Unbelievable

[Dan DiBiase]

--- Patrick Burns <patrick at cape.com> wrote:

> At 02:37 AM 12/16/04, TooManyAudis at aol.com wrote:
>  > This prompted her to take a trip to the service bay.  She came back 
> with:
>  > "It's a two hour job, So it will be $220."
> 
> Holy smoke! $110/hr labor rate?
> 
> It's $85/hr at the Audi dealer where I work. I ask the service writer to
> 
> charge 2.5 hours for a 4 wheel alignment on a new A4/A6 though. That
> number 
> isn't picked out of the air. A standard way to figure the cost of a 
> customer pay job is to take the Audi warranty flat rate time, and
> multiply 
> it by 1.5. Audi pays 1.7 hours for a 4 wheel alignment on an A4 or A6 
> quattro under warranty. 1.7hr x 1.5 = 2.55hr. At $85/hr, that comes out
> to 
> $216.75, which sounds awfully close to $220.
> 
> Patrick

But is an alignment really a 2-hour job? Or is that the book rate?

Sad/funny story - many years ago my bro-in-law had his Volvo 240 Turbo in
to the dealer for some work. The car was physically on the dealer's lot
for 8 hours. They charged him 12 hours of labor for the work he had done,
based on the 'book rate'... What a crock. No wonder many call them
'stealerships'.

I ended up buying that car from him - what a great car that was! I miss
the seats, they were the best I ever have sat in, even without heat...

Dan D
'04 A4 1.8Tq MT-6
Central NJ USA