dana axle/gears

Book time to remove and install a diff is 5-6 labor hours. 15 hours?

 

So it takes you 15 hours, 2 days, just to rebuild the front power divider section, who are you trying to scam?

Bender, seriously, WTF is your problem with me!!! You have something negative to say every time I post something! I'm trying to help this guy out, where do you get off? Are you that stupid that I have explain things for you like a little kid? 15 hours for the work that is done here, max, diagnose, tear down take their stupid pictures and reassemble with what ever repair direction they decide? You think it should be 5 hours? I would love to see the quality work you guys do! Oh yah thats right, you only pay your guys book time no matter what and then it becomes their problem! You take any chance you get to slam dealers just to make yourself look good, are you that desperate for business? Do you have this "Bender VS the Dealer" mentality, and Bender must always be right? Maybe 15 hours seems excessive, but this other shop is charging about 35 hours or so. That is an outrage. My example of 15 hours was implied to be an example of max time, I sorry for you I didn't explain myself better. Can't we work together to help these guys out, or are you here just to beat your own chest and point fingers in every which direction?

 

Completely rebuild means the whole differential. Front (power divider) just implies that it isn't a rear diff which is less labor time.

Honestly, I don't get the 15 hour, 2 days, front power divider thing. I was referring to 15 hours to replace a diff with a rebuilt unit.

I have no problem with you or the dealers who treat their customers well. I can tell that you put the customer first. We just run a tighter ship because we aren't a dealer.

Not sure what you mean by all this slamming and such. Are you being picked on?

 

There are two separate 15 hour parts to my post. First, 15 hours to replace a diff with a reman is too high. If Joe customer comes in and says, here, replace my front diff, thats it, nothing more and nothing less, yes I agree with you 5-6 hours R&R only is fine, no problem. When someone else comes in and says I have a driveline noise and now we need to diagnose it and tear things down in diagnostic manner to see what failed and why because it suppose to be under warranty, that is different. Your 5-6 hour book time no longer applies because this is a different job now. When some one has a diff fail, even if it was just a quick break of something, we still spend some time to make sure metal isn't left in the house or got into the wheel bearings. We don't spend 10 hours, but if wheels have to come off and bearings cleaned you can see 5 hours isn't enough for that. I hope you never get burned for installing a diff and the guy looses a wheel after because there was metal in the oil! For this customer there is more time here involved due to how it failed and the whole warranty BS he is unfortunately going through. Since warranty isn't paying anything, I can only assume there is a few hours involved with diagnosing and processing for the warranty that Dana isn't paying for and now the shop is charging it directly to the customer, snowflake1. It doesn't take long for the time build up. All shops are different. Some don't write off one minute and others make it fair. 19 hours isn't fair to the customer, 5 hours isn't fair to the shop. With the extra time here needed for the warranty that is where I came up with 15 hours. I expressed 15 hours to be on the high side since they were charging him so much. I see now other repairs are involved so the time they charged for the diff isn't as high as I thought, but still too high. I am happy to see they cut it back a bit, to 15 hours, lucky guess.
Ok, 15 hours, part 2. You mentioned earlier it takes 20 hours to remove, rebuild and reinstall a PD. Then you put me down by saying standard time for a diff R&R is 5-6 hours, not 15, (already explained above.) Well, 20 hours total time, minus 5 hours R&R time leaves you 15 hours to rebuild the gear. 15 hours is basically two working days. See where I am coming from?
Just because I am from a dealer doesn't mean we don't run a tight ship either and just screw every customer that walks in the door. A good part of our work is warranty. I would assume we would do more warranty work than non-dealer shops. Warranty doesn't pay the bills. Any shop that makes a good profit from warranty, my hat goes off to you! In cases like this, the shop now has some time tied up because of the warranty process, warranty denied, now who pays for that? I know it sucks, I don't like it either. Non-dealer shops don't deal with warranty claims and the time and BS that comes with it. Your lucky! But someone has to do it. When ever we have something like this, we never get paid 100%, never. We leave many hours on the table every week in order to maintain positive relations with our customers.
Bender, I appreciate your input and value what you have to say, no doubt, you know your stuff. But we seem to but heads more often lately which is taking away from the greatness of this forum. We are simply from two different worlds and different business back grounds. Dealers will always be different from private shops and vise versa. Different doesn't mean one is better than the other, just different. I'm sorry, but dealers will always be more expensive than non-dealers for a lot of reasons. Some reasons you probably think are stupid, and believe me, I do too, but it is what it is. I just don't appreciate when I have some input to try to help someone and you're there contradict me in a condescending tone usually involving how much time or money or whatever.

 

I've been on both sides of the fence. I served my apprenticeship in a union dealer shop (Peterbilt) for 5 years. Then I herded a truck for 2 years, then went back to wrenching, so I've been around the block. I know about dealers, unions, warranty etc. I take no personal offense to any of your posts and have learned from them. I also respect yours and all opinions of this forum. All People have the right to state their opinion in a respectful manner without being offensive. Everyone here can state their views and learn from each other. We can disagree without taking offense. We all read posts that we don't agree with or care for. Overlook them and let it go.

I will not comment further on this subject in this thread.

 

What did you see that needed repair in your diff?