I'm really starting to regret my decision of putting my car into a shop locally. They have had my car for three weeks and all they have done thus far is put on a carb kit,send off gas tank to be sealed, and replaced an exhaust gasket on the manifold. They keep pushing my car to the back burner cause of other customer's cars that are their everyday drivers. It's really starting to piss me off . My money is green just like theirs. I also had it in so they could put my side gl*** in for me; they tell me today that i'm going to have to take it to a speciality shop because they cannot get the old channels off.. by now i could've done all the work myself. BAD DECISION. NEVER AGAIN. three weeks later still no car.
I did not which was my fault,but I didn't expect them to take three weeks. My old lady had her car in the same shop they had it knocked out in two days. Friday, I told them "i need the car Monday" car still isnt' ready.
Sounds like bad communication. Shop probably figures when you don't say anything about when you need it back that it is no rush so they take care of customers that are in a rush first. Pretty hard to expect them to have a car ready on Monday when you tell them on Friday and at no point prior to that have you mentioned when you need it. The shop probably should have asked you when you needed it done or a time frame they expected to have the car for so I would say bad information on both sides. As for the window channels I would rather a shop say take it somewhere else because we are not comfortable doing it than ****ing **** up trying to do it anyways so it might not be all bad.
Do they specialize in old tin, or is this more of a "yeah, we work on those too" kind of place? Sometimes, what we do to older cars is "forgotten wisdom" and the new folks who can't plug it in get a little lost.
seems that way. they were asking me what parts to order. I had to order all the parts for them. They didn't even fix the gas tank in "house" they had to send it off. I think they're one of those shops that just ***emble parts and aren't even good at that.
I had a car in a shop for almost a year...it was a friends shop and he quoted me too low which sounds good up front but turns into a disaster when he loses interest in working on it because there is not much $$$ in it for him and it is the first one to get tossed to the back when bigger money jobs show up.
that's kind of what I figured. Ask 'em if they need help. (seriously)- sometimes these guys will not ask if You have reference material, know a guy who knows a guy, or have seen a diagram in cloud formations.
When they do get it done, hop in it drive it out and tell'em you'll pay them in 2 or three weeks. See how that goes over with them!!!!!
at this point i'm just going to let them finish with the gas tank then go get it. I just hope the bill isn't too high .
I will tell you this. If a shop has a daily driver come in it will take precedence over a weekend car any day. It's just business. Shops make way higher profit margins doing brakes on hondas than anything your car can put in their pockets. That's why there's not many guys who do old stuff full time. That's also what allows them to even be open anymore. The guy has to spend hours on your old tin and he probably won't charge you for every minute so it is used as "filler work" to play with in between jobs that he can charge full rate on and **** those people. Doing it this way may, and should keep your cost down. I just wasted 4 hours today on a customers old car that I want to charge but just can't justify. I lose. It's not fair to me but it wouldn't be fair to him either so I do what I have to. So tomorrow I'll have to work on other jobs, and work 2x as hard, to keep the cash coming in and his car will have to wait so I don't go out of business. If you need or want it right away then you need to tell him that. But if you do you should be prepared to pay him for every hour he puts in so he can pay his bills. I'm not supporting laziness though. If there's nothing else there and he's sleeping or watching tv then fine. If that's the case then do what you must. But do it nicely or when you need him again he just might say "we don't work on those kind of cars anymore, no money in it".
One idea to make sure that you don't get screwed on a build at a rookie or pro shop is take someone along who knows the gig. A consultant or very knowledgeable friend. It's your money and without you, the paying customer, the shops would not be in business. If the shop doesn't want to work with you on that level, with a third party present, find one who will. I've learned over the years working for shops and car owners, that about 50% of the time someone is getting a raw deal. I've seen the car owner get taken when they put a substantial amount of $$ down on the project and on the flip side I've seen shops get taken by the customer. More times than not it is the shop doing the bad. I am a strong advocate of the industry, but there needs to be more professionalism and customer friendly dealings. Mikey www.MikeysPinstriping.com www.HotRodConsulting.com
I'm with a few of the guys on here. Not to say it again- but it probably was bad communication on both ends. I work as a mechanic and part-time manager of a repair shop. I LOVE old tin but almost anytime it comes in it takes up WAY, WAY more time than you'll ever get paid for. YES, your money is as green as the next guys but sometimes you have to look at it like, this is probably not your daily-driver- the shop knows that. They'd rather put you a off a little then tell someone else that they can't take in their easy, late model money because they are too busy. Unless you specifically conveyed to them upfront about timelines you shouldn't be too angry with them. Granted THEY should have also clarified their expectations... I probably wouldn't have said anything except that today I spent about five hours working an a 30-some year old Toronado (to only get paid for a 2.5 hour job). While I spent all of that time on the Olds the other work orders piled up. The Olds guy has been bringing the car into us since he moved into the area and is a good customer and spends money to fix the car but everytime