solman98

The only thing any employer has to pay is your OASDI/Medicare (SSN Benefits). Anything other than that is strickly benefits. Only with the UAW that $$$ figure doubles+ the hourly rate (which is usually across the board, even for sweepers). So I would rather pay book time than a UAW worker an unheard of salary for what he actually does.....

Most know about book time. If you knew how much your HHR actually cost to build, would you have still bought it? We buy vehicles in bulk yearly, I know I get them cheaper than dealerships (I hear them ***** about it on the invoice ). I just wish I could buy personally at that price.

SindyDix

You pay the doctor for what he knows, not what he does..... I apply the same for the auto mechanics. I know this is going off topic or sorts!

Old Ray

Not really! Mike, the thing about the flat rate book time is that if you screw up and have to re-repair or have a come back then the Mechanic doesn't get paid, also only the experienced and the R & R specialists get to be really fast at beating book time, it takes time for rookies to get the experience to beat the book. No book time of diagnostics and trouble shooting?
I know, been there. done that.

TkHHR

Ok, as I understand the how "Book" price works is, it is the amount of time it should take to do a job. Now where it goes wrong to me is when a mechanic is expected to "Book" 40 hours a day. In other words if the book says 2 hours and you can do it in 30min the customer pays for 2 hours and you are on to your next job in 30min. At the end of a business day you have done 40 hours work in 8. I am sure the 40 hours is a goal and not always possible to achieve. This is how I was told it works, not sure if it is fact.

ChevyMgr

40 hours per day would be either A)impossible or B)grand theft. Most shops want 125% efficiency. So if you work a 40 hour week you would need to book 50 hours.

Extremely good techs can book 80 hours in a week, but in dealerships we have to watch that to make sure they are not flat rating or penciling.

Which means if they say they removed a head liner to repair a short and they got paid 3.0 hours for removing it, they better have removed it.

This is a constant battle for managers. I have had techs say they replaced head gaskets, but found out either by observation or from other techs that they replaced a thermostat gasket. Which means they got paid 5.0 hours for a job that pays .5 hours. Usually this resulted in termination of employment and either a debit to GM or a refund to the customer. I can't speak for all shops though.

Snoopy

Curious ChevyMgr......

COULD this type of activity be responsible for SOME of the brake rotor repair and returns? I know GM specifically addresses this repair in a 13 page TSB. But I find it hard to believe (because of the number of returns for the same problem) that tech.'s are performing ALL the necessary "steps" IN THE CORRECT ORDER.

For example, do ALL the tech's check for run-out, shim accordingly, properly prepare the matching surfaces before reinstalling the wheel to the hub (rhetorical)? Or are they "slapping" the rotor on the lathe and just cutting.......then reinstalling. If they cut corners, I think this would cut their book time by 50%, minimum. Thus, providing more time against the book for the next job. At the end of the day, they could have 8-10 hours of time charged, but in actuality only utilized 5-6 hours.

Are Service Managers "suspicious" of tech's who book 15-20 hours in an 8 hour period?

Opinion??????

ChevyMgr

And the plumber. I needed a new gas pipe in my fireplace. I couldn't get the old one out and had no idea how deep it went into the foundation. I called a plumber.

This big guy came in, put a pipe wrench on it and twisted. Out came a 8 inch pipe. He screwed another one in and walla, $135.00 for 10 minutes of work. When I questioned the charges he stated: $5.00 for the part, $130.00 for knowing how to get the old one out and this one in. I agreed and paid.

ChevyMgr

GM requires that we notate the lateral run out on the repair order any time rotors are turned. Now can a tech just write down known values and not do the work, yes. But then the customer would still have brake pulsation. I have what I feel are 3 very good frontend techs that don't cut the corners and repair per the book/bulletins. But I can't watch them every second of the day, so anything is possible.

Bottom line is a manager has to rotate his time between the shop, the service reception drive and his office. Like right now I am sitting in the service advisors office. 10 minutes from now I will be prowling the shop.

You must have techs you can trust too. Most times techs are busted by other techs who resent the fact that they are cheating/stealing. Most of the techs at my dealership have been here more than 5 years, so I don't have much to worry about, although I have learned not to manage by emotion but by reality. A tech might get himself in a financil crisis and decide to start flat rating, so you must have your guard up always.

You can't judge by hours per day. Weekly hours is what I look at. A tech might have a big job and not book any hours for one day and then book 20 or 30 hours the next day. But I know when I have big jobs working and expect that.

I know which techs are capable of running 80 hours and which ones aren't.

And remember this the young techs normally are 80% effiecient. So they work 40 hours and get paid maybe 25 or 30 at a much lower rate/hour.

I know managers who want techs to run 100 hous per week any way they can. That is wrong and it is theft. I would be more the "suspicious" of a tech running that many hours.

tsaints1115

Maybe you could tell us what job you have that allows you to criticize a union one. A union job is not all about money but I`m sure an expert like you already knew that.

Curious Monkey

Goose

My only Union job was with a company called Child World which was a toy store that went belly up quite some time ago. I think I was 16 or 17 and all remember was that I had to "join" this union to work there...some silly thing called Toyworkers of America or something like that...AFL affiliation I think.....

Anyways I recall when the "contract" came up the union hammered out a whopping 30 cent raise over 3 years....thank the Lord we had them looking out for us And I had to pay something like 10 bucks a week to these chislers!


I gotta look around my folks house and see if my "union card" is buried somewhere That experience years ago was enough for me lol





But a question for Chevy MGR...

In a few weeks I'm probably going to go into my dealer with a laundry list of items I want to be looked at...groaning hatch struts, timing chain tensioner rattling..weird wind noise on highway, rearview mirror falling apart, mirror caps whistling, brakes starting to pulse...etc

As you can see a whole bunch of items...because a lot of this stuff is so different, what are the odds that not everything is not going to be addressed...in other words, they say rattle is normal on tensioner or say they don't hear anything...all in the interest of just getting the car out of the shop....does that make sense what I am asking?



Goose