No offense, but the car business doesn't work like that. I only have 34 years invested, so I could still be wrong. I'm sorry I accidentally hijacked this thread with my complaint. The fact that so many of the contributors here are capable of doing their own repairs skews the perspective, but doesn't change the reality these shops are facing.
In my business, if I didn't make money on parts, we could never make it. Ideally we need to average around 20-25% gross profit on parts. So if I pay $400, I need to sell it for $500. I did that for 14 years and no one ever accused me of padding the bill. Its just the way it is.
:violin:
Bolding mine.
No offense, but the car businesses I do business with work
exactly like that.
The shop that I work for, for instance, works
exactly like that. We charge retail price for the parts we sell, and if we install them we charge an hourly labor rate plus a shop fee to cover grease and towels and whatnot.
The Toyota dealer down town works exactly like that. When I had them replace the alternator on my wife's truck because I was lazy, the cost for the part on my receipt was exactly the same as what I would have paid for it at the parts desk down the hall (I checked
).
The independent shop down the street works exactly like that. When I had them replace the starter on an Explorer several years ago, I wasn't charged any more for the starter than I would have paid at NAPA - because that's what the shop did, they called up NAPA and NAPA sent them a starter on the afternoon truck.
I don't know what kinda businesses you guys are running. I don't know what your business model is. But if I came to any of you for, say, a new set of OME springs to get installed, and you wanted to charge me more for those springs than I would pay to have them shipped to me at retail prices from a retail outlet, I'd laugh and walk away. I ain't paying more for a set of springs because you called up ARB to order them instead of me. I'm paying you to install them. If you prefer to order them yourself that's fine and I don't blame you. But if you're going to charge over retail for them because you had to go to the effort of looking up a part number in a catalog and calling a supplier, be honest with your customer about it and itemize the charge accordingly.
Anyway, I'm done with this thread. You all are not getting my point (or don't want to), so whatever. Good luck with your respective businesses, and I mean that. Myself, I'll continue to patronize businesses that don't lie to me about how much a part cost them.
fftopic:
