Mini £150 per hour labour charge?

almillar

I got that solenoid replaced free on a 4 yr old Cooper S (under TLC), no question of having to pay for it, at a Mini dealer, after I reported an oil leak. Press harder...
The problem I encountered with TLC is that this 'all inclusive' servicing package only includes the FIRST brake fluid chage. These have to happen every 2 years or 20,000 miles. So over the 5 years of TLC, no matter what your mileage, you'll need 2. Not fair!

burlington6

If you think that's expensive you should try getting a bill of a solicitor....and they do sod all!

Iceweasel

almillar wrote: »

I got that solenoid replaced free on a 4 yr old Cooper S (under TLC), no question of having to pay for it, at a Mini dealer, after I reported an oil leak. Press harder...
The problem I encountered with TLC is that this 'all inclusive' servicing package only includes the FIRST brake fluid chage. These have to happen every 2 years or 20,000 miles. So over the 5 years of TLC, no matter what your mileage, you'll need 2. Not fair!

I would double check the brake-fluid change schedule.

I think they say that the first change is 3 years from the build date (note-NOT the date of first registration) and thereafter every 2 years.

Not that it makes any difference to the number of changes needed in 5 years.

Bantex_2

When I was younger, nobody ever changed brake fluid. Has the stuff go less reliable?

harveybobbles

philng wrote: »

BUT there will be a £150 labour charge for 1 hours work!
We have complained as this works out at £300000 per year!

Why? Who to? What do you feel this will achieve?

philng

... we have complained through the dealer who have escalated to BMW. They have called but still refusing to budge. Interesting that someone has this replaced for free after 4 years. Complaint is ongoing so we will see what I achieve...

Gavin83

colino wrote: »

Of course Jimmy operating from the railway arches is cheaper than James operating from the sealed floor, glass and chrome palace down the road because of the massive difference in overheads. However, "Mechanics is mechanics" is so embarrassingly off the mark, you really don't have a clue. A lot of basic servicing and bread and butter repair work will be done by overseen apprentices and improvers. In most garages they will outnumber the Technicians and Master Technicians. Go on and believe, "Mechanics is mechanics" and get your Veyron looked after by Jimmy. I'm sure He'll give it a go.

Your misinterpreting my posts so much I don't actually see the point of continuing.

I thought it would be common sense that like any career you get different levels of staff and the more complicated jobs are completed by more experienced staff. Maybe I need to explain the very basics in future posts.

AdrianC

Bantex wrote: »

When I was younger, nobody ever changed brake fluid. Has the stuff go less reliable?

And I'll bet they all wondered why they had to change brake cylinders...

DOT brake fluid is hygroscopic. Always has been, always will be. That means it absorbs moisture from the atmosphere. "Wet", the boiling point is much lower, and corrosion inside the cylinders occurs much more rapidly. That's why the recommendation has ALWAYS been to replace it every two years.

motorguy

Gavin83 wrote: »

Your misinterpreting my posts so much I don't actually see the point of continuing.

I thought it would be common sense that like any career you get different levels of staff and the more complicated jobs are completed by more experienced staff. Maybe I need to explain the very basics in future posts.

There are a hundred reasons why the labour rates are so high. Some covered off already, but others include :-

These days theres next to no profit on new cars, so they rely on the service dept, parts, etc to make their money - a lot of big dealers are happy if their new cars division breaks even.

The mechanics all have to be trained to a particular standard

The equipment / diagnostics costs are huge and they need updated quarterly / yearly

There are huge overheads with the garage - the floorspace costs them as much as it does for the showroom (being usually on the same site)

Theres an entire team of admin, service support staff, etc around that too.

Theres generally a small fleet of courtesy cars to be run as well.

Also these days people get sold a servicing pack for £299 or whatever for five years. The dealer then cant even get a decent profit on a service.

So ultimately the raw hourly rate gets stiffed.

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

The problem is that the labour rate is not really a labour rate but a labour + facilities + specialist tooling charge.

I have a mate who runs a garage, and he had an RV with a wiring fault and it was taking ages to pin down the fault, but didn't require any specialist equipment and was not occupying a ramp. He couldn't charge his labour rate for that task.

If you are removing an engine, you need to pay for the bay, the tooling to remove the engine, the labour, training overhead, backroom staff, ordering parts and so on. So the labour rate includes all these things. However, it can be that a service task could be done by a trainee without any equipment - clearly then the labour rate would be less. Equipment such as diagnostics is eye-wateringly expensive.

I do wonder whether main dealers would be better having a charging system based on bay rental, specialist tool rental and labour time, then you could see what you were paying for labour and what was for the overhead of having the tools and facilities to do the repair.