I touch it it turns into a kettle of worms. Old things either take a very delicate touch sometimes or things break. If things break they have to be repaired- often at the cost of our time that I don't feel right charging for. Also, (and you all know this as well as I do) sometimes when you're dealing with very old things you fix one thing and then the next thing down-the-line breaks...almost instantly. Sometimes you just end up chasing a chain of repairs... As far as parts go- I would probably recommend bringing in your own parts. I use a couple vendors to get parts from. If the shop is busy and they don't have the parts I don't have time to try to track down your specialty parts. It's just a sad fact most places are too busy. I'll do it- but the person that needs to get their car to pick up their kids from school that day is going to take priority. Personally I love it when people with older cars bring in their own parts AND service manuals. You said they did a good job on your wife's car. They're probably a good shop. I wouldn't give them too bad a time. Jay
Having been on both sides of this I know where youre coming from but Ive been on the other side too. Back in the day as a shop owner I had a regular customer who had an early 60s Olds Dynamic 88 that had sat for years. He wanted it made roadworthy again (sentimental value) but of course didnt want to spend a ton of money on it. Well, by the time we got done replacing the bad master cylinder, wheel cylinders, rusted out leaking brake lines, cracked rubber brake hoses, leaking heater control valve, freeze plug, rebuild the carb, flush the tank, replace cracked rubber gas lines, new battery etc. etc., I knew nobody was gonna walk away satisfied from this deal. He felt he got filleted on his end price wise (but got a car he brought in on a flatbed back that you could turn the key and drive home) and on my end I lost a TON of hours I couldve been getting paid for on regular jobs that I just could not bill him for, not to mention all my time spent on the phone looking for dynamic 88 parts. But he was and continued to be a regular customer and I felt bad telling him I wouldnt work on the car. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o> </o> On another note, this time from the customers point of view, take your project car to a collision shop and tell em you want bodywork/paint done but youre not in a hurry. (Sound of jake brake and wheels screeching to a halt)
Love this topic, and as a shop owner my first question would be how much are you paying per hour? My shop rate is $65.00 per hour. Second question would be are you willing to pay for everything it takes to find and get parts to work on a old car. I spend half my day doing things or on the phone dealing with parts or venders and if I charge for it Im *** hole. So yes that 2006 Mazda im working on this week a better paying job.
The mechanic working on your car makes straight shop rate. The mechanic next to him working on a late model is making 1.5 "book time". That's right, even though your money is just as green, it's less profitable because of the smoke & mirror tricks they play with shop rate & book time. Sad way to run a business, huh? Unwilling to perform work at the "advertised" rate. Welcome to late model wrenching & crash repair. good luck
I will add to the experience I posted earlier...the next guy i took my car too was buy the book and kept a log of every minute he worked on the car and each week I would come square up with him. Each week when squaring up with the guy I would tell him what I could afford next week and he would do that much work. Worked out and the car got done. I never EVER added up what I spent on that car because I knew I would never get it back but at the time I did not know how to do hardly anything and did not have friends that could help out. With that said...this is a pretty mellow HAMB these days. in years past the replies would have looked something like this...What the F%$# are you doing taking your car to a shop in the first place. Learn how to do it yourself...get your fingerprints on the inside of that motor and blood and sweat into it so you can say it is YOURS (probably would have been a few more curse words in it). hehe. And my projects since my first one I have been taking that advice...doing it myself and having friends help and when they are helping I am listening up and learning what I can. My 66 shovelhead is close to being back together and it has been done completely by me and a friend (outside of some machine shop work)...and I will say it does feel better doing it myself vs paying someone to do it. sorry for the long rant!!! and do not take my post as a rip on you or anybody else. it is not. Just wanted to point out I have been in a similar position before and how I am trying to do things differently now.
to me Today auto repair shop is more of a h***le then anything else...they arent like you and me.. they dont wanna work on the cl***ics they wanna work on civics and accords.. something fast they can knock out and make some quick cash
Boy, does this thread bring back memories. Actually it brings back nightmares. Bottom line, if your working anything that's more than 10-15 years old either you or the customer stands a 50/50 chance of being dissatisfied. It's just the nature of the beast. Frank
Several months ago I took my 47 Plymouth to a neighborhood one man garage to replace the pinion seal. He did it OK and in a timely manner- no problems there. I thought his price was fair. Some time later, I wanted him to do some other fairly small job. When I asked about him doing it, he politely refused. He said the old cars take too long, and he can make more money, more quickly working on the later model stuff. So.....just like others have said.....
It may not be so much that they don't "want" to, but that they can't afford to.Working on things you are familiar with, with readily available parts and procedures that you know well are going to be far more profitable than your old unique project and unless you are truly paying for all of the time, you are not going to bring in enough per hour to keep the doors open.
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