labor charge-by the hour or book???

We're not talking about GM crud. And if I owned GM crud, I can guarantee
you I wouldn't pay $300 or close to it for a module. Sounds as if you shop
for parts just as ignorantly as you shop for cars.

No. Again, you're imaginative. Five late-model cars that haven't needed
engine mount attention until after 100K miles is not "lucky".

You bought a Buick. QED.

They work fine if maintained properly.

Oh, yeah, *there's* automotive reliability and economy of repair
exemplified...

And you think a Volvo P1800 will be reliable and economical of repair?

Moron.

 

They are the latter-day Darts and Valiants.

DS

 

Ha ha, p1800s are made in ENGLAND,
what a rube. what a maroon!

Bernard

 

What you missed in the story is that if the supplier had simply paid us
the money to do it right, and held to their AT&T contract, over the
long run they would have saved money.

By renewing the Sprint contract on the WAN they paid more money
to Sprint than if they had kept the AT&T deal since the AT&T deal
was negotiated where AT&T didn't have them as a customer and
wanted to get them, so was being aggressive, whereas Sprint already
had them and didn't care.

Plus on top of that they had to pay some kind of court-ordered settlement
to AT&T over the contract break. No doubt it was settled out of court
for 25-50% of the $100,000 contract value, but AT&T like any large
Telco has lots of experience getting money out of people that think
telco contracts are meaningless.

And the icing on the cake is that they still had these 5 frads that were
totally unsupported, the company that put them in out of business, and
they had wrecked the relationship with the only network manager in the
city (myself) that would even be willing to touch the things.

So the upshot is that as these suppliers pull this kind of crap they
end up spending a lot more money in the long term.

These companies do have options. The problem is that the kind of
businesspeople that would allow their company to be controlled by
a single customer, simply aren't very good at business. They see
a lucrative contract come along and don't do any kind of analysis as
to what taking it would do to their business. Sure, they might double
in size and triple their sales - but if their profit margin goes from 20%
to 2%, while bigger, at the end of the day they are making LESS money
and have a far more major headache to boot.

Ted

 

Heh. There is one thing you missed, Daniel. This is that a lot of people
simply don't take cars back for warranty work that is minor.

Take my parents for example. 6 months ago they bought a new
Buick. The first day they brought it over to show me it, I noticed that
the bottom rubber seal
around the front winshield had been installed wrong, one side was
totally out of kilter. Definitely a covered warranty item I showed
this to them, and they said "Oh your right we will take it in"

6 months later it's still like that. They don't seem to notice it. No
doubt
6 years from now the seal will start leaking and we live in a rainy climate.
By then the thing won't be under warranty and it will be a $800 job
no doubt, so it will never get done. The second owner of this car will
probably end up with a big rust streak under the dash.

What I think the automakers realized a while ago with crap parts is
that if the part isn't critical to making the vehicle go, people will just
put it off and within a blink of an eye, the warranty is over. Then the
cost of the part is to high to bother with, so they let it go. Thus you
have lots of cars on the road where things like a rear power window
doesen't work, or a remote keyless entry module doesen't work, or
it idles rough, or it has a flat spot in accelleration, or it has a funny
vibration at 75Mph in the left front, etc. etc. and the owners will never
bother fixing them ever.

Ted

 

I don't find it hard to believe, especially after talking to people
who worked for Chrysler and GM in their design departments that
they would make a part a bit lower quality to save money.

There's no point in making a switch that lasts 20 years anymore,
for instance, if a 10 yr old will cost less.

 

I have a friend who has the same BMW 2002 he bought
in 1969. He's probably spent an average of $300 a year
on it in all this time. Still runs circles around any
of the cars that I've owned.

 

Many of the modules are factory only. I guess you coudl pull one from
a parts yard, but it's just as likely to fail on you.

No, it actually was given to me by my father since he couldn't trade
it in for anything. It runs and that's about it. Makes a nice
backup car, though.

 

The point is to optimize for the overall value of the car. If the car
itself is likely to last only 15 years, then putting in gold plated
contact switches that will last 50 years is not smart economically.


Matt

 

Well, yeah, the early P1800 bodies were made by Jensen in England, before
Volvo yanked the contract from them because Jensen-built bodies had shitty
quality and fit. But even the later P1800s still have a lot of English
stuff in them, notably more Lucas electricals than one would be
comfortable with. The mechanicals were sound, the bodies generally were
not, and the '70-up cars mostly had Bosch D-Jetronic fuel injection, which
is an expensive and nearly impossible system to keep running reliably.

They're neat cars, but for Joseph O. to claim such a vehicle would be more
dependable, in this day and age, than a Buick or a Dodge is just asinine.

DS

 

I never found the electricals to be poor. There's so few of them
that you could almost replace the whole system with something from
a 140 or 240. Really not a problem with a little work.

I never found it to be a problem to maintain on my 164E. Ran perfectly,
in fact. Just that it got a bad rep from mechanics as it was one of
the few early and complex FI systems in an era when most of them had
never seen one before.

If course, the smart move was to go to the normally aspirated versions.
It's a simple mod, actually.

Let's see $500 a year versus car payments...

 

No, the chargeout method did not change.
What changed is the mechanics were now PAID by the flat rate system.
The customers started noticing the quality of workmanship
deteriorated, as the mechanics cut corners to beat the book and make
more money. Little things like the steering wheel and door handles not
polished after the job, so greasy fingerprints remained. When new
tires installed, the blue soap not washed off the whitwalls. Hubcaps
with fist marks in the dust, rather than cleaned up.

Also, the bills went up, because flat rate mechanics make money with
their pencil. If a minor procedure was required when they were paid
straight time, they just did it and didn't mark down the extra labour
code - like replace Rt R signal bulb, or replace driver's wiper blade.
Now that they get paid extra for every job, it gets written down and
charged.

 

We charge according 'to the book'. Actually, we use ALLDATA. As I see
it, it's the best way to protect both ourselves AND the customer; a
third party has figured how much time it should take to do a specific
job. This eliminates problems like having mechanics jumping between
one job and another and loosing track of actual time spent on each
vehicle.. stuff like that. It also standardizes times.. if mechanic A
can do the a job in 6 hours and mechanic B takes 7.5, should the two
customers pay different amounts?

Personally, if you came into the shop with a billing question (or any
other question) and were polite and reasonable, I'd do my best to be
polite and reasonable right back.. if you came in with a big attitude
(and I'm not saying you have one or anything like that.. but I have
had people do that..) then our conversation probably won't get very
far. Just some input from someone who stands on the other side of the
counter.

Now, as for the time. With just the information you've provided I
could speculate that more than one mechanic might have been working on
the car (at the same time), that regardless of what you've said
perhaps they started on it the night before (which I've been known to
do myself), or perhaps they've invested in some equipment that would
allow them to 'beat the book' and do the job faster than the book
calls for. Anything is possible.

Talk with them and let us know what they say.

Hope this helps..

Regards,

Jim

 

One point you forget about flat rate.
Comebacks are Gratis.
If I am a flat rate mechanic and repair a problem on your car - and
cut corneers, so it ends up coming back, I do the repair over, and I
DON'T GET PAID.
It's like the pony races. A gamble. If the mechanic figures he's good
enough that he'l beat the system by more than he'll get beat, he takes
his chances.
I've seen some get beat pretty bad on comebacks.

Of course, you have to prove it is the same problem, and the
mechanic's fault. Not always easy, or possible - but when you DO get
the guy, it feals good!!
I know - I've been on both sides - mechanic and customer.
I never worked flat rate - would have made a real good living if I had
- and I caught a mechanic who "fixed" my car with his pants down. The
service manager of the dealership involved didn't believe me untill I
brought in incontovertible proof - and he nearly filled his drawers.
One mechanic on the unemployment line.

 

And you "respect VW" and bought a Buick, so I think the veracity and
credibility of your automotive judgement is soundly established as
"lacking".

Idiot, no you can't. The starter, alternator and ignition in a P1800 are
BOsch, just like every other Volvo of the day. It's the instruments, body
wiring, lighting, switches, etc. that are Lucas and not readily
replaceable with anything else.

Oh, yah, yabetchya.

Guess you haven't priced throttle switches, manifold pressure sensors or
other D-Jet system components in the last 15 years, to say nothing of the
last 5 years.

More drivel from your dreamworld where your guesses and opinions are
reality.

Fool, the D-jet cars were all normally aspirated.

Let's see, list price on the manifold pressure sensors remaining in
production for D-Jet Volvos -- they are model, year, transmission and
emission package specific and do not interchange, and cannot successfully
be rebuilt -- went from $220 to $1320 two years ago. Planning on buying a
Manifold Pressure Sensor on the installment plan, are you?

By all means, continue to demonstrate your abject ignorance.

DS

 

Except that a rookie tech could do it in that much time. Probably
teach the person at the same time.

 

No, As I said - I have A Volvo and a beater Buick that belonged
to my father. It's the second car. Can't beat free(cause he
couldn't get a dime for it used anyway).

The Volvo is ten times more reliable.

Exact replacemets aren't necessarry if it's just a "Driver".

Sure I have. Still less expensive than payments on a new car
or to maintain the Buick. Next thing that breaks on it, it's
scrapped, btw. 17 years is far more than enough age.

 

I agree; nobody should believe such a silly story. It's obviously not true.
Well, I guess it's not obvious if you've been driving cars that were under
warranty or 20 or 30 years. In that case it could feed your fears......of
the great UNKNOWN WORLD BEYOND WARRANTY. Well, I yelled, but it still wasn't
very scary.

 

I don't see it that way.. 'the book' tracks actual time pretty well
IMHO.. of course, if you have lots of experience in a particular
manufacturer (say, a dealer tech) you can regularly 'beat the book'.
You can also 'beat the book' if you have special tools designed to do
the job quicker.

Or if you're a butcher.

I've worked with butchers.. I've posted stories about them here. Like
guys (I'll not call them mechanics/techs) who can really burn through
a tune up on a 6 cyl minivan.. The guys that management points to when
they ask me why can't I tune up the same vehicle as fast as he does.

Well, for starters, I'll actually install **ALL** 6 spark plugs..
Five are easy, the sixth takes as long as the first five to install. I
still remember this guy's response when I asked him how he does it so
quick.. understand, this happened over a decade ago..

"Oh, I don't do that one.. it takes too long."

It was at an auto repair chain.. I don't think too highly of them.

For me at least, the most important thing is do you trust your
mechanic?.. If the OP will provide the vehicle info, next time I'm in
front of one of the ALLDATA terminals I'll check time on it. The
actual wording on the bill would be nice also.. and what kind of place
did the work.

Regards,

Jim

 

Mitchell On Demand lists replacement of the lower control arm and
bushing at:
4.0 hours for both sides.
$288 divided by 4.0 = $72 per hour.