Originally Posted by Dave9
Originally Posted by hallstevenson
Originally Posted by hatt
Toyota quoted my brother $180 to change the belt in his 4runner.
Why do people continually point out how much shops or dealers charge to do repair work ? Aren't their service bays generally full and busy ? I'll bet they replace a serpentine belt every day for that price too and 90% of customers don't look up the price on RockAuto (or even know what RA is) and watch a YouTube video on how to replace it. Why ? Because they have no desire whatsoever to do that kind of work. Or they don't have tools. Or they don't feel comfortable doing it or even attempting it.
Why is because it's not only a ripoff, it's also potentially fraudulent to charge for more labor than it takes to do the work. There are ways around that like only billing to the half hour or hour, and then there is the dishonesty of charging more for the part than it can be bought anywhere else.
People continually point it out because shops essentially take advantage of the naive and lazy. They perform an important, even vital service for society, but not all repairs should cost a premium. Certainly some belts take a fair amount of work to replace and the bill should reflect that, but when you know better, yeah it is something that should be continually pointed out, that if those people who don't want to DIY want to pay, they aren't the people browsing this forum and reading this topic!
Here's a better question: What's it to you? Why do you want to censor other people? They shouldn't have and express their own thoughts?
The industry standard is to use flat-rate labor guides for determining the labor charges for a specific job. Some jobs take longer than the published labor time, others take less. It is very rare for a shop to charge less than "book time" for a job.
Also, if you go to a restaurant and order a can of coke there is usually a significant markup. The practice is no different with an auto repair establishment.