 'I'm going to charge $150 an hour, but no parts will be marked up and I'll charge only the time actually worked"? His bills might be the same as everyone else's, but he'd lose business to competitors who claim to charge $80. So he has to do the same, whether he likes it or not.

I can't work on my own car because I live in a condo building where the rules don't let us work on cars in our parking spaces. Fortunately, someone here in bimmerfest referred me to a mechanic friend of his who is very reasonable in his charges. Sometimes you get lucky; ask BMW owners in your area who they recommend for a good price.
 
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