Brought in my Ultra to the stealer to get a new front tire installed. I called them the day before and they quoted me 213.00 for a blackwall out the door. Fine no problem. I bring it in yesterday at 7:30 AM . The tech comes out and before taking the bike to the back says the handbrake is mushy.. I agree with him and he says that a brake bleed will solve the problem. That would be an additional 1/2 hour labor. They will do the work while I wait. So I sit myself down, and 55 minutes later out comes the completed bike. I say to the service writer I guess you will only have to charge me for an hour. He says sorry bunky everything is flat rated. If the mechanic finishes faster, he makes more money. I understand that, but I think if they say an hour and a half, just not to **** the customer off they should keep the bike on ice for the 90 minutes, so it looks like they[8D][8D][8D] charged me fairly. Is this common with all dealerships, do all tasks have a time assigned to them before they even get started. I am curious. They also quoted me three hours a few weeks ago to put on a new chrome shift linkage, and the chrome trim around the lights on the tour pack. My friend and I knocked them both off in a little more than an hour. And we had to read the instructions on the trim. What is the deal?

 

thats just the HD name. Everything needs to cost or be priced 2x what it should. I don't take my bike to the stealer for anything. If you can read a manual and have the tools you can do anything

 

It's called flat rate, that's how techs make money. Just like anything else if you quote a price to do a job you don't give money back because it wasn't as time consuming as you first thought. All the labor times come from repair manuals or software. Most techs today have to work at 150-160% effiency to make a decent wage, good ones are upwards of 180%. It's kind of a double-edged sword but the good techs deserve to make a good wage and you can't hold that against them. Now if they quote you 1.5 hours and it takes them 3 hoursyou shouldn't have to pay for their short coming.

Nothing against your question but I side with the techs on this one.

 

If the job took 3hrs would you be happy to pay for it when quoted 1.5?

 

HD has a job time code manual that dictates what tasks "should" take time-wise. The manual will take into account things such as having to remove an air cleaner as part of a certain task, but if you have a high-flutin' super dooper air cleaner that requires more time to remove than the stock, it doesn't take that into account so it is not accurate for every individual bike. Anyhow, back to your question....yes that is common.

 

Remember the flat rate goes both ways, I took my son's cage to Firestone to have tires and alignment. They spent all day on that car and 3+ hours trying to get a rusted solid tie-rod end off and finally called me and asked if they can torch it off, they'd cover the labor cause, but I'd have to buy the part. They had the standard labor on the bill and it was was what they originally quoted me plus a few bucks for a tie-rod end.

Same cage, took it in for rear brakes and they quoted $800 and I come to pick it up and its only $650 (boy did I have a smile on my face then). I assumed they got it done sooner and passed the savings on to me.

Of course, cages get rustier around here from all the road salt and stuff, and pot holes in the road,I wouldn't expect them to have to torch off a part on a harley, but they could run into complications resulting in more time. Plus the experienced wrenches are faster than the junior wrenches.

I think the biggest part is the relationship between the parties, We have 5 cages and 3 bikes in the family, so its not like we see these guys once every 2 years and we say hi and chat.

 

jharanin and Dawg are correct. Most dealers use the job time code plus the extended service bump to determine flat rate if not stock. Good tech's are worth the extra. Quoted time is however what should be charged. I would never up a quoted price without notifiying customer.

 

And its not just HD. All automotive and motorcycle shops work off flat rate time to charge the customer.

 

In my dealership we charge you for the job, the term flat rate is how the production of the shop is measured, he is right if we wanted to charge you by the hour we could take our sweet time and charge you extra..

It is not about how long it takes to do the job is about how quick and correctly the problem gets solved. Think about it when you go to the doctor he might spend with you tops ten minutes if you are lucky then they charge you a copay then they bill your insurance company 300-400 dollars...



We had a scenario of an a/c not working,, my tech knew exactly what the problem was, we charge $43.00 dollars for the part and $85.00 dollars for the labor....Customer said to my guy it only took you guys 15 minutes to fix the problem and all it was a relay...

We told him is not that it was a relay it was knowing which relay to change... I dont allow over charges but you have to pay for expertise, knowledge and professionalism......I dont have a problem paying I have a problem being ripped off when you get charge for something and it does not get done....

 

So you charge $340.00 an hour? You won't be in business too long up here.