Flat rate is the only way to quote work properly. But most places double dip.
Flat rate is there so if I have a good day and do the job quickly or a bad day and it takes a long time to do it, you the customer pay the same amount.
It goes like this.
Dodge 1ton needs the following
Drive axle u joints
4 ball joints
front rotors and pads.
So if you quote each job flat rate, the number is really high. like 12 hours total
But you have to remove all those parts to change the ball joints. So you only need to charge 1 extra hour to pound out the drive axle ujoints in the vice and re install. So your bill should be about 5.5hours
But the dealers will flat rate out each individual piece.
Thats where you get screwed. A good shop with a good service writer will recognize this and bill properly. But if you pay someone that has no clue what is involved in doing this job $15.00 per hour to do up your bills, then you the unknowing customer will pay the price.
My mom had this happen on her Volkswagen. She had it in for the 100000km timing belt change, also I had bought a new temp sensor for it as her's had quite working, but app-on reviewing the book on how to change it, you had to pull most of the same stuff off. So I told her just get the dealer to change it when they are in there, the coolant was going to be drained to change water pump anyway, and one wire plug to undo, then screw out the sensor and screw in the new one.
Dealer tried to charge her 5 hours to change it.
I had to go in and yell at the service manager. They finally changed the bill to charge 0.5hr to change it. That was the proper amount.
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