I had a friend that went to a NAPA service center and had a water pump,thermostat, and new rotors and pads front installed and the total bill was 1400.00 dollars. For a 2002 Wrangler with the 4.0 engine.

The invoice had the NAPA parts numbers and the shop increased the NAPA RETAIL price from double to 400 percent. I got on a local radio consumer show and was shot down by the radio host. He stated that it is normal for the shop to increase the price of parts-and also charge labor of course. Even at these increases!

Now I know-that the parts will be marked up-but a 55 dollar retail water pump is now a 212 dollar water pump-plus 156 dollars labor? Does this seem right to you guys?

What is the expected and normal markup of retail part prices when having the work done in a shop?

I usually do my own work and haven't had a lot of shop work done.

 

Good reason to get a quote before they start. I would go back and ask them about it. Not sure what else you can do.

The water pump labor sounds high, but I don't know their rate. You can look in Alldata (often available in libraries), and they will show standard times for a lot of repairs -- I think that a lot of shops go by those numbers.

Was this a straight order to do that work, or did they just go in with some problems? Nobody ever wants to pay for diagnostic time, so I think that some shops don't break it out separately. ( I could well be wrong about that).

hj

 

The labor sounds to be on par as it ranges around $90+ per hour around here in the dealers.

But the increase in parts prices from the retail store to the service shop seems like a ripoff. I'm not sure if the dealers do the same thing or not.

The garage that I use goes through carquest to get his parts. I'm well aware that he gets the parts cheaper than I could and then he marks them up for a profit. I've never gone behind him to find out how much he makes on parts but it could be an eye opener.

 

Common pricing that was used by the commercial customers that dealt with us was to double their price. Never heard of anything much higher than that. We would have irate customers coming to the DIY part and compare the prices they were given at the repair shop, and they would pitch a fit. I did try to help out in stating that that is common practice, and that coming to us was the price that you can get the parts to Do It Yourself... They seemed to always want to get the parts cheap, but have it done, a lot of times by us, which wasn't going to happen.

 

Not automotive, but as a plumber we would roughly double the cost of parts, small stuff more, big stuff less. Ive had independent auto repair shops just charge dealer list, what I would pay as a DIY customer. Maybe you were getting NAPA parts at Ford dealer full retail.

The thing I object to and mostly its only the chain places that do this, is charge full labor hours when there are multiple parts replaced in the same area. Example, doing a water pump when that area is already disassembled to replace the timing belt.

 

I heard your call and agree with Martino. You don't mention that you also accused them of not doing work because the engine was "dirty" and that was proven to be wrong after an independent checked it out. He "shot you down" because you came off as a know it all nut.

The repeated "ask me how I know Tom" cracked me up.

 

100% markup is pretty standard, but not 400%. Also, $1400 for brakes and a water pump is extremely high. This is why it pays to shop around.

 

I took a stab at a ball park figure here, using all napa premium parts, Alldata labor times, about $90 worth of stuff I may need, $100 per/hr rate and doubling the retail part price I came up with $1100. I think based on that your friend got ripped, but like was said, shoulda shopped around.

 

Isn't this your second thread about this?

 

Commercial prices for parts are less than standard retail, but how much you get marked up depends on your area. I consider those markups a ripoff. No effort is involved in ordering those parts to justify that much markup. Pull data from computer, place order, parts show up.

It's a fine demonstration how fixing things yourself can EASILY pay for all the quality tools you need to do the job and still save money.

 

Apparently you have never had to warranty a part...

 

If the part RETAILERS can afford to process warranty claims then anyone obtaining a part as a repair facility can "afford" to hand said part back through the same system.

When I worked at a small used car dealer it was no problem handing back the very few parts we had to return to the retailers who picked them up when they serviced our route. In the OPs case, NAPA isn't going to suffer returning parts throught the existing NAPA system where they already make a strong profit selling those same parts at dealer discounts and at retail.

When we did retail work now and then we didn't even bother to mark up the parts. If the customer wanted to see a receipt we'd cheerfully show it to them. We simply charged all "labor" to "labor". Lowballing the "labor" then tacking more labor onto the parts bill would have led to some customers checking parts prices.

The place made the owner VERY prosperous. FWIW if there was a way to squeeze out an extra dollar he'd do that, but he was straight up about how he did it. "Labor includes ALL labor, if you can get a better deal somewhere else then we are happy for you."

 

whos paying for the labor for the warranty work?

 

Labor on warranty work was paid for by the dealer. Since the labor to install a part in the first place made sufficient profit, there was no need to "double bill" and markup the part too. Labor was NOT hourly, but whatever he considered a particular job worth. No flat rate manuals in sight nor need for them. (He'd been a line mechanic for many years before he became a dealer.)

There simply wasn't much warranty work even with the older vehicles. He also kept customers by, for example, if a customer bought a car "as is" without warranty and it developed severe problems reasonably soon after purchase, taking the car back and crediting some of the payments towards another vehicle.

That's why he had customers coming back for car after car for their families. Word of mouth in small Southern communities can make or break a business! Make people happy and they'll send their large extended families.

If someone couldn't keep up payments but was courteous and handed their car back, he'd deal with them again when they got their finances in order. He wasn't a soft touch, as usually the downpayment cleared the vehicle or most of what he had in it. If it came back without a repo, it was less hassle and could be inspected and resold or sent to dealer auction.

Now he's semi-retired and builds vehicles to sell to other dealers. (Good excuse to mingle with his old buddies while making money.) They don't get a formal warranty, but they won't come back if they aren't treated right and it's a network of guys who have known each other for decades.

 

Who pays for:

- the computer used to order the parts
- the internet connection and hardware to order the parts
- the electricity to power the computer, the electricity for lights for the office the computer is in, and the electricity for the cable modem/internet router
- the phone you might need to use to call customer service
- the phone bill for the phone
- the office space the computer is in
- the air conditioning and heat for the office
- the person who has to sit in front of the computer and order the parts and sometimes call customer service

Now maybe you'll see why parts stores routinely mark parts up. It's not cheap to run a shop and they need to pay their bills. They are not making boatloads of cash doing this for a living. They make a decent profit but often not much more than they need to take of their families -- just like you're probably trying to do. Capitalism and an open market guarantee you that if you shop around you will get the best price the market can possibly offer.

Oh and by the way... shops don't buy parts from the internet unless they're doing a long-term or resto project. Most jobs are same-day so they need a courier to bring them parts 1-2 times a day. Guess who pays for his time and his mileage?

All that being said...
I can't argue with that!