When you have any service done to your vehicle at a dealership, are they required to disclose on their invoice of the amount of labor hours that were performed on their vehicle? In the last few years I've noticed that my local dealership has not discloses the labor hours and only shown me the $ amount charged for the total labor. In most of these cases it was for services where the labor charge came out to be $400 or more. I feel they should be required to show how many hours were logged on the service instead of just putting the total cost. How do we know they aren't being shady and just making up a number?

Attached are some examples of work orders showing my issue.

 

The dealership should be charging labor based on the book rate. The tech gets paid according to this too. If the book says a job takes 4 hours you pay for 4 hours labor. The tech also gets paid for 4 hours labor. If it takes him 3 because he's good he comes out ahead. If he's slow and it takes 5 hours he still gets paid for 4.

 

Yep, they charge and pay techs by book rate. For the consumer, it's a great deal. If there are any issues with the repairs, it comes out of the techs pocket, not yours. Take a vehicle in for something odd and they can't find anything wrong or diagnose the issue, it's because they're playing with it for free. Rarely will a dealer charge you for labor on a diagnostic. It's normally a flat charge and trust me, they aren't making any money on it.

 

So the dealership book rate says it costs $500 in labor to change out the mass airflow sensor? That seems a little extreme to literally unplug the sensor and plug a new one back in.

 

They aren't just ripping you off on labor, they charged you $250 for a MAF that's available from Tasca for $145. "List" price is $227.

 

I think what the OP might have missed is the BG Intake Service that is listed. The parts were 58 bucks but that's parts only. Doesn't include the time to hook it up and then sit while the engine runs. Most dealers that install parts charge list prices. This is not something new, it's always been like that. Yes, you could have bought the part for the sensor a bunch cheaper and put it in yourself but apparently that was beyond your skill set. I would suggest if you don't like paying for the service to get an OBDII code reader and fix it yourself. You can save a significant amount of money doing it yourself. Most parts are now plug and play so a lot of it is an easy fix if you know what to replace. Myself, either I'm getting lazy or stupid but I'd much rather someone that sees these engines everyday figure out what's wrong and fix it rather than me throwing a boatload of parts($$$$) at it and maybe not fix it.

As I recall, some of those sensors for the early production engines requires the intake tube or sensor housing to be replaced with the new sensor. The sensor was a redesign. The cost for the housing is $137.00 at the dealer. My money is on they replaced the entire unit, not just the sensor.

 

Thanks Labnerd. It's not beyond my skill set but I do lack the OBDII reader which I think I need to get. Plus the sensor was in such bad shape that the truck wouldn't event start or if it did start it didn't stay running for more then 5 seconds. So needless to say once I got it to the dealership it wasn't going anywhere until it got replaced. But I did miss the intake service on there.

But I am a lot like you. I can most likely fix the problem if I know what it is, but I also sometimes don't want to run the risk of not fixing something correctly and making it worse so I usually try to let the professionals do it. At least until I get more comfortable doing it on my own.

 

something I try to point out to people.

whats your time worth, saving money on repairs, is it worth a day off from work? how about a nice weekend with family, is it worth the trade?

what does the company you work for bill you time out at?

if you purchased a sensor for $125.00 paid shipping, dealt with ups on a possible claim, warehoused it, put it in your inventory. how much profit do you want to make on an item that you have today?

have you paid to have a plumber come out lately. How about A/C work?

Do you realize that when you pay that dealership labor rate of $125 to $150 per hour, do you realize that covers the service writer, cashier, parts department, insurance, building , utlities, equipment, city fees for waste, water....etc...

true story, talk to anyone that has purchased any cnc type of shop equipment. items in the $100k to $500k price. you can wait up to a month for a tech. you pay air fair, hotels, rent car and their rates, if it need parts you pay next day air of parts, a repair starts at $3,500. Have an appliance repaired or a lawn mower, service can exceed 1/2 the value of a new unit.

ALot of our day to days item have gotten so much more dependable, but if you need service, you are going to pay.