I paid 350 bucks to replace turbo studs because it was trying to fall off, on an old E model Cat, that's an hour job that shouldn't cost 350 ####in dollars.
Not just the labour tho. There was probably $1000 or more in tools involved, nevermind the building overhead, taxes, shop supplies, power bill, janitorial staff etc.
Their hourly rate was 160 an hour as I recall, I know a guy here with a shop twice as big as that little hole who's 100 an hour less. They simply charge about whatever they want as they figure they'll never see you again. I now keep a set of turbo bolts in the truck, I can do it with my 50 dollar Stanley tool kit and a vice grip out in the parking lot.
im not saying the price was too high or not. im saying i see a ton of blaming going on. finger pointing. you always see this when someone doesnt have the funds to handle repairs.
Hypothetical scenario: If it were an unfortunate situation where the stud was broken off flush with the manifold and the mechanic had to drill and extract the stud, the shop should have to eat that cost? Its not the shop's fault it broke. This is why I stick mainly to heavy equipment repairs and larger companies. Truck drivers whine and complain too much.
This was the bolts holding the turbo on, not the manifold, three of them were already MIA actually, not sure how that happened. Spent 4 hours there, most of them waiting for their parts to show up. Hardly the most money I've had to pay for ridiculous repairs on the road, got charged 400 bucks to change one brake can once, in a shop even not on the shoulder.
Here’s the lesson of the day for everyone so pay attention, or I’ll bite your collective necks all the way through! Well, maybe not that, but this is good stuff so.... Do you know why house cleaners and yard mowing outfits can’t charge much for their services? Because people won’t pay very much for a service they can perform easily themselves. “It has to be cheap or I’ll do myself” is the attitude. Example, we pay our house cleaner $75.00 and she’s at our house for a good 3-3.5 hours and she brings her own supplies and mop and vacuum, etc... Hell, I save enough in cleaning supplies cost alone to pay a good 25% of her pay. 3.5 hours of our time is worth more than that. On the other side of the coin, call an electrician to wire up your storage shed. They’ll charge you $75.00 for the service call alone before doing anything. You’ll end up paying hundred time the job is done. Why do people pay? Because they can’t do it themselves so it’s either pay or it doesn’t get done. The moral here? If you wanna be an O/O, you better learn how to work on crap yourself, or you better start squirreling away a hell of an escrow for maintenance and repairs.
Wired most of our shop myself, other than the furnace it isn't hard. The issue is you can't keep enough crap on the truck to fix every thing that's going to break on the road. When you're stuck going to a shop 600 miles from home you're likely going to pay out the nose, what are you going to do, drive on with a brake can locked up or the turbo falling off?
