Labour Costs - Servicing

michaelro

Had my car serviced at the weekend (Fixed Price).

Service due to take 1.5 hrs

During the service they found I needed a part replacing and did so at my authorisation (extra 0.5 hrs labour quoted + part price).

Looked over the invoice last night and noticed £100 in labour charges (2hrs)

They had the car for 1.5 hrs - Should I be expected to pay for 2 hr's labour for a fixed price job + extra work when the total time taken was within the original service time?

jaydeeuk1

IMO, they charge in man hours. EG, if two people took 1 hour to do repairs to your car, then labour should be charged at 2 hours.

Anihilator

Have you asked the garage?

They quoted one hour. Maybe it took longer. Maybe they charge in full hours and it took 1hr 5 mins.

Only they can tell you.

michaelro

jaydeeuk1 wrote: »

IMO, they charge in man hours. EG, if two people took 1 hour to do repairs to your car, then labour should be charged at 2 hours.

Was only 1 person working on my car

Anihilator wrote: »

Have you asked the garage?

Haven't yet, trying to see if anyone else was in the same boat or had any thoughts before making an issue of it.

Anihilator wrote: »

They quoted one hour. Maybe it took longer. Maybe they charge in full hours and it took 1hr 5 mins.

Can't see how that's legal..?

neilmcl

You were quoted for for a fixed price job. What if took longer, would you have been willing to pay more?

michaelro

neilmcl wrote: »

You were quoted for for a fixed price job. What if took longer, would you have been willing to pay more?

I see your point and I don't have a problem with the fixed price service as I was expecting to pay for that.

My Issue is that the extra work that was carried out, was carried out within the time quoted for the original service.

Should I be paying for labour time the mechanic didn't use?

neilmcl

Whose to say it wasn't used. Maybe the service only took an hour, you'd still have to pay the full amount due to it being fixed price.

michaelro

neilmcl wrote: »

Whose to say it wasn't used.

I waited while the work was done - I left within 1.5 hrs of arriving
I only checked the invoice properly once I got in.

neilmcl wrote: »

Maybe the service only took an hour, you'd still have to pay the full amount due to it being fixed price.

I don't have a problem paying for the fixed price work (quoted at 1.5 Hrs work) it's the extra labour costs which they didn't use I have an issue with.

Anihilator

How do you know they werent used?

At the end of the day you need to phone and ask. Until you do this no one can help. It could be legit. It could be dodgy.

Its impossible to say.

michaelro

Having spoke to them, I was told another technician worked on my car and the labour time is in man hours.

I'm still a little dubious as there were no other cars or customers
around while I was there.

I was booked into a pre-arranged time slot (Saturday) so the 'other technician' would have been standing around for the almost the entire time I was there....

Anihilator

Stupid logic

If both mechanics worked on the car it doesnt matter what else they would have been doing.

It would have taken one technician twice as long i.e same man hours.