I found one heck of a gem (transmission).

[masagsxr]

$450 labor with fluids etc... not bad.... not bad at all...... yeah dealers are good at over quoting the hours it takes when in reality it probably is about 8 hour job. Service techs work by commission or something. They can do a 15hour job in 8 hours and get paid for the whole 15hours and they can work on other cars.

[MR2SW22]

Originally Posted by masagsxr

$450 labor with fluids etc... not bad.... not bad at all...... yeah dealers are good at over quoting the hours it takes when in reality it probably is about 8 hour job. Service techs work by commission or something. They can do a 15hour job in 8 hours and get paid for the whole 15hours and they can work on other cars.

I've been a service advisor for many stealerships, including toyota. we usually shouldn't over quote hours, we go by a book that Toyota issues as to how long it should take a trained Toyota tech with experience to do any one job. Say the book says 15 for a transmission rebuild, and it really takes a tech 10 hours to do, he gets paid for 15 hours and you the customer pays 15 hours. I've also seen it where, there are jobs that the book says it takes 5 hours to do a job, and it takes many techs 10-15 hours to do it, so you the customer pays for the 5 hours, but the tech is stuck on a job for a day and a half. It does work both ways.

Dont even get me started on Warranty jobs, toyota and many car companies shaft the service department, and the techs for heavyline work.

$450 is a fair price, i personally might just do it myself though. I still wana come by and see this shop, my g/f's g-parents live in montclair, where is it located.

[masagsxr]

Yeah kinda what i mean/meant...

But if the book says 5 hours and techs do it for 10-15 hours hhmmm thats kinda odd. I'm sure countless hours of research are put on these books in order to make that determination. I know most stealership service mechanic techs have/must bring their own tools. Maybe they don't have the tools for the job which takes the that much longer?

[Davis]

Taking off a dash pays like 4-5 hours and it takes a tech half a day to pull it out.

[masagsxr]

I'm sure Christian (Cjung) can take it out in 2 heheheheheeee... Right Christian? LoL

[Stork]

Our address is 5512 Arrow Hwy, Unit D, Montclair, California, 91763. Feel free to stop by anytime Tues - Sat. Are there any local MR2 shops around here? We would love to speak with them if so and see how they do their thing... also to scope out the competition

[MR2SW22]

Originally Posted by masagsxr

Yeah kinda what i mean/meant...

But if the book says 5 hours and techs do it for 10-15 hours hhmmm thats kinda odd. I'm sure countless hours of research are put on these books in order to make that determination. I know most stealership service mechanic techs have/must bring their own tools. Maybe they don't have the tools for the job which takes the that much longer?

Some tools are mad just for working on toyota vehicles, which can only be purchased at toyota. most techs own their own tools like that, the cheaper ones, but more expensive tools the dealership usually provides that. A perfect example is one i ran into with Avalons, i think it was the 03 or 05 model, i forgot, but there is a known issue with the heads leaking oil. it's all under warranty, but warranty i think only pays 6 hours. you have to remove 2 heads, replaces parts/gaskets and put it all back together. the fastest one of my guys did it was in like 10-12 hours, took all day, and he only got paid 6 hours. other techs took a day an a half to do it, so you do the math, would you want that kind of work? i wouldn't, but they have to do it.

Originally Posted by Stork

Our address is 5512 Arrow Hwy, Unit D, Montclair, California, 91763. Feel free to stop by anytime Tues - Sat. Are there any local MR2 shops around here? We would love to speak with them if so and see how they do their thing... also to scope out the competition

not that i know of, just in San deigo i think there is a mr2 3s-gte specialty shop.

[masagsxr]

ic. Does the book say how many techs should work on the car for the hours they provide? I'm still stoke why that is the case.....

[Davis]

That's the world of flat rate man.

[masagsxr]

I'm still not convinced.. I guess i'd have to see it for myself

[Mark_Dorman]

I don't know of any MR2 shops down here...

[Davis]

Welcome to ETL Garage in Fullerton.

[Mark_Dorman]

There ya go...

[MR2SW22]

Originally Posted by masagsxr

I'm still not convinced.. I guess i'd have to see it for myself

this might make more sense, when the dealership gets paid for warranty work, they usually get $85 an hour, vs. the $95-120 an hour they charge customers. Toyota, and other car makers think they should get a lower rate for warranty work. It's business, plain and simple.

Working for a flat rate can sometimes pay off, and when things are slow, it sucks, that's the nature of the business.

[masagsxr]

+1... yeah the warranty work I agree..... Well maybe its just me but I try to do most of the work myself. I wasted enough $$$ going to shops/stealers on my earlier days and can't afford them anymore hehehehehehee.... Besides, it just becomes a hassle taking it back to dealer for warranty and there's always some kind of catch them saying they have to check it first if it covers it or not .... Doing the work myself would be better for me. I can blame it to myself if something goes wrong

[MR2SW22]

Originally Posted by Davis

Welcome to ETL Garage in Fullerton.

nice, their website doesn't have anything on it, but at least it's somewhere i know. i use to live in fullerton. I need a Dyno tune for my AFC2, after i buy a FRP, i should be good for a tune with some race gas.

[Stork]

well, we charge $75 an hour for service and typically $150 for tuning. This comes from years of fabrication training, professional tuning training as well as having experience tuning with some of the professionals at Signal in Japan among others. We feel that we are priced very competitively and have the hands-down best work ethic and service policy; we absolutely do not cut corners and because of that we take longer than most shops. What you get for that extra time is superior quality and our unconditional warranty against our service.

I would not have driven across the country to work with these guys if I did not share the same ethical views, moral values, and believe in the work they are doing out here. We all have had instances in our backgrounds of being taken advantage of by shops as teens and then we did something about it; we took matters into our own hands of being responsible for our education and gaining experience in dealing with our hobby personally. So for us this is more of a personal thing that we have taken into business form with our maturity and our passion. Someone has to stand up for the little guy and I can absolutely guarantee you that we never actually bill for the hours spent on a project; even if we try, the value always surpasses our time of work put into a job.

A lot of shops say similar things to what I wrote above and I've even been given the same story when I would talk to other people about their jobs. The truth always came out in the end, but for us all that you have to do is talk to any one of our customers and you will receive the same response from any of them. I can only hope that we can bring these values to this community as well.

[masagsxr]

Very genuine.... Thats good man..... When time comes i'll definitely drop my car off. I'd like to take care of all the leaks and I'd rather pony up the $$$ to have someone with your standards fix it than doing it my own.

[Mark_Dorman]

Yeah...maybe we've found a new shop. You wanna sponsor the SoCal MR2 club

[Stork]

Lets talk and see what we can come up with. I'm sure that we can come to some sort of arrangement.