£100 Per Hour Labour, I Must Be Out Of Touch?

[deanoo]

Just been to a chain of Autocentres and being given a bill of £290 to change a
clutch master cylinder, parts cost £70 and the rest is labour so £100 plus
labour per hour (based on 2 hours). Having had three Ford Focus's for the past six years I have
never had any repair’s or fault’s so I’m so out of touch with repair cost's, my
only contact with garages is to have the service and mot. Is it me or does this seem very expensive.......

[Preee]

Ouch! crazy price's these days.

[stef123]

That's very expensive. £70 for the part is probably about right for a garage.

£220 to fit it though is ridiculous

[soulman123]

Sounds high. I would ask friends about a good local independant garage usually fairer prices.

Sounds like you have had a good run with focus's hehe.. what's the secret!

[dezwez]

day light robbery

[Major Eazy]

Sounds rather too high. What if the work goes wrong and an extra work is needed? What if a two hours job at £100 per hour turns into a four hours job? I would have assumed maybe £50 per hour is something suitable? Well, that's just me.

[johnH]

i always find the parts myself and get a local garage to do the work. for example in my old peugeot, my release bearing went and it cost £120 for a whole clutch kit. i rang around and peugeot, at the time refused to use my parts and had to use theirs quoting £650 or so. Mr clutch would do the work but at £300-400 labour....

a local garage round the corner from me picked my car up and did the work for £120 and they had the car in the time it took me to get from whitby to gateshead on public transport. (around 4 hours)

i would definitely say play garages of each other, save £££'s

Small work - i do my self

medium work - my mate rob or local garage

anything else that needs special tools or i think dealer will do - dealer/indy

[deanoo]

_Hi

_{I got a local garage in Sheldon Birmingham to quote and do the work the total cost was £135, they completed it in 1.2 hour. Very please with the service. I have learnt my lesson from using these autocentre chains with there half price MOT and then they add headlight alignment never got away with a half price mot the total always comes to the original price or more...}

_{maybe in these hard times we should go local?}

[artscot79]

my local ford is £35 per hour at the rapid fit side £50 at the ford side only my old man pays £100 per hour labour and thats at a citroen dealers

[jeebowhite]

Thats cos not even Citroen Dealers know how to fix a Citroen car :D

I am dreading what my labour costs will be, like John, I go with the idea of small jobs I will do, but for my recent one, theres just too many conflicting stories... I hang my head and bite my hand as I say this, but this job is one for the experts and disgracefully, as much as I disagree with their costs of service, its an essential bullet I need to shoot myself with. I can always argue with them that the cost of repair is invalid if they replace the wrong part or it doesnt fix the problem, an indie you complain to a guy who claims to own the place, at least with Ford a complaint can go to head office and then be ignored :D

[NorthSussex]

I thought that my local plumber was having a laugh when he quoted me £70 per hour, but £100 an hour from the garage is really taking the wee wee. I think I chose the wrong profession.

[deanoo]

I was booked in for a free brake check; I asked them how
they carried out the check without taking a wheel off their reply was we forgot,
once they found an item they could charge for my safety brake check was not
carried out. I did tell them it was losing brake fluid when they found the leak
they said your brakes are fine as the clutch also uses the brake fluid and the
car stops if you hit the brake pedal..

[jeebowhite]

:| Deanoo, perhaps you should not use that garage again...

[flying clutchman]

£100 an hour seems too expensive for a non-franchised garage. I'd expect to pay at least that at a main agent in greater London, but not at a general garage. Im not sure a ford dealer would have charged any more